This is Chapter 14 in the Infertility Memoir. Read previous chapters here.
Trigger warning: This post contains graphic content, infant loss
As the medical team finished removing the final remains of the placenta and any remaining tissue, I heard them calling for additional help. One person was instructed to go get medication, another was instructed to weigh more of the blood-soaked pads and tissue, while the others continued to work on me. That’s when I caught my first glimpse of our son, being weighed alongside the placenta, blood clots, and other things. It felt like an out-of-body experience playing out in slow motion. Everything had been so hectic from the moment the contractions started in the ER to the bedside procedure. The only lull in the action was while we waited for the placenta to deliver on its own, and that was spent trying to rest with the aid of medications. Honestly, that time is a blur to me because of the medicines they gave me and the blood loss.
I snapped out of it when the doctors applied pressure to my abdomen to try to stop the bleeding in my uterus. More people rushed into the room to help, more medications were administered, and I could tell by the look on their faces things weren’t going as planned. Everything was happening so fast, and I was beginning to go in and out of a semi-conscious state. I can’t really share what was happening because I don’t even know, and I don’t really need to know. They were trying to stop the bleeding and save my life at that point.
There was blood on standby because it looked like it might be needed based on how much I lost. We learned the person had been weighing everything across the room to help determine how much blood I had lost. I was just barely above the threshold for needing a blood transfusion so the medical team opted to give me an iron infusion to help with the massive blood loss I had experienced.
Then I heard it: the sweet chimes played over the PA system when a baby is born and the newborn’s first cries. I couldn’t control the tears. This just wasn’t fair. It wasn’t how this was supposed to happen, and it felt so cruel to be in labor and delivery while experiencing this. Everyone else was getting their happy ending while we were living in a nightmare, as doctors frantically worked around me.
After I had some time to rest while the infusion was started, I got to see my daughter and dad for a few minutes. They came into the room and my daughter was just having so much fun playing in the hospital. Her joy and sweet voice saved me. It was what I needed to stop the dark spiral I was heading down. My sweet girl had no idea what was going on and lifted my spirits reminding me of all I still had.
After resting some more, the doctor came in. She went over our options for what we wanted to do with our son’s remains. My husband and I were nowhere near ready to make that choice at that moment. I felt blindsided by the entire conversation. We hadn’t even been offered the opportunity to see or hold our son, and now, suddenly, we had to make a choice like this. I knew that everything was very chaotic from the moment I arrived to labor and delivery, but I felt like an important moment was overlooked. I asked the doctor how long we had to make the choice and if we could first see our son. She apologized that we hadn’t been offered that opportunity yet, and arranged that for us.
I don’t think there is anything that can prepare someone for a moment like seeing your baby for the first time, but also knowing that they are never going to come home with you. We were looking at this perfectly beautiful tiny miracle, but at the same time, it was full of broken dreams that would never be. While it technically is classified as a second-trimester miscarriage, it very much felt like a stillbirth. We were holding our baby boy, we could see his tiny fingers and toes, and different from our other losses we had this physical baby we could see, we could hold, we could touch… which is why deciding what to do with his remains was so hard.
With our previous three losses, we weren’t given the option of sending them to a funeral home or cremation so it didn’t feel right to do that now. It is also incredibly expensive, and I just wasn’t ready to decide that. But we had to make a decision quickly. I know it’s probably a little morbid to discuss things like this in a pregnancy book, but I wish I had been prepared for this somewhere along the way. I don’t regret our decision, but I often wonder if it was the right one. I wish I would have had more time to think about it and not feel cornered or pressured in that moment.
As my infusion was finishing, preparations for my release began. I was going to need to continue taking iron supplements, and other medications to help boost blood cell production and prevent infections. I was given very strict instructions to rest in bed, to not exert myself and that recovery was going to take months. I was a little shocked and still trying to comprehend all that happened. When the nurse tried to help me up to get dressed, I collapsed. I was so incredibly weak; I felt helpless. The nurse was concerned because she said I went white when I tried to stand so the doctor was brought back to evaluate me again. It was decided that I needed more fluids before they could release me.
Once I was released, we made our way through the hospital to our car. I remember needing to take breaks every 100 feet or so, which felt strange — every other time I’d been admitted I’d been wheeled out. By the time we reached the ground floor, I felt like I was going to pass out so we took a break in a waiting area while my husband went to bring the car around. Eventually, I made it to the entrance of the hospital and collapsed into the front seat for the ride home.
I was ready to leave the hospital and this nightmare behind me. When we got home, my husband helped me up the stairs and to our bed where I was going to be spending the next couple of days. I was out of breath and it took me a really long time to catch my breath after that. It was so hard to understand that the simplest of tasks were going to now be challenging. The hardest part was the constant high heart rate. After laying in bed for over an hour my resting heart rate was still around 130.
As evening approached I had a calendar reminder go off about a meeting. In the craziness of the day, I forgot all about my commitments. I had been selected to be one of the Co-Chairs for RESOLVE’s Advocacy Day and was supposed to lead the Volunteer Committee. We had spent a lot of time planning what the Volunteer Committee structure would look like, selecting subcommittee leads, and planning for our kick-off meeting that was scheduled for that evening. I could have messaged the team and told them what was going on and they would have completely understood (even encouraged) me not attending to rest, but I felt relieved to have something take my mind off of everything. I think part of me knew that I needed to be surrounded by my community. I just couldn’t lay in my bed crying and reliving everything over and over again.
I needed hope. I needed a distraction and to put my focus on something bigger than myself. I sat at my desk and when the Zoom screen loaded, I was suprised at how pale I looked when my video image appeared. I was thankful that no one seemed to notice. I didn’t want the attention or to go into details about what happened, and the meeting went on without any incidents. It was exactly what I needed at that moment. I felt like I would eventually be okay, and I knew that some of the other people in that meeting had survived far worse. Most of all I knew I wasn’t alone, even if I was silent about what was going on in that moment. After the meeting, I did tell the team and that I might be taking a brief step back, or at least lightening my plate for the next few weeks so that I could rest and recover.
A few days later I had my first postpartum visit, and I was beginning to understand why my appointments were being called this. A day or two after our loss I started lactating, again something I wish someone would have prepared me for because it was the last thing I was expecting. Even though it felt cruel to label my appointments as postpartum, I realized that my body was responding like I had given birth to a healthy baby. The doctor was concerned about my heart rate and tachycardia so she wanted an EKG done in addition to monitoring my blood levels. So I spent the next few days trying to get that referral processed through my PCM while trying to rest. But resting proved to be challenging with my husband’s busy season, the Yearly Training Brief upon us.