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My dh & I were expecting our 3rd son. After trying so hard to conceive my other 2, taking so long to get pregnant with each of them, this pregnancy was a total surprise. We weren't at a good place in our marriage, there was a move out of state pending but once we found out I was pregnant we postponed the move & really started to work on us.
The pregnancy was very different than my others....extremely different & by mid November '04 (my 7th month) I was placed on bed rest. I followed everything to the T that the doctor asked & told me to do. I am a Mary Kay consultant & my unit was having a mini retreat on 1/8. I was given special permission to attend as long as I took it very easy & went home the second I got tired. That morning I woke up around 5:30 with a sharp pain thru my stomach. It was only a few seconds & I waited for more to happen but nothing did. I got up to get ready & my back was really bothering me, I figured a hot shower would help but by the time I got out of the shower, I knew I needed to get to the hospital. I woke up my dh & within 1/2 an hour we were there & getting hooked up to monitors.
I was babbling away so excited that the time was here. That for the first time I was feeling contractions (my 1st was an emergency c-section, my second a planned c-section), I was feeling what it was like for my body to get ready to give birth to a baby. I was so oblivious to what was going on, I didn't see how the nurses kept exchanging glances, how they were very quiet, how when my dh asked a question about the sonogram that my view was blocked from he was ignored. It wasn't until later that everything replayed in my head that I should have seen something was very wrong.
My OB came in & started to do an internal but she yelled something to me.I can't even remember what it was....now is when I start to panic. They rushed me to the OR for an emergency c-section. I was scared but still didn't think my baby wouldn't survive.....my oldest was born at 31 weeks, he was a small little peanut I was 36 weeks now, the baby can survive OK. But with the masked faces all around, no one saying much to me...I begged the anesthiologist if he was going to put me under it needed to be NOW. I was started to really freak out.
As I started to come to I was greated with "I'm so sorry for your loss". Still my head was foggy...was he talking to me? I woke up to seeing Chris standing there red eyed, my mom sitting there also red eyed. I don't even remember who told me that my baby boy.....my little Tyler James...was stillborn. Then the nurse came in to tell me they were keeping him warm so when I was ready to hold him it would be less traumatic. Less traumatic?? How is that possible?
I don't know how long it was but I did ask to hold him. I wish I could say I was strong & counted his fingers & toes & soaked up every moment of it but the truth is I didn't. I looked at that little face, touched his cheek expecting him to wake up & then totally lost it. I just kept sobbing for my baby, apologizing to him over & over again. I don't even know who took him from my arms. Then I snapped, I went into desperate someone talk to me about anything mode.
When my OB explained to me what happened it took days for it to really sink in. Because of a previous emergency c-section, the incision that was made was one that has a higher chance of rupturing. That is what happened & my little Tyler didn't survive. They said I had been hemmoraghing for some time & 2 more hours could have meant my life as well.
The nurses in the hospital were wonderful. They kept me in the labor & delivery wing at the very end so I wouldn't have to hear or see the moms in post partum & so I wouldn't be placed on another floor where I wouldn't get the attention & care I needed. They came in to check on me all the time, they allowed my boys to come in & to see me. But a few days later when things started to get really busy there my doc allowed me to go home earlier than planned so I wouldn't have to hear & see their celebrations of something that had been taken from me.
Then came the second most difficult thing of my life. Burying my son.
All in all, I do have to say that I have learned a lot about myself thru all of this. I have learned that I am stronger than I ever gave myself credit for & that I am able to help other women. It doesn't matter if they are younger or older, thinner or heavier....when you lose a child it makes no difference who you are or what you look like.
My friend Dawn told me just before Tyler's funeral that Mary Kay always said "God makes somebodies, he doesn't create nobodies" so for the short time that Tyler was with us, even if only inside me, he WAS a sombody & he touched many many lives. I have to thank Dawn for that. It is something I think about every single day.
To my sweet angel: I think about you every single day, with every breath I take. We all miss you & your brothers wonder what you would be like. We talk about you, we talk to you, we sing to you.....we love you so very much
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