My Loss - Nov 2007

I want to write down what happened with the loss of our son before I forget everything. I'm sure this will be hard.

We implanted 2 embryos on September 2nd.

On 9/11, I got a positive beta from IVF #1. I had tested on HPTs 2 days prior. I had some cramping and spotting right around my beta, but it could have been implantation spotting or maybe one of the embryos that didn't make it.

At our first u/s at 6 weeks 6 days, we saw one sac with a strong heartbeat. I was on pelvic rest until 7 weeks. Progesterone suppositories until 5 weeks 2 days. (for IVF)

I would have many u/s as I went through IVF and that is the normal routine. I graduated from my RE after my 7 weeks 6 day appt. I saw my obgyn around 8 or 9 weeks. We told both parents the news at 9 weeks. I had some spotting around 10 weeks, so I went in again to the obgyn. I had had sex a few days prior, so they thought it was related to that. The baby was fine. At 11 weeks, I told my sisters the news. Both times, my obgyn was delivering babies and couldn't see me. I was getting really anxious about having a pap smear during pregnancy and especially waiting until the 2nd tri. They had wanted the nurse practioner to give me a pap and I declined. She had caused me to pass out on a previous occassion - not when I was pregnant.

I was being monitored closely due to many huge cysts due to IVF. My cysts were bigger than my ovaries by a lot. I was then scheduled for another appt at 13 weeks. At my u/s at 13 weeks, the u/s tech took a lot of pics and I was a little worried. I then waited for my pap smear as my obgyn was finally in the office and ready to see me. I was waiting for quite awhile for him and I just kept wondering what was going on -although I usually have a long wait with him. Well one of the nurses came in to say that she scheduled me to see the high risk peri that day at 3pm. Well, I told her that I had a meeting and I couldn't go. My obgyn came in and told me that I must see the peri as my cervix was opening from the top. I was so scared. My obgyn said that I must have a guardian angel and they would not have caught this if I hadn't had the cysts from IVF. You would think they would see me more since I've had several bad pap smears - pre cervical cancer, one leep in 2004, one cyro freezing surgery in 1994. But I wasn't being monitored for a possibly incompetent cervix...Anyway, he said he didn't want to do the pap to disturb anything, but he wanted to check my cervix out from the bottom - so he took a quick look - not touching it though. It was closed.
He told me to go to the peri that same day - a few hrs later. Well, I took the picture that they gave me and went home and cried all afternoon. I did not want to lose my baby. My DH came home but couldn't take off to go with me. He just said everything would be ok.
That same day I went to the peri's office - my first time there. They looked at my picture of my cervix funneling. I'll try to attach what that looked like. They did a transvaginal u/s to see my cervix better and they claimed everything was ok with it. I would find out that it was acting right. The nurse came in to tell me that I could go and that I must have had uterine contractions at the time of the u/s she said at my obgyn and that was totally natural. The peri never came to meet me or tell me anything. I assumed at the time that he hadn't seen the u/s, but at my follow with him in January, he claims he looks at every u/s. Well, I wonder if he looked at the funneling u/s pic from my obgyn's office. They just looked at my length and it was greater than 2.5 so they thought I was ok.
I left the office very upset and not knowing what to think. I called my obgyn's office and they just said 'well if the peri thinks it is ok, we will see you in 4 weeks. We go with whatever he says.'
The next day, I thought I wasn't liking what they told me and I would go in again to the peri's office for an NT scan at 13 weeks 6 days - last possible day to get it. I just had a bad feeling in my gut that something wasn't right. I should have gone to another peri for a 2nd opinion, but I didn't. I figured if other u/s techs were looking at it, they would have to see something. My appt was 4 days before Thanksgiving. I can't just go to a peri without a referall too, that is why i used my NT scan referral to again see my peri. I was thinking if they saw something, I may have to get the cerclage before Thanksgiving.
I go in at 13 weeks 6 days to find out the baby is too big for them to see anything for the NT scan. He was measuring a few days ahead, but I still didn't know if it was a boy or a girl. I asked the u/s tech to look at my cervix as I had a scare the week before. She said she noticed I had an issue before in looking at my record. She looked at it and measured it and said it looked fine. The same stupid nurse came back in and asked why I decided to have the NT scan. I think she could tell that I didn't believe what she told me last time about my funneling just being caused by normal contractions.
At this point, I'm thinking ok, the peri's office checked me twice and everything was ok. So I'm just being crazy... We decided to tell most people the day before Thanksgiving about our pregnancy. We had told a lot of people, but not extended family. We sent out a mass email. Little did we know that one week later, we would be losing our baby.
I decide to go out of town for Thanskgiving and go for a few days longer than my DH to spend time with my mom and sisters. So I drove myself... I was still exhausted although I was in the 2nd trimester. I was taking naps during the day. One thing that I'll discuss in another post is that I was constantly not liking loud places - or my uterus wasn't. We went to see a band - my DH's coworker in a small wine bar when I started feeling ill one night. The vibrations were bothering me a lot. I had gone to one NBA game and felt the same thing. The loudness didn't seem to go with the baby. During Thanksgiving weekend, I also went to a game and experienced a little of that bad feeling inside from the noise.
One of the days we decided to cook a lot of food. I was very tired and trying not to do so much work.
That night - saturday after thanskgiving - I felt kinda ill. I had some diarrhea and didn't feel too good. My mom made me some soup, but I went to bed early. I'm not sure if I had a fever then, but I remember feeling warm. I didn't know that I was experiencing the first signs of labor.
Tuesday night I had some cramping during the night. I woke up and had some spotting on Wednesday morning (wed. following Thanksgiving). I had lost my mucus plug, but I didn't know it at the time. I had an appt at the same peri's office for a flu shot. I was so hesitant to get it so many times, but finally decided to get it. The same stupid nurse asked why I changed my mind about the flu shot and I just told her that I had talked to others who got it. I told her also that I had some cramping overnight and spotting. She asked if they were at the same time. I told her no. She said all of that is normal for my time in the pregnancy. I had my flu shot and went about my day.
The Wednesday following Thankgiving, I was also having some issues at work that were making me upset. I remember crying to my DH about them.
Later that evening, I had some cramping, but I didn't know what to do. It was happening not consitently. My DH and I went to the movies - not a good idea- but I knew DH wanted to go. Before the movie started, I felt a gush and went to the bathroom. I didn't tell DH about it at the time. I watched the movie and I felt some cramping - contractions, but I didn't know what they were. We left the movie and came home and I had another small gush of fluid. I told DH that I was having this and I had it before the movie. We called a nurse line and they suggested we call our dr. We decided to page the oncall dr. at that point. My obygn was the oncall dr. and he called me back and said he heard this many times from patients. He asked if it had a smell to it. Well, we really didn't know. He asked if I had pressure. I didn't feel pressure. He just said to come in -in the morning. If it got worse, he said to go to the ER. Well I went to bed that night and had some more contractions that were on a more regular basis.

At about 3am, I woke up and while still lying down, my water broke. I woke up DH and went to the bathroom. I had some pink spotting. We got dressed quickly and drove to the ER. I remember telling DH that I didn't feel pg anymore -I felt skinnier due to the loss of fluid. But I also wasn't panicked about it - I had faith that it would be OK. While at the ER, I had to fill out forms while standing and I could feel more and more liquid coming out of me. I had a pad on, but I was quickly filling it. I should have sat down, but knowing what I know now it would not have changed anything.

I finally get into an ER room and an obgyn come in and manually checks my cervix - OUCH! She said it was closed but SOFT. I go in for an u/s finally and the u/s tech didn't really want me to show me what was on the u/s and she couldn't really answer any questions. I remember that the baby's heart was beating and that all she told me was that 'they can add more amniotic fluid in some cases'. I knew that wasn't a good sign when she said that. He didn't have enough fluid around him. They wouldn't let DH come with me. How awful is that!

I finally get admitted to L&D around 4 or 5am. They did a FFN test on me - I think that is what it is called when they try to tell if you are positive for leaking amniotic fluid. The girls who did that test just caused more pain to me down there. My obgyn came in around 6am and he redid the test. He told me that it didn't look good that I had lost my fluid and that I would probably deliver the baby. He told me as long as I didn't have an infection, I could stay in the hospital and try to replenish the amniotic fluid. He gave me about a 1% chance that the baby would be ok. He said I could deliver tomorrow or next week.

We called my family and DH's dad to tell them the bad news. My brotherinlaw came up to see me immediately - it took him a few hrs to drive down. When he got here it was about 12pm or 1pm. He went to get us lunch but it turned out I wouldn't be able to eat it. I was temping very high - 101, I believe. My obgyn came in to say that they would like to induce the baby as I had an infection. I told him that I wanted to wait it out. He said 'Your organs will start shutting down so quickly. Although I am a protector of life, right now, you are my primary patient and I don't want you to lose your life'. At the time and days after the loss, I kept thinking that I should not have induced. My baby was alive until he was delivered. I know now that the baby had an infection and trying to save him would not have helped.

I was only allowed to eat ice chips and I was given pills in my vagina to induce me. My obgyn told me I could opt for an epidural and he would suggest that. Well, I was ok so far with the contractions and I was on some pain meds. Well, the pain meds was only buying me a few minutes of relief per hour. At that point, I opted for the epidural. They came in and put it in - it wasn't that bad. I hated the cracking sound that it made when they put it in. Yuck!

Once I had the epidural, I was having more contractions - could still feel some of them although I was numb in the lower part of my body. At one point, I called the nurse in to check on me. She had kept coming in to check how much I was dilated. I'm glad that I called her as she felt the baby's leg or arm I think. She went to call the on call obgyn. He wasn't coming but the baby was right there. He finally came in and told me to push and I forget how many times that I pushed but it was only 2 or 3 times. He said 'It's a boy.' Those were really sad words because mostly you hope to hear those words when the baby is alive and you have gone to 9 months.

I feel bad for my DH because he had to be there and see me deliver - he saw IT ALL. I sometimes think that I'm glad that I didn't see that happen. I remember asking him a month later or so, if the baby was alive when he was delivered. I think it would be hard to see him gasping for air. My DH told me that the baby was asleep when he came out. We got to hold him. He was bruised from the delivery on his arm. He was so perfect. We looked at him awhile. He reminded me of DH, but DH says he looked like me - my lips, my nose, and my feet. His hands and body looked like DH to me. He was absolutely gorgeous. We held him for awhile but it was hard. They took him away and took some pictures of him for us. At first we didn't get the pictures, but I went and asked the nurses to give me the pictures.

I lost a lot of blood during delivery. The obgyn that delivered our son was not my obgyn but works at my obgyn's practice. He told me that he and his wife are going to do IVF. He was such a sweet dr. After I delivered they moved me to a horrible room on a different floor where they aren't used to dealing with people who just delivered a baby. I think they sometimes don't want people on the maternity floor because you hear crying babies. They think it is more painful. I honestly would have rather have been on that floor as I know the drs and nurses know how to deal with ppl who just had a baby. The nurses on my floor freaked out about how much blood that I lost and how low my blood pressure was for. They scared me into thinking that I would have to have a blood transfussion. My obgyn said 'no'. He also said that when people first deliver a baby, they have low blood pressure. Mine is low anyway, but it was extremely low. It kept setting off their monitors and they were freaking out. They made me think that I was going to have to stay in the hospital longer. My obgyn said I was fine to leave the following day.

My obgyn just said that it was 'bad luck-like getting struck by lightening.' I asked him if getting groceries the day before had anythign to do with it. He said no that some people can lift weights throughout their whole pregnancy.

The following day after our loss, I decided to talk to a chaplain from the hospital. He was very kind and told me that his mother had lost 3 children before he was born.

We were told that our hospital buries babies born this early in a mass grave for free -every few months. We decided we wanted our son to have his own space. I asked my fatherinlaw to check with his policy at his cemetary to see if burying a granchild was covered. I remember a clause in his agreement. We decided to bury our son at the same cemetary that my MIL is buried. It is such a nice and peaceful place. We don't visit that often, but we do try to visit both my MIL and my son often.

When we got home from the hospital, we found a ballon that I was given for my birthday and it was floating over the toilet in our guest bathroom. It was so weird that it was there. We felt that maybe my MIL who passed away in 2007 had left us a sign saying happy birthday to our baby. I'm surprised that I didn't mention this in my 'signs' post. It was very interesting. We had 3 balloons and the other 2 were in the same place - floating on the ceiling in a different room. It is strange it traveled all the way in that room.

I'm sure I missed something, but I'll try to add it another time on another post.