We bought a house a few years ago with 3 bedrooms (and an extra room that could made into a 4th, if needed). We wanted the space because we were going to start a family. Those extra rooms were going to be for the kids.
Years later and the extra rooms still stand empty, void of any tiny humans and filled with meaningless crap and furniture, desperately awaiting the arrival of their tiny young tenants.
The first room on the right was going to be the nursery for Charlie. We tore down the wallpaper and patched up all the holes. We were waiting until August when I had two weeks off work to rip up and replace the carpet and put on a fresh coat of paint. As soon as we found out Charlie had CDH , we decided we weren’t going to do any extravagent decorating or buy anything more than a crib and the bare necessities, because we didn’t want to come home in November to a baby’s room with no baby to put in it. Given this week’s turn of events, we aren’t sure if that room will ever be a nursery. We aren’t sure if we even want to paint. We aren’t sure about anything anymore.
Stillborn, they said. The word sent chills down my spine.
The high-risk specialist was very nice, compassionate and left a very good impression on me. But that word, god that word…..stillbirth…. just ruins your soul.
She sat there explaining how our son is now struggling. On top of everything else that he has going on, his umbilical cord is no longer supplying him with the right amount of blood or oxygen that he needs to grow. He is severely growth-restricted, weighing only half of what he should be at 24 weeks and measuring weeks behind.
The ultrasound showed that he is in the worst catergory they can put him in. “In most cases, this severity of growth restriction leads to stillbirth”, the doctor said. I went numb.
The doctor browsed through my medical history, saying she was very sorry that we may have to go through this after having 4 losses already. She said Charlie could pass away at anytime. It would happen suddenly. One minute his heart would be beating, the next it wouldn’t be. It could happen tomorrow, 2 weeks from now, or closer to full-term. She couldn’t tell us for sure. She said she has seen a rare miracle, where kids like him make it to term. But it’s rare. Extremely rare.
She told us we have two options. Option 1: They could admit me to the hospital immediately. They would monitor me closely. Once they saw the baby was about to pass, they would perform a C-section and do their best to save him. I would have to stay in the hospital from now until the baby is born. Option 2: I go home and let nature take it’s course.
“If you were my daughter, I would tell you to go with option 2.”, she said.
I don’t know about you but the thought of staying in a hospital bed from now until November was nauseating. I HATE hospitals and there’s no way in hell I was going to spend my days and nights there. Nope. No way Jose. I wanted to be home.
So off I went. Home.
Now we play the agonizing waiting game. We wait to see what happens to him. We bought a fetal heart rate monitor a few months ago so we could listen to his heartbeat. We had been listening every night before bed. Now, we are going to be listening all the time, desperately hoping to hear the beautiful thump of his heart beating, making sure he’s still there, still alive.
The doctor told me to pay attention to his heartbeat and to his movements. If either cease, we have to call her immmediately. I would go down to the hospital. They’d induce labor, give me an epidural and I’d be go through all the pains of delivery. I’d be giving birth to an angel, a thought almost too tough to bear. Going through a miscarriage is hard enough, I can’t even fathom what it would be like to give birth to a human so tiny and so beautiful but whose heart is no longer beating. Dan and I have been pretty tough cookies so far, but I honestly don’t know how we would even begin to cope with that kind of loss. I really don’t. It’s something I don’t even want to think about, but have to. We have to prepare ourselves for a nightmare, but hope for a damn miracle, however minuscule that chance of a miracle may be.
Our Road To Parenthood 