Mierda Del Toro…Its A Fine Art

Or more like I wish Wednesday never happened. You can stop reading now if you don’t want to read something extremely depressing. You have my permission to skip the rest of this and find happier things to fill your day. I would completely understand, because I would not want to read what I am going to write about today. I don’t even want to write what you may still choose to read…because that would be accepting the fact that Wednesday did happen. I am just wondering if someone could pinch me and wake me up from the nightmare I am in right now.

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008, our son, James Michael died during pre-term labor. He was named after my father and Mikey. I was 23 weeks pregnant…just a week shy of 6 months. How did this happen? That, I actually do know and can take preventative measures for my next pregnancy, which probably won’t happen for some time. No one saw this coming, including myself…I had just had an appointment less than 2 weeks earlier to find the sex of the baby and everything was progressing as expected.

If you want to continue reading from here, you can. If not, don’t…it is not a pretty story, not for the faint of heart or the squeamish or those who would be all TMI about it.

Wednesday happened like most of them do. I got up…a little later than normal, started getting ready for work, let the dogs out and started feeling cramps. I figured that I was tired and needed to sit down for a little bit and have some breakfast. Which I did and in which case I felt the cramping again, but a little more intense. So, before I decided whether or not work would be an option that day, I called my doctor. I figured it would be better to call and be wrong than it would be to go to work and have worse problems later.

So, I called and I told the nurse that I was experiencing menstrual type cramps that were intense and happening every 15-20 minutes. She explained that she would let my doctor know and he would call me back. About a half hour went by, I was relaxing and the cramps were not going away and were getting more intense. So, I called a second time and asked if I should just come in, because I was pretty sure this was not normal. The nurse said to come in by 10:15, and by this time I had been having almost 2 hours of this going on. So, I agreed and on my way to the car, I called my boss to let him know that I would not be in at all that day and that I would be going to the doctor. On the drive to the doctor, I called Mikey and told him what was going on. I said, “Its probably nothing, but I would rather be proactive and paranoid than regret ignoring the signs of something serious. I’ll call you when I know something.”

I got to the Dr’s office about 20 minutes early, just so that I would be there in case something happened while I was waiting for 10:15 am. Soon enough the doctor saw me in the waiting room and noticed I was in pain. He asked me exactly where I had the pain and I told him in my back and lower abdomen. So, he rushed me ahead of the rest of his patients and examined me rather quickly and told me I was in pre-term labor. Then he did an ultrasound to make sure the baby was still alive. He had me on the table with my hips elevated, while he explained that the baby would be born early, as early as anywhere between the next 2 to 6 weeks, in which case the baby could survive. I would be in the hospital until I delivered and they would give me medication to stop the contractions I was experiencing. He also explained that if I had the baby that day, the baby would not survive more than a few minutes to an hour after birth, but that it was very rare for something like that to happen.

He then called the ambulance, while I called Mikey and told him the bad news and that he would need to leave work and meet me before the ambulance came. Luckily, that day he was working about 10 minutes away from the doctor’s office. I got on the ambulance and was rushed to the hospital straight to Labor and Delivery Triage. Where I had a team of doctors ready and waiting for me. At this point I was re-examined by ultrasound and told a more grave prognosis than less than an hour earlier. I was told that there was a very high chance that the baby could be born that day and that if the baby was not born that day with the most aggressive approach, they might be able to delay the delivery by a week or two at the most. At which point the baby had a 50/50 chance of surviving and if the baby survived had a 25% chance of escaping developmental problems with the respiratory system along with other vital systems.

They said I had a choice…to either take the most aggressive path, which is completely understandable…or I could speed up the delivery and hold my son in my arms that afternoon for his last heartbeats, which was a completely reasonable decision. When I got to the delivery room, I was actually quite calm…I knew that panic was needless and would not have any positive effect on the situation and that the best thing I could do for myself and my son was to remain as calm as humanly possible. When they told me the reasonable decision, I lost it. I emotionally blurted, “I am not ready to hold my tiny son dying in my arms.” In which case the doctor said that my response was completely normal and that she was trying very hard to give me the facts of the situation without losing it herself. So, I talked it over with Mikey very briefly and we agreed to do everything we could to delay delivery.

At this point part of the amniotic sac was already 9 cm past my cervix, which is a lot but could go either way, into delivery or not. They started the drugs to prevent my contractions and administered a dose of morphine, because I was in a lot of pain and on the verge of panic. For the next few hours, I was in a morphine daze, but coherent enough to tell the nurse and doctors exactly what I was experiencing. The contractions were 2 min apart by the time medication was administered and started to slow at first to about every 5 minutes. Then they sped up again and they started to feel different, like I wanted to push. So, I told the nurse and asked for the doctor.

As the doctor walked in, my water broke…and I panicked. At that point, I knew the inevitable was happening. The doctor said that she wanted to do another ultrasound, because sometimes they can generate fluid in the amniotic sac after some is lost, during the ultrasound it was apparent that very little if any fluid was present. So she said she wanted to see if the baby was past the cervix at all to see if she could do anything at this point. Just as soon as she said this, the placenta ruptured and delivery was inevitable. To make matters worse, the baby was in a breach position and I was loosing a lot of blood, more than normal.

The doctor then said that since she couldn’t do anything more she recommended that the process be sped up because I was loosing blood at an abnormal rate. I agreed, I had no intention of delaying the inevitable and putting my own life in danger. While I was waiting for the Pitocin to speed the process up, the doctor spoke to a surgeon and came back to the delivery room. She then posed another possibility…a D & C…because of the fact that if my blood loss continued and delivery didn’t happen within the next hour or two, my life would be in danger. She explained that I could go into labor before the OR was ready for the D & C, but that if it didn’t, it would be good to have it ready and not have to wait any longer.

Mikey and I talked it over and we agreed that it would be best to prepare for that and sign the necessary papers needed in case I did need it and I went unconscious or couldn’t sign. While they were getting the OR ready that afternoon, I delivered James Michael, only we had found that he had died sometime during delivery.

What I had not been prepared for, I had experienced. My tiny son, who looked remarkably like Mikey was in my arms, only there was no heartbeat, no moving or crying…just a silent, still, 1.14 lb baby. I held him for the next few hours before they were ready to move me to a room.

Mikey and I did take a picture of him, but I will not be posting that photo, since I really don’t think anyone would want to see it other than family. That and the fact that a few months ago I came across a woman’s blog where she wrote to her baby boy that had died after being in pre-term labor…and she had posted pictures of him. I found it almost horrifying to see, although it may have been therapeutic to her, at the time I found it morbid. I now understand why she would post a picture. I didn’t fault her then and I couldn’t fault her now or ever for posting it, everyone grieves in their own way. It is very important to understand that fact. I just can’t bare the thought of someone looking at a picture of my son on my blog and being as horrified as I was looking at the picture of her son.

My son was the spitting image of his father, built like him, tall for a 23 week baby (11.8 inches), yet skinny. He had his nose, his lips and his jawline. His legs looked very much like Mikey’s. He would have been a very adorable little boy and he was a very adorable little boy.

When I had to face the fact that James Michael would be born that day, I was dreading holding him. I feel terrible in saying that I was hoping for the D & C, because then I would never have to see him and I wouldn’t have to face the facts of what happened that day. However, I am glad I didn’t have the D & C, because I would have been missing seeing him and holding him…getting to see Mikey and myself in him. I can say that if you ever have the unfortunate chance to have to choose between a D & C and letting nature take its course, let nature take its course if at all possible…its better to have held and seen the baby, than to have never had the chance.

Since he was older than 20 weeks, we have to have a funeral home take his remains and either cremate or bury him. Saturday, we had to make those arrangements at the local cemetery. It was a very difficult and exhausting day. We decided that we would have a graveside burial service next Saturday. The casket options are limited for infants…because thankfully it isn’t that common for an infant to die. I was pretty unsatisfied with the casket option we chose, even though it is the highest end casket we could buy for a baby that small. It looks like a cloth covered shoebox to me, which is very depressing to think about. We went with blue flowers.

The social worker at the hospital tried to talk me into cremation…because it was the cheapest option available. Mikey was okay with it, but he wants to be cremated himself. I just didn’t feel right with cremation and she had the gall to ask me why. I was beside myself. I don’t want to be cremated…people who don’t want to be cremated tend to be totally against the thought of it. Since the baby wasn’t old enough to express that opinion himself, I had to do what I thought was right…and I couldn’t bear the thought of burning a baby. I know it wouldn’t hurt at all, but I think it is totally morbid. Not to mention, I didn’t want to have to worry about the ashes spilling if I had to move them or where to have them sprinkled…I also thought it would be creepy to have a little urn in the house and that it would be harder to let go and move on if the urn was there to look at. Then I had thoughts about the fact that I couldn’t deal with looking at an urn in plain view and how I would have to stick it in a closet or somewhere where I wouldn’t see it on a regular basis…then I was worried that things would get all Paranormal State, because I disrespectfully hid the ashes in an unrestful place. I know all this sounds macabre and crazy, but this is seriously how I feel about cremation.

I have accepted the fact that Mikey wants to be cremated and if I outlive him, I will respect his wishes and will be ok with the urn being in the house…I just don’t think I could do that right now with the baby. It will be easier for me to deal with if we bury the baby. Then I can visit the grave on my own terms. There will be a marker and the world will know that he existed and that he is loved. I wouldn’t want it any other way for any children of mine that lived more of a life than he did…and just because he didn’t have the chance to take a breath, doesn’t mean I wouldn’t want the same for him. So, instead of a crib we bought a burial plot and a funeral for him…sucks.

I can’t keep replaying these events over and over again in my head like a broken record. So, I am trying to focus on the positives. I will be able to attend the SWE conference in November…that I was planning on not attending…and I will be able to attend the bloggy meet up in October…that I was a bit peeved about missing a second time in a row. I know it sounds selfish to think of these things, like I’d rather travel than take care of a baby, but that simply isn’t true. I just have to focus on the positives. I don’t intend on making this turn into full blown depression. You have all these cells in your brain that do miraculous things…why let 5 little brain cells dictate that you relive negative thoughts like a broken record, when you have the power to choose to tell them to shut it and not listen to them?

I know why I went into pre-term labor. I had an incompetent cervix, due to my conial biopsy in December 2006…that was performed to remove HPV. This was not something that could be forseen by my doctor or any doctor. The only way they know you have one is when something like this happens. The diagnosis is made based on pregnancy history combined with whatever hints your medical record can give the doctor. Simply having that surgery does not constitute a diagnosis…and I did have everything checked early in the pregnancy. Everything looked normal. This doesn’t happen to everyone who has that surgery. But since I have the pregnancy history and have the diagnosis, my doctor can put a stitch in my cervix during the next pregnancy that will aid in keeping it closed and carrying to full term. There is a silver lining. They determined that this week I finally got big enough and the baby was heavy enough to weaken my cervix, since 2 weeks ago, I had absolutely no problems.

I’ve decided to knit a small blanket to put in the casket with the baby and I am almost finished with it. My MIL and SIL volunteered to buy a little outfit for him and I was glad they wanted to do it. I certainly wasn’t looking forward to it and I know that it helps them with the grieving process to do something like that. Since the baby was so small they had to order an outfit from a doll clothes store…which is another, rather depressing thought…but they don’t have a “shmushmorsion” aisle in Baby’s R’ Us if you know what I mean. Ok, that might have been a rather morbid comment, but sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying…and Knocked Up has been one of my most favorite movies to date.

Anyhow, thats the full story, pictures excluded. Please understand if I don’t reply to all your comments or if its months later that I finally do. Its been too hard to even answer the phone and hear sobbing on the other end. I’ll reply when I am ready…which maybe a comment or two a week until I get to all of them. Although I’m not expecting many comments, since I don’t post much.