Chronicles of Parenting a Living Child After Loss, Edition I

The moment she was placed in my arms, everything changed.

My comparisons from this time and last time ceased once I heard her cries. At that moment, it was a new and different experience. There was a lot of strength and optimism from the time we entered the hospital around 3:00 PM on Friday, October 14. That optimism continued on into the evening and through the hours of the early morning of October 15, but throughout it all there was still a tiny bit of insurmountable fear in the back of my mind. That fear took over during delivery and at one point I remember thinking that she's been in the birth canal too long (she hadn't at all) and I ignored nurse Shirley's half-push prompts because I felt like I needed to push harder to just get her out already, something could still happen (it didn't). The feeling of sweet relief and sheer joy spread throughout us once she was in our arms, safe and sound.

However, her birth story didn't tell the side of grief that was experienced once she arrived. About two hours after she was born, it was noticed that the little noises she was making wasn't her learning to cry and make sounds. It was termed grunting, which indicated that she was having trouble pulling oxygen into her lungs. She was taken from us and they were able to remove the excess amniotic fluid. As mentioned in her birth story, it was a busy night for Labor and Delivery. When it came time to move us to postpartum floor, there were not any rooms available. We were temporarily placed in a room on the antepartum floor - which is where we were taken following our delivery with Hudson until we were ready to go home. These rooms are primarily used for women who are pregnant and need to be hospitalized. Now we were back in the same kind of room we were in when we said goodbye to our son, which took me right back to last time.

Shortly after settling into this tiny temporary room, we realized she was still grunting. The nurse came in and Hadley was taken from us again. It hit me so hard to be back in that room, watching a stranger take my baby from me and wheel them away, door closing behind them. In the back of my mind I knew she was coming back, I knew it wasn't goodbye, I knew it wasn't like last time but in that moment the emotions and my grief got the best of me. This is where my personal version of post traumatic stress started.

About an hour later, the nurse and pediatrician came to see us. They told us that the grunting was still persisting and that we had a few options. They said it could be that there is just a little bit of fluid in there and it would resolve itself within a few hours, it could be pneumonia or another infection, it could be some kind of internal problem that they will need to start running tests for. She recommended that we wait a few hours and keep her in the NICU for observation to see how she does and then if it isn't getting better, we would do x-rays of her chest and start running tests. Now that we had this long awaited child, I hated having to be apart from her. 

We tried to sleep and get some rest as we waited, but my heart was overwhelmed. A few hours later, we were led to the NICU nursery to see her and to work with a lactation consultant. They said she had a posterior tongue tie and that it would be challenging for her to adequately latch, so we also learned how to syringe feed. The pediatrician came by and checked her over again, saying she was doing great and her lungs just needed a little time but that the grunting had stopped so they let her come back to our room with us and to work on obtaining a good latch to nurse her.

By 4:30 PM we were finally moved and settled into a postpartum room, now in a new environment and I could get over that hump, get back to the new and different of this time again. We were nursing her, family came to visit and to meet her, we tried to get our own rest in between.  As we moved into Sunday and throughout that day, we thought we were on the up and up. Except that her bilirubin levels were going up slightly each time checked which indicated jaundice, but we were still in the safe zone. No big deal, I had jaundice, a ton of babies have jaundice. Max held her in the window where the sunbeams came in and the two of them napped together throughout the day, bathing in the sunlight to help that jaundice dissipate.

We were supposed to be discharged on Monday, but early that morning the pediatrician came in to talk to us again. Her first 24 hours, she lost 1% of her birth weight which was normal. But that second 24 hours, she was down an additional 10% of her body weight which was a lot at once and concerning. We thought she was latching better and feeding well, but apparently she was not. The pediatrician on call said she wanted the lactation consultant to come check for a good latch and we'd wait for the blood test results for her jaundice before she will discharge us. After working with the LC for about 20 minutes, they said they just weren't comfortable sending us home yet. We then learned she was now above the seventy-fifth percentile and had moved into the high-risk classification with her jaundice. I had a tearful conversation with the pediatrician and she was aware of our previous birth and loss of Hudson. The team decided to discharge us, but keep Hadley as a patient. While I wasn't their patient anymore, we were to stay together in that room with her as if I were because they weren't going to send us home without our baby again, as long as they could help it. That, I am truly thankful for.

That Monday was a hard day. Aside from already being a sleepy newborn, the jaundice made her even more sleepy. It was nearly impossible to wake her up to try to feed on the schedule they wanted us to have so that she didn't lose anymore weight. However, to help the jaundice, she needed to eat. Throughout the rest of that day, I was broken down so badly. I would have episode after episode of staring at this precious newborn baby, wanting her so badly to open her eyes. It took me right back to last time with Hudson and trying to will him with my mind to wake up. Holding this tiny baby, tears running down my face please wake up, please open your eyes, it absolutely broke me. While I knew she would be fine, this wave of grief and de ja vu consumed me. We worked hard throughout that day to feed her and get her in that indirect sunlight so that they wouldn't have to take her from us to be under lights and receive supplemental formula to gain weight. We were trying to breastfeed and get a good latch, but also cup feeding and syringe feeding to make sure she had enough in her belly. By Tuesday afternoon, her BR levels had lowered, she seemed to be feeding better, and she hadn't lost any additional weight overnight so we were able to take her home.

Finally we were at that moment of being wheeled out of the postpartum floor, holding our living child. As they pushed me down the hallways of Labor and Delivery and to that front door, I clutched Hadley in her little going home outfit that was too big for her though it was a preemie size. I know I had the goofiest smile on my face while at the same time trying to fight back tears. I've been on that wheelchair ride before, but without my baby, a look of horror and disbelief on my face, passing people in the hallway, trying not to look at them and see their face when they looked at me. I clutched this little girl and listened as people gave their congratulations, commented on her big pink bow or how tiny she was or how beautiful she looked. I had tears of joy and pride, tinged with a little bit of sadness because of the memories that flooded back. Because I didn't get to do this part last time.

Max arrived in the circular drive with the car and he put her in the car seat for the first time. I let her grip my finger the whole way home and in exchange, she allowed me to stare at her in awe, with those tears streaming down my face. I held my breath walking in the front door. Max carried the car seat in. We took her out and walked into the nursery. We stood there together, the three of us, in that room. In the room that from the first time we first entered the house with the realtor, we identified it as the nursery. The room we had waited to bring a baby home to. The room we started to create for a little boy. The room we fell to the floor sobbing in when we got home after saying goodbye to that little boy, our first baby. The room that brought us joy again to create the perfect space for her. Now she was here, we had our baby in that room. I held her and just cried because that day had finally come. Afterwards, Max walked her around and introduced her to each space in her house, huge smile on both our faces. 

Throughout these first few weeks at home, both of us would just hold her or stare at her and cry - happy tears, tears because we couldn't believe that she was actually here, that we were finally having these moments together as a little family. I wasn't prepared for all of these overwhelming emotions. At the end of our first week with her, I learned that my placenta had an abnormality discovered once delivered and had been sent off to pathology. I also learned that her umbilical cord was short and had a marginal insertion which meant instead of a normal cord placement in the middle of the placenta, it was on the side. Both of these things can cause a number of risk factors, including a cause for stillbirth. One of the risk factors of a marginal insertion is restricted blood flow to the baby, which would explain the umbilical cord blood pressure issue we had. Between the unknown placenta abnormality and the marginal cord insertion, I felt even more so like she was a miracle. I was so thankful she came when she did and we didn't have to wait another few days for her to arrive. It makes me fearful in thinking about what it could mean for future pregnancies seeing that my uterus seems to create a risky environment for my babies and why neither of these factors were discovered in one of the 20+ sonograms we had. We will discuss pathology report and our questions with our doctor at the 6 week check up but for now, I concentrate on the fact that Hadley is healthy and perfectly fine despite the way things could have turned out.

At every 2 am diaper change and feeding, I rock her in her room. Sometimes I hold her and as I look at her, I cry. I whisper her lullaby songs to her and allow myself the chance for that emotional release of my grief and my joy tangled together. Smelling that sweet baby smell, feeling the weight of her in my arms, hearing her breaths and sighs, seeing her little facial expressions as she sleeps with the occasional raised cheek smile. I wasn't prepared for all the emotions this "fourth trimester" brings, but they are coupled with those of a mother's heart who is parenting one child in her arms and one she longs to hold again.

After losing Hudson, I'll admit, I would get really angry anytime I heard a mom complain about motherhood. I would bite my tongue but always in the back of my mind I thought I'd give anything to have that, you don't know how lucky you are to have your child. Because of that, I have immense guilt when I feel like this is really hard. But it is very hard, for any mother. I have guilt for the times I feel defeated or stressed when we have trouble with feeding, or I am so incredibly tired, or I just don't know what else to do to soothe her. I think that guilt is normal for a mother of loss to feel. I know this is just the beginning of all those feelings. I am tremendously grateful to have this sweet girl with us, to be her mother, to raise her and to love her. I'll take the hard times, all of them with the happy, whatever it may be, just to be able to have them with her at all.