I wanted to share a piece of writing that my sister, Kristen, wrote. She was just brought on as one of the writers for a new website called Momquery. It's a website that new moms, moms-to-be, or moms in general, can find useful information on the trials and triumphs on being a mother. Kristen's first piece was her birth story, her first birth story, a stillbirth in 2009. It was a devastating time in all of our lives and if you read my blogs, you have probably seen my writing on it, and it still chokes me up when I read her story. I wanted to share this because she has received a surplus of positive feedback from women who may have gone through a similar situation and related so much to this. Something so tragic such as this kind of becomes a hidden pain, a secret that is never really talked about, but it should. Below is part 1 of Kristen's birth story.
"My first pregnancy came as a surprise to my husband, Mike, and I. While we were fairly young (26 and 24) and not prepared, we quickly grew excited about our first pregnancy. Aside from an aversion to all things that even looked similar to chicken, my pregnancy was very easy. Approaching the twenty week point, we could not wait to find out whether we would be parents to a son or a daughter.
November 2, 2009. 10:00 AM. Our gender sonogram and anatomy scan. This date will haunt me forever.
My husband wanted a son SO badly. I remember being pretty nervous because I wouldn’t call 50% odds to be in your favor. The sono tech rubbed the gel on my stomach and began her business of moving her wand around, not saying much, taking pictures and measurements. After a couple of silent minutes that felt odd to me, I asked her if she could tell what we were having. She seemed caught off guard.
“Oh, yes. We can definitely tell. It’s a boy! Do you have a name picked out?” As she typed, “Jack Henry’s first picture” across the screen, I looked over at my husband and beamed.
“YES!” He was grinning ear to ear.
I could tell, however, that something wasn’t right. Our sonogram tech was normally the definition of cheerful. And yet she was intently studying the screen with a somber look on her face.
“How does everything else look? Is everything else okay?” I stammered.
“Well, ” she started, “I do see a little something here with his head. It seems like there are some issues with his spinal cord and his head. I’m going to let you go talk to Dr. Haddock about it.”
A pit sank in my stomach. I started to cry. Growing up as a kid with a father who is a doctor, I knew that when the head, brain, and spine were involved, things were typically pretty serious.
My husband, the lawyer-to-be, immediately began asking question after question. Our sono tech assured him that our doctor would answer our questions and talk to us about what it all meant and next steps.
We met Dr. Haddock in another room. She immediately began with, “I am so so sorry.”
I remember thinking, “Sorry about what? What is going on with my baby?”
She explained that our son’s skull/brain were not fused to his spinal cord properly. He had what was called a neural tube defect, possibly caused by something called Trisomy 13. Neural Tube Defects are rare; we had probably heard of the most common one called Spina Bifida. Ours was unfortunately more serious. She had never seen this happen in all of her years of practice and she wanted us to go see the high risk specialist, Dr. Magee, one building over, immediately.
I took out my phone to call my parents who were eagerly awaiting our phone call to find out whether they’d be purchasing a Texas Longhorns footbal l or cheerleading uniform.
I remember that I didn’t even tell them what his gender was. I sobbed through my words, and said, “Mom. Something is wrong with the baby. Something is wrong with his brain. I need you and Daddy up here. I can’t do this without you.”
As my parents packed up to travel from San Antonio to Dallas in record time, my husband and I left Dr. Haddock’s office to head over to the High Risk Specialist.
We were immediately ushered back to a room, cutting in front of about fifteen others waiting to be seen, and I again got the feeling that this was very, very serious.
Dr. Magee came in to greet us and take a closer look at our son with his ultra high res sonogram machine. He confirmed what our sono tech and Dr. Haddock had seen. He described that we were possibly looking at Trisomy 13 (a genetic disorder where a baby is missing chromosomes and cannot survive outside the womb) and kept emphasizing that what we were looking at was so rare that it was a “lightening strike” possibility of happening to anyone. He began discussing next steps with us. He said that if in fact this were as serious as he initially believed, his recommendation would be to terminate the pregnancy because our son was incompatible with life. He would not survive.
I had never seen my husband cry up until this moment. I heard a sob escape from his mouth as his head sank into his hands.
I looked at Dr. Magee and said, “Dr. Magee, I don’t believe in terminating pregnancies.” He looked at me and with the pity of a father, rather than my doctor, explained that in rare cases like this, where the baby had zero chances of survival, we had to thank God for giving us the science to stop the terrible suffering that our child would endure before dying, IF he was even born alive. At best, we’d maybe have a few minutes with him while he suffered in agonizing pain because he would be unable to regulate his body temperature, his bowels, his breathing, anything. Our child was going to die. No ifs, ands or buts about it. There was nothing that could be done.
Before we could make any decisions, Dr. Magee wanted us to go through a few more tests. He wanted the Fetal Cardiologist to take a look at Jack Henry’s heart. He wanted us to go down and have an MRI on his brain. And he wanted us back the following day for an amnio so that we could determine whether or not this was caused by Trisomy, genetics, or other factors.
The rest of the day is a blur. I remember the Fetal Cardiologist confirming that our son did have serious heart defects as well. I remember crying in the Radiology office as I saw a little boy walking around with a cast while driving his mother crazy, thinking that my little boy would never walk around with a cast or drive me crazy.
My parents arrived during the middle of my MRI. After a sleepless night, I went in for the amnio the next morning with my husband and parents by my side. To tell you what fabulous doctors I have, my OBGYN, Dr. Haddock, cleared her morning schedule to come to the appointment with me and hold my hand during the procedure. I thought that having an eight inch needle inserted into my stomach was going to be excruciatingly painful. It was not a picnic, but it really wasn’t that bad. Both Dr. Haddock and Dr. Magee gave me their personal phone numbers to call with any questions and I left praying for miracles.
The waiting game began. Was this trisomy? Could this possibly be anything less severe? Could there be some kind of miracle that our son’s brain was actually perfect and having surgery could fuse everything together to work properly?
Call it mother’s intuition, but I knew that this was going to end in tragedy.
After two horrible weeks, we received all of our answers. No, our son did not have trisomy. No, this was not genetic.
But things were even worse than initially thought. Our son had anencephaly, which is fancy terminology that means he was missing parts of his brain and skull. Incompatible with life.
Our son, Jack Henry, passed away on November 17, 2009. I was not able to see him or hold him or kiss his little feet and tell him that I loved him. One moment he was a part of me and the next moment he was not.
As I write this, I sit here crying, weeping for my baby, my husband, myself, and how I thought in that moment while lying in the recovery room that his passing meant that my two week nightmare was over. Little did I know, it had only just begun.
I spent much of my mid twenties living in a state of grief, of guilt, of anger, of fear and of sadness.
Through the help of my loving husband, my parents, my in laws, my sister, my best friends, a wonderful psychologist, and by the grace of God am I able to sit here today and tell you this story.
My beautiful sister, Kristen, her wonderful husband Mike and their sweet Frank.
http://momquery.com/kristens-story-still-birth/
Kathryn Lane
For more of Kathryn Lane's writing, go to www.babehair.blogspot.com
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