So, less than 24 hours after I found out that all that pain I’d been in actually meant something, I found myself facing an emergency cerclage. I was immediately whisked away to a private room and prepped for surgery. After the prep work was done and they’d taken a complete medical history, they wheeled me down to a pre-op room, where I ran into (of all people!) my obstetrician. She walked up to where I lay on my gurney and smiled down at me indulgently.
“Well,” she said, all cheery smiles, “it looks like you’re going to be in the hospital for a while.”
I stared at her, thinking how nice it would be to just slap the shit out of her. You know, just slap that cheery little grin right off her face. But then, it just seemed like too much of an effort to raise my hand. I think they must have slipped me a valium at some point. Smart move.
“And I’m going to be assisting on the surgery,” she said next, and her tone of voice indicated that I should somehow find this a Great Comfort. Which I didn’t. I can only imagine how much money she made assisting on the surgery. Thousands of dollars, I’m sure. A nice little week in the Bahamas for her, perhaps.
They wheeled me into the operating room a few minutes later and put me under. The last thing I remember before the anesthesia took hold was this sudden certainty that I was suffocating. I tried to bat the mask off my face and tell them. Finally someone noticed me doing this. He leaned down and said into my ear: “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t breathe,” I said.
“Oh, don’t worry, honey. We’re gonna help you with that.”
And everything went dark.
When I woke up I was back in my room. RegularDad was there. He smiled at me, told me everything was fine, and told me to go back to sleep. This happened a couple more times. Sometimes when I woke up, other people were there. Sometimes it was just him. By nightfall, I was awake enough to have something to eat. They brought in a tray of broth and jello. There is nothing more depressing than a meal of broth and jello in the second trimester.
I found out that by the time they’d started the procedure I was 6 centimeters dilated. But still, they tried. They did 3 stitches instead of the usual 1 stitch. I remain, to this day, their only 3-stitch cerclage. My nice new doctor came in and said that he had to go out of town to take his son to college, but that he’d be calling in to check on me regularly. Then he left.
All through the night and the next day, the contractions kept coming. They gave me more and more medication, but it just never worked. By late evening the following day, I was back in active labor again, and this time there were three stitches in the way. Abnormal labor pains are really, really bad. The nurses on staff gave me a crash course in lamaze, and we waited for the on-call doctor to arrive. While waiting, they inclined my bed to a minus-45 degree angle in the hopes of employing gravity to hold off the delivery.
When the on-call doctor arrived (in an irritated huff, like I’d interrupted his Friday night poker game, perhaps) he made it clear that no attempt to save the babies would happen. That I would deliver and they would die. The minimum gestational age for incubation was 24 weeks. I was 22.5 weeks along. I missed the cutoff by about 10 days.
So, I delivered the babies through three stitches, and they died of asphyxiation and heart failure a few minutes later. The nurses took them away for a while and then brought them back to us bathed and dressed and wrapped in blankets. They took pictures of us, and made plaster casts of their feet. The gave me all the clothes and blankets, and two twin teddy bears.
They told us that because it was technically a live birth and then a death, there was all sorts of procedural paperwork we had to complete, like claiming them on our taxes, having special birth certificates issued, and obtaining social security numbers for them. This was to prevent potential identity theft.
What freak of nature does this sort of thing? Goes through infant death records just to steal their identities?
We went to a local funeral home and had them cremated. And a few years later, RegularDad had a hope chest made for me where I keep their ashes and their belongings.
The nurses told me I could stay in the hospital for a day or two if I wished, but I asked to go home as soon as possible. My nice doctor called me from the road first thing that morning to apologize. He was very upset because he felt he’d given me false hope. I told him that I appreciated all that hope. That I would not have wanted it any other way. I like to think that had he been in town that night, he would have forgone the 24-week minimum and tried to incubate the boys anyway.
And as for my obstetrician? The one who showed up to assist in the surgery at the last minute?
I never saw her again. She never once stopped in to see me after the surgery. Or after the twins died. She never called me. Nothing. A couple of months after it was all over, I received a check in the mail from her office in the amount of ten dollars. It was a refund of my co-pay.
And for those of you who’ve been through this thing before, you know how it went. For those of you who wonder, here’s how it ended:
You woke up the next day, and the world was still there, so eventually you got up and made some coffee and listened to the answering machine when the phone rang, deciding who you wanted to talk to. And then a few days after that, you found the strength to go on a short walk with your husband, and the air was cooling down, the summer was ending, and it was just amazing the way the world just kept on going even though your babies were dead. And then you went back to work and accepted flowers and hugs from good people, and lots of cards in the mail. And one morning you woke up and you weren’t crying when you opened your eyes. And each day, it got a little better.
And a year after that, you found out you were pregnant again and you called up that nice doctor in the hospital, the one with all that hope, and he said, “you come see me now…you don’t go anywhere else but with me” and you just knew it was all going to be okay.
And nine years later, you’ve got an almost 7-year-old and a 4-year-old and a damn good husband, and you don’t cry so much over the whole thing anymore, but you’ve still got your twins in your hope chest, and you’ve got busy days, and quiet nights, and good friends here and there.
And a place you made all by yourself. a good place. a place to tell your story.
Your story leaves me speechless - How can a woman (The doctor) be so cold and uncaring.
((((((((((((((HUGS))))))))))))) to you.
Im crying right now. Thank you so much for sharing. As I read your story I just wanted to kill that doctor, what a heartless bitch! I can only say that I do believe in Karma and Im sure she will get her “love” back ten fold. I also lost my first child through a doctors abuse as he felt I was too young to be a mum. I was only four and a half months along, and although I have a great bunch of kids now. Well you know you just dont forget do you?
PS. My little guy would be 23 now, and I have to agree I was too young but hey that should have been for me to decide not some doctor.
karisma, I’m so sorry to hear this. Why do doctors DO that? I hate that arrogance, that playing god thing they do. Like just because they’ve got the MD, they know what’s best for us? Too young? That’s such a non-issue!
Thanks for sharing your story. I think it’s therapeutic. A lot of people say, “I don’t know how you dealt with that.” You just do. Sometimes we have to fall back on basic instincts: eat, sleep, breathe. Personally, my experience left me seeing my living children almost as some work of magic, and appreciating them for the wonderful, precious and miraculous things they are. I may never have seen them in this light otherwise.
I’m in tears. It truly is a miraculous thing every time a child is born healthy and whole… sending more virtual hugs your way today.
I’m in tears. Thanks for sharing that. It was very moving. I’m so sorry you had to go through that.
Thanks, everyone.
Wow.
It’s so incredibly courageous for you to be able to sit down, relive the whole thing, try to find the right words to convey your emotions and not fall apart all over again.
My heart is just overwhelmed for you and the loss of your sons.
Thank you so much for sharing your story. I have a friend who lost twin girls a couple years ago from the same complication. I am sending her a link, I think it helps for people to know they’re not the only ones, you know?
{{{hugs}}} to you.
Thanks Ami. And hugs to your friend.
My sister lost her first son at 22 weeks. He would have been 14 this September. It’s taken her many years to, overcome? probably not the right word, but anyway she doesn’t go into deep depression around this time anymore. I’m happy that she’s reached that point and is feeling more peace about it.
I lost my second baby at 7 weeks. And you are right, until you experience it, you may not understand the loss. I remember filling out the paperwork for RePete when I was pregnant with him and the form asked “# of pregnancies” and I put 3 and my dh said “you mean 2?”. Because I guess in his mind, #2 didn’t really count!! I was so angry and once he realized his mistake, he certainly made it up to me. I lost mine in August too.
Your posting was certainly a good therapy for you and all of us. Thanks for sharing.
My heart was in my throat as I read this. More big hugs going your way. Like Robinella I also lost a baby at 7 weeks and was completely unprepared for the emotional fallout from that. I’ve wanted to write about it but haven’t. I admire the raw and honest way you put your experience in words. And I love that nice doctor. Again, hugs.
Robinella and Wendy,
Big hugs to both of you. And your little ones.
Thank you for sharing your powerful truth. I had a miscarriage between dear children 3 and 4. Nothing compared to what you’ve been through, of course. But I can relate to what you said about the world just moving on the next day. It seemed so bizarre at first that the world could keep on going without my precious child, but eventually I climbed back on board and starting moving along, too. I still keep the ultrasound image in a little compartment of my dresser. He or she would have been 3 in April.
Hugs to you Fourmother. And your little one. I used to make such a big deal out of the difference between miscarriage and preterm birth, but these past few years, I’ve realized that it just doesn’t matter. A baby is a baby is a baby. Gestational age makes no difference. The emotions remain the same.
The twins were beautiful and I believe that their deaths weren’t meaningless. Even today, after reading your posts I feel so much compassion for you and for other mothers who have suffered the loss of their children. Your telling your story opens our hearts so that we care more deeply for one another. Thank you for sharing. Love you so.
Like Robinella and Wendy, I lost my baby before many people even considered it a “baby”. In fact, my FIL said that to me - “well it’s not like it’s really a baby yet”. I was four months pregnant, but it was discovered that the baby had been dead inside me for 2 months. For some reason, my body just kept going as if nothing was wrong … We waited a couple weeks for the “spontaneous loss”, but it never happened. I had to schedule a D&C, and the hospital staff and my DH were great. A counselor came and talked to me before they let me go home, and I cried to the nurses. But then I got home and hardly anyone would even talk about how I had been pregnant before. My MIL just never even mentioned it again. Miscarriage and infant mortality is just brushed under the carpet, like we’re not supposed to talk about it. Kudos to you for putting it out there. It’s real, and it really hurts, and they really counted as babies, as your children.
Sara,
I’m glad you brought this up, because it is SO important!
There are a few family members on RegularDad’s side who simply can’t handle it, and they pretend the whole thing never happened. It’s sad, and my relationship with them is incredibly distant because of it, but I’ve learned to just let it go. Their inability to handle it is their problem. Most people have a fear of death. And dead infants are even more frightening for them, I guess, since it’s so Not What’s Supposed To Happen.
I also have a friend who didn’t quite get it. The first thing she asked me after she found out about the loss of the babies, was “You’re going to save the names, right? For the next time?” In her mind, the names I’d chosen for the boys should not have been used. Which was so strange to us! Their names were their names. We didn’t take their names away from them just because they’d died.
I think your situation is hard (and everyone who miscarries) because people don’t see the baby as a baby until some pre-identified late gestational age that seems to be different for everyone. For some people it’s the point of conception. For others it’s 36 weeks. Or 24. Or 17. Or pick a number.
It’s frustrating beyond all belief.
Hugs to you and your little one. Yes, that one counted.
Thankyou for sharing you “story”. I had a similar experience with one of the dr’s here, after the boys were born at 23 weeks she said “oh dear, so near yest so far”! She had no idea what my boys had gone through to get to 23 weeks.
much love,
Karen
Hugs to you and your little ones, Karen.
My heart ached for you as I read this. I know this is not the point but you did an excellent job writing this account… Thank you for sharing.
Thanks, Nan.
Hi there. I’m the friend Ami sent the link too. Your experience, of course, made me cry. It hit so close to home. My girls would have been 3 on the 13th. I don’t want to use up all your space in replying, so if you don’t mind, tell Ami if I’m allowed to email you directly. SHe can give me your email addy.
Sunnie dear, I’m so glad you’re here. Of course, email me right away. My email is: regular_mom@yahoo.com.
And, just so you know, you can use up all the space you want to here. I’ve got lots.
Hugs to you and your little darlings.
Your story is heart breaking but your writing is beautiful. One of my closest friends had a premature daughter who passed away after a few short days. I was not a mother when this happened and yet her pain will never ever leave me. I’m so sorry for all you went through.
Fairly Odd Mother,
Thanks.
I’m so very sorry. Your story is so sad and so beautifully written and my heart goes out to you.
The hope chest - what a lovely idea, really lovely.
Ella, thanks.