I Remember

With Amelia's 1st birthday rapidly approaching, only 4 days, I have been thinking a lot about our 3 days in the hospital and the moment she came into this world. I keep reliving the days leading up to Dec. 22nd and wondering if there was something I did or didn't do. Oh how I wish I would have paid more attention to my body and less attention on preparing for Christmas. I still struggle somedays with the guilt and knowing that had I insisted on being seen sooner that there is a good chance Amelia would have survived. It's awful to think about, but it's true. I think about the tone in my doctors voice when he checked me and said "oh that's not good". How my heart stopped and then he started saying a bunch of words I didn't understand and how I was being sent to a doctor I had never met and he would do the surgery because he was leaving and good luck. I vaguely remember the drive to the hospital and going up to the labor and delivery floor. It was a swirl wind of nurses and people asking questions and then waiting, waiting for this doctor to finish delivering a baby next door so he could go and try and save mine. By the time the surgery started I was shaking so bad and I couldn't stop, I felt like I was having a seizure of something it was awful. I remember the nurse asking me questions and then us talking about her daughter and Aiden, they went to preschool together. I don't remember going to recovery, I just remember being in my room. I remember feeling like I really needed to blow my nose but I didn't want to because I was scared to. Seth went home for awhile and picked up Aiden and got a few things for me since I didn't pack a bag that morning. He brought me a Crispy Orange Chicken bowl from Applesbees for supper since I hadn't eaten anything since that morning. We were feeling good, things were going to be ok, I was going to have to take it easy but it was ok. I remember feeling the little pains starting and I kept thinking it wasn't anything, it couldn't be. They got worse and worse and so I woke Seth up and got the nurses in the room. By that time I was hurting and they hooked me up to the monitor to see if it was contractions, but only a short time later I felt the gush of water. I looked at Seth and said my water broke and the nurses went to check if it was amniotic fluid. I knew it was, I knew that was it. The physical pain was gone but the emotional pain just began. The nurses rushed me into the delivery room that I would be in for the next 2 days and called my now new doctor. He came and told me there was nothing left to do that our daughter would be born and she wouldn't survive, heartbroken. We waited to call our families until the sun was up and then Seth made the phone calls, I couldn't do it, it was hard enough to hear him say the words let alone say them myself. He also called our pastors who rushed to the hospital to be with us and to pray. I remember Seth telling Aiden that his new baby sister that he was so excited to meet would not be coming home with us, I think I cried most of the time. The rest of the day and night was spent watching TV and waiting, waiting for the inevitable. Christmas Eve day came and Amelia still had a heartbeat. I knew that she knew something was up just by the way so moved and the position she was in, up high where she never hung out before. I worried that she was hurting or scared, but mostly I worried that she wouldn't be born alive. I knew by the weekly baby updates that her eyelids were still fused shut so I wouldn't see what color her eyes were, I knew she wouldn't cry because her lungs weren't developed enough and I prayed that her hearing was developed so she could hear our voices if she was born alive. I think possibly one of the hardest things I had to do was allow my doctor to induce labor, I was forcing my baby out. I don't know if she would have come on her own, all I knew was that I had an infection and that she would die either in me or possibly in my arms. I wasn't given much of a choice, this was the way it had to be. So there we sat in the hospital on Christmas Eve, we should have been home getting ready for church and getting our Christmas meal ready. Here we sat in a hospital waiting for our baby girl to be born. I remember the contractions starting and getting more intense and finally asking for an epidural. The doctor came to give me an epidural and he was not nice, I remember him answering his phone while trying to do it and then sticking once and trying to get it in and then having to redo it. At least that is what Seth tells me, the contractions kinda overshadowed the epidural pain. Once I got the epidural I was more comfortable physically, emotionally I knew it was just a matter of minutes before this all would be over. I wanted that waiting to be over, but then again I didn't because I knew what the outcome was going to be, an empty belly and a daughter that didn't come home with us. I called my mom and after I got off the phone with her I moved and I could feel her head, I told Seth and he got my nurse who came and checked and said it was time and that my doctor would be her shortly. My doctor arrived and told me to push and I pushed a little and it was over, she was here. The nurse placed her on my chest, this tiny little perfect baby, and her little heart was still beating she was a fighter. Our pastor came in right away, my doctor just covered me up so he could come in and baptize Amelia. Once the baptism was over my doctor came back in to finish up. By this time Amelia's heart had stopped, she stopped trying to take a breath. That is something I will never forget is seeing her trying to breath, they say it's just a reflex, but it was hard to see. Feeling her tiny head so warm after being born and then slowly getting colder and colder and trying so hard to warm her up with no success. Then the nurses came in and started taking pictures and molds and prints. They gave her a bath which I know regret not asking if I could do, I never got a chance to give my own daughter her first bath and that makes me sad. Sometimes I worry that I didn't hold her enough and let the nurses mess with her too much when she should have been in my arms, but I can't change that. Then came the when to leave talk. By now it was getting late and we both knew we had Aiden at home waiting for us. We both wanted to be home for Aiden on Christmas morning, but part of me didn't want to leave Amelia at the hospital alone. I knew in my head that she was in heaven and that just her body was here, but my heart was split. My living son needed us, he needed his mom and dad. I cuddled Amelia while Seth carried out our stuff and then it was time. Time to hand over our baby to a nurse that would take her tiny 11oz body to the morgue, where she would sit until the next day when the funeral director came to get her. Walking out of the hospital was again one of the hardest things to do, I felt empty and alone. My baby that had been with me for 20 weeks and 6 days was gone. We got home and while Seth showered I sat in the closest and held the blanket that Amelia had been born on and sobbed. Seth found me and got me into bed and gave me a sleeping pill the hospital gave me. We woke the next morning to a very excited Aiden who opened his presents from Santa and was happy to have mom and dad home. The rest of the day was a blur, lots of crying and feeling alone. We talked to the funeral director and made arrangements to go see him the next morning. What a horrible feeling that was, plan a funeral for your child. Our families left that evening and then it was just the 3 of us again. I sat up and wrote Amelia's obituary which I wanted done by the next day.The next day Seth and I went to the funeral home and made funeral arrangements for Amelia. We chose the music, picked the programs, picked an urn, all the things you do for a funeral. It is wrong to have to do this for your child. I remember thinking that this was it, this is the one thing I will ever get to plan for my daughter. I don't get birthday parties, prom, a wedding, nothing that a mother of a daughter will get to do, I get a funeral. It still makes me sad when I hear of my friends that have daughters talk about all the girly stuff they are buying for their daughters, barbies and dolls, and I got a funeral. It seems so unfair that this is my one event I get to plan while everyone else will get years of planning fun things, I get a funeral. I'm not jealous or angry I'm just sad, because I was so looking forward to all the fun stuff, but I was able to give my daughter a nice funeral. I guess that is something. Before we left the funeral home we were able to see Amelia one last time before they took her to be cremated. It was hard to know that this was officially the last time we would see our baby, gut wrenching actually. She looked so peaceful and tiny in her sleeper we brought for her. She was a perfect little angel, our little angel who I know would watch over her family until we were all together again. The day of the funeral was finally here and honestly a lot of it is a blur, thankfully we have it all on video if I ever want to watch it, but I'm not sure I will ever be able to relive that. I think once we got home and everyone left I felt somewhat of a relief because it was over and now the journey to recovery would begin. I just had no idea at that time just how hard and yet rewarding the journey would be.