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STILLBIRTH Hope’s
Story
At
first, I was stunned. We
had only been married a year and a half, and at 22, I didn’t think I
was ready to have a baby. I had thought that we’d start a family someday, but not
today. But as I was finding
out, God had other plans for us.
We
struggled with how to tell our parents, both sides would be first-time
grandparents! We created
the “First Time Grandparents Survival Kits” which contained a Veggie
Tales movie and a storybook, among other things. We couldn’t wait to see what was to come…girl or boy didn’t
matter, we just knew that this baby would be a special part of our
lives. Our family and
friends were also thrilled—we received congratulations cards for days!
At
our first doctor’s appointment in late March, the nurse practitioner
did an ultrasound to confirm our due date and to see a heartbeat. She thought my days were a little off, so she sent me for a
second ultrasound at the hospital to confirm. At my second ultrasound, the tech thought the baby was on the
small side, but she didn’t see a reason to change my due date. So, baby was due to Fast
forward to our 20-week ultrasound, which we scheduled for June 18,
2003—which happened to be my husband’s 30th birthday. I was really hoping that we would get there and my husband would
decide that a great birthday gift was to find out the sex of our baby. Both of our moms were with us—neither of them had had an
ultrasound with their kids, so they were just as excited as we were to
see our baby on the screen. The
ultrasound tech seemed very preoccupied as she worked. I had to ask her how long the baby was and the weight of the
baby, and I had to repeatedly ask what we were looking at. She stopped at one point and said, “I’m sorry—I always tell
couples these things—I must be really out of it today.” About halfway through the ultrasound, another tech came to the
door and asked that all of the pictures of my ultrasound be sent to the
radiographer. My tech
chuckled and told us that their printer hadn’t been working, so if she
sent every picture through, the radiographer should get at least a
couple of them. A few
minutes later, the other tech came to the door again and said that the
radiographer wanted to see my tech. We were left waiting while they conferenced outside. When our tech came back into the room, she wanted to make sure we
were heading straight to our doctor’s office for our appointment. We confirmed that we were, and I asked her for a picture, which
she had never printed for me. She
had me lay back down while she hurried to get me a print out. We got a picture of our baby’s face—how precious! As we left the ultrasound area, our tech wished us luck. We were so excited as we headed to our doctor’s office, never
knowing what was coming.
Our
doctor met us at the elevator doors, which seemed funny as we headed
down the hall to a room. No
weighing or blood pressure for me that day. Once we were behind closed doors, our doctor told us that she had
been on the phone with the radiographer during our ultrasound and that
our baby had a hernia, which meant that the bowels were growing outside
of the baby’s body. The
doctor told us this was how the bowels grow, but by this point of
pregnancy they should have grown back into the body. She told us that the amniotic fluid could cause damage to the
bowels, but that our baby had grown a sac around them to protect them
from damage. She said
sometimes this could mean a chromosomal abnormality. She proceeded to tell us that our care would be transferred to
high risk doctors who would be better able to care for the baby after it
was born. We left that day with an appointment in Toledo scheduled for
the following week. We were
shocked, and we were already grieving, but we believed our baby would
just need surgery once it was born.
After
a scheduling conflict, we finally met with the high-risk doctor one week
later. The appointment
began with a level-2 ultrasound. We
told the tech what we knew and we asked that she explain to us
everything she was doing. She
was very helpful in telling us everything that our first tech had
not—baby’s length, weight and what we were looking at on the screen. When she finished, she took her printouts to the doctor, and then
led us into a room to meet with him. When the doctor entered the room, he shook our hands and
introduced himself, and as he settled himself behind his desk, he
proceeded to tell us that the ultrasound confirmed everything that had
been seen before and that our baby would not live. We were shocked and asked him what the ultrasound had confirmed. In the “caring and compassionate” fashion that we later came
to expect from him, he told us our baby had no legs, anomalies in its
hands and arms, and not a single normal functioning organ in its entire
body. He said he was sure
the baby had some chromosomal abnormality and that this pregnancy should
never have been, let alone made it through the first trimester to this
point. He told us that the
best way to proceed was to terminate the pregnancy. Needless to say, we were blown away. We had been prepared for additional testing and care by doctors
leading up to immediate surgery once the baby was born, but never had we
even considered losing this baby we already loved and wanted so badly. We told the doctor that termination wasn’t an option for us and
that we would continue this pregnancy.
We
asked him what kind of prognosis we could expect for future pregnancies. He said the only way to talk about the future was to know
exactly what our baby had. We
could wait and run tests after the baby was born, but the odds were that
the baby would die in utero and it would be a few days before we went
into labor, so we might not be able to get anything conclusive after the
baby was born. He suggested
that we have an amniocentesis done that day. It was a hard decision for
us to choose the amnio – I knew from my reading that there was always
a chance that you could lose the pregnancy after an amnio and even with
what we now knew, we weren’t ready to lose this baby. We decided to go ahead and have it done. The ultrasound tech came back in to prep me and explain what
would happen. When the
doctor entered the room, I asked him if it would be painful, to which he
promptly said no. For my
husband and I, it was awful to watch on the ultrasound screen and see
the needle enter my uterus so close to the baby. And the doctor had lied—it was painful. As he tried to draw fluid, he said he wasn’t able to get
enough, so he pulled the needle out and tried again in another location. He kept jerking the needle in an attempt to draw more fluid,
which was so painful, and he kept saying “Mrs. Hiatt—it only hurts
because you’re fighting me! If
you don’t start cooperating, we’ll get nothing from this!” I wasn’t even aware I had anything to do with what he was doing
at that point. Once again,
he pulled the needle out and tried a third time to draw fluid. This time he was able to draw a little. As he finished, he was disgusted and told us that we wouldn’t
get anything from the pitiful attempts. We were told to schedule another appointment in a week.
I
hadn’t been back to work since my 20-week ultrasound—I couldn’t
stand having people ask me how my pregnancy was going when I had no
idea! When I returned to
work the following morning, I was struggling just to be there. Shortly after 8am, the phone rang and it was the high-risk
doctor. He told me good
morning and then he said he had the preliminary results from the amnio
and our baby had Trisomy 18, which was completely incompatible with
life. He told me that at 21
weeks, we could still terminate the pregnancy under Ohio law. I told him again that I wouldn’t consider termination and that
we would see him at our next appointment.
At
our next appointment, after I had been able to do my own research on
Trisomy 18, we Each
appointment with the high-risk doctor was the same—he’d listen to
the Doppler and say it made no sense that our baby was still
alive—when we asked what would happen in the months to come, he told
us that our baby would die without our knowledge of it and that a few
days later I’d go into labor and deliver a stillborn baby. He always said it would be before my next appointment, unless we
wanted to terminate, as we still had time.
I
couldn’t stand the idea that my daughter would just pass away without
my knowledge, so a dear family friend arranged for me to get a Doppler
from her daughter so we could tape record Hope’s heartbeat and listen
to it ourselves. On Saturday, July 12, 2003, we met at our friend’s home so
we could be shown how to use the Doppler. Unfortunately, her daughter, a midwife, couldn’t find a
heartbeat and told us that we needed to go to the hospital to have an
ultrasound to confirm that our daughter had passed away.
As
we drove to the hospital, we called ahead and after the midwife relayed
our situation to the doctor, we were told that the doctor on call
didn’t want us to come in—just wait until first thing Monday, and
schedule an appointment with your regular physician. My husband and I had been more than willing our entire pregnancy
to fight for our daughter, but if she had passed away, the situation
became about my health and we were not going to spend the weekend
wondering if she had passed away or not. When we arrived at the hospital, we were seen in triage by a few
nurses, who found no heartbeat with a monitor and brought the doctor in. The doctor calmly performed an ultrasound, blithely telling us
that “See, there’s the heart, and it’s not beating.” He put the wand away and told us again to wait until first thing
Monday and call the doctor’s office. My husband told him that was not acceptable—we were not going
to wait all weekend knowing our daughter had passed and there was
nothing we could do about it. He
asked us if we had been told how an induction would work, to which we
said no—looking back, no one had ever taken the time to explain
anything to us about what could possibly be our outcome, other than
Hope’s passing. He
explained to us that first we would undergo a procedure to open my
cervix, after which I would go home for 12 hours. At the end of that time, I’d come back to the hospital to be
induced, which could take as long as 24-48 hours. He then told us that he would give us time to talk it over, but
that he was on call until 8am Monday morning and if we chose to begin
the process over this weekend, he couldn’t guarantee that he’d come
in to perform the procedures—we’d be in the hands of the midwives
and nurses only.
After
my husband and I talked it over, we decided to come back Sunday night
for the first procedure and then we’d be back to be induced first
thing Monday morning, when my doctor came back on the clock. Though we didn’t want to wait, I didn’t want to work with a
doctor who obviously didn’t want to work with me.
Saturday
into Sunday, leading up to the procedure, there was no calming me down. I cooked, I cleaned, I worried—what clothes would Hope be
dressed in? Nothing I had
or could buy could possibly fit her! When would she finally be born? How painful would labor be? I just couldn’t believe this awful nightmare I was living.
The
first procedure was quite painful and I had a hard time sleeping Sunday
night. Monday morning came and I was given my first dose of
medication at 9:20am. Labor
didn’t begin in earnest until 1pm, after the second dose of
medication. My water broke
sometime around 3pm and that was when I lost what little control I had
at that point. The nurse
asked everyone to leave the room and my mother stayed with me as I
cried. Why was this
happening to me? As
I held my daughter for the first time, I couldn’t believe how perfect she was! All we had heard
over the last few weeks was what was wrong with my daughter, but no one
had ever taken the time to tell us what was right—how perfect her 10
little fingers would be, or that she would have perfect finger nails, or
how precious her ears, nose and lips would be! Her skin had a purple cast to it, as they believe that she had
passed sometime the previous Friday, but to us she was the most
beautiful baby girl in the world.
My
husband and I spent the first hour with her alone, holding and kissing
her, praying over her and trying to make the most of what little time we
would have as a complete family. We
then invited our family in to spend some time as well. All were invited to see and hold Hope Elizabeth. Around
9pm, we let the nurse take her away—she was physically deteriorating
fairly quickly and we knew it was time to say goodbye.
Through
the night, the nurses brought us a keepsake box with a birthstone
necklace, a baby-powder scented cape and blanket that were Hope’s
size, and a few other momentos. They
also gave us a “Certificate of Life” which they had taken the time
to put Hope’s handprints on. We
were touched by their thoughtfulness. We also gave the hospital permission to take pictures of her,
should we want them someday.
The
next morning, we were thrilled to be leaving the hospital and yesterday
behind, though it filled us with such sadness to know we were leaving
Hope behind. The next few
days brought quite a bit of activity as we planned Hope’s memorial
service, looked for an angel to leave at the cemetery, looked for
non-maternity clothes to wear to the service and designing Hope’s
birth announcements.
Friday
morning, July 18, 2003, dawned a beautiful summer day—part of me was
thrilled knowing that the graveside service would have clear weather,
but part of Both
our pastor and my Uncle (a pastor) spoke at the graveside and it was an
absolutely beautiful service. My
Uncle had his part of the service bound in a little book for me and
I’d like to share part of it with you now.
We’ve come today to say goodbye to one we hardly knew. She was not with us long, but she was dearly loved and will be sorely missed. Kelly and Alaina, her loss is especially painful for you. But from the first day we knew she would be coming we loved her too, because we love you. In this family, babies are always “our babies.” You named her well. Hope
Elizabeth. Hope presented to God. From
the first moment you knew she was coming, through the shock and pain of
the initial diagnosis and all along the painful road that brings us here today, you were filled with hope. Hope that the diagnosis was wrong. Hope that somehow there would be a miracle that would bring her safe and
whole into this world and your arms. Those things were not to be.
But you hoped for other things. We
all hoped and prayed that God would strengthen you and give you
wisdom. He has. We hoped that God would bring you comfort, peace, and rest in his
loving arms. He will.
Today is not the end of our
hope. Indeed in a very
special way, Though
this journey is not one that I would have chosen for myself, I know
I’m not alone as I walk this path. In a card that we received from a friend is a quote which can be
found on Hope’s headstone today:
Hope is waiting with expectation for
the good and even miraculous Today,
I can see how God has brought about “good and even miraculous
things” through Tiny Purpose. I know without a shadow of a doubt that Hope has an eternal
purpose that God is using to bring him glory. And I am just as convinced that this is true for both you and
your precious baby as well.
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