Doctors

This Is Us

/ Isaac's Mom / 4 Comments

I know I still haven’t posted Part 2 of my thoughts on the nurses at Speare Memorial Hospital.  There are just so many feelings involved when I work on that story and I can only do so much at a time.  I also just want it to be as good as these ladies deserve – so, be patient.  I also have a post in the works about our trip back to New Hampshire (where we were when we lost Isaac) and the plaque with Isaac’s name that now hangs in Labor and Delivery at Speare.  There is a lot to catch up on, but I want to do it all justice and decided not to rush something out just for the sake of posting something on a blog with an extremely limited audience.

 

This Is Us - Season Pilot

Today, I wanted to talk about the new NBC show, This Is Us.  I am certainly late to the party on this one, as every loss mommy blog I follow has already offered up some valuable commentary on this show that takes our experiences into the limelight.  For those of you who have not yet seen the show and plan to, SPOILER ALERT. Go watch and then come back to this post (or not).  When we lost Isaac, I didn’t think I was connected to anyone else who had lost a child in the last trimester of pregnancy.  I was wrong, and people came out of the woodwork with painful stories.  I was wrong because people don’t tend to talk about this horrible possibility.  The subject matter seems to have become taboo at some point in the history of motherhood and pregnancy.

This Is Us directly addresses stillbirth, and it seems to be a major part of the show’s premise.  Mandy Moore’s character, who interestingly is also named Rebecca, loses one of her triplets during childbirth.  She and her husband ultimately end up adopting a third baby, who was abandoned in the hospital the same day that the baby was lost.  The doctor who delivers the babies is perfectly played by Gerald McRaney.  As Milo Ventimiglia (the husband) sits in the hallway, heartbroken and concerned about the stability of his wife, the doctor delivers a touching pep talk.  He shares that his wife lost a baby at the end of pregnancy and how it affected them and then drops a line that loss mommies everywhere now love:

I like to think that one day you’ll be an old man like me talkin’ a young man’s ear off explainin’ to him how you took the sourest lemon that life has to offer and turned it into something resembling lemonade. If you can do that, then maybe you will still be taking three babies home from this hospital, just maybe not the way you planned.

It’s a great line that definitely speaks to women like me, who have lost a baby.  Losing a child is certainly the sourest lemon that life has to offer, and while we can’t just move on and go back to life as we planned (what I imagine would be perfectly blended lemonade in this analogy) we can do our best and turn that sour lemon into something resembling lemonade.  I think that “something resembling lemonade” means the best life we can given the circumstances – it’s our new normal.

Look – I think This Is Us is a great show, and I love the speech that the doctor gives, but I’m just not as convinced as some others that this is a fair portrayal of what it is like to lose a baby.  I realize that, in this case, two babies survive, and I honestly do not know if that somehow makes it easier to cope.  However, as good a story as it makes, I can’t see someone being able to take a different baby home and move on with life as effectively as these characters do.  Sure, there is a plot line where Mandy Moore struggles with the “replacement baby,” but that plot line is neatly wrapped up when she acknowledges that the baby is not the baby she lost and gives him his own name.  The show misses out on so much of what people experience when they lose a baby.  They don’t show the spontaneous tears that plague you for weeks after the loss (and beyond) and they don’t show waking up in a panic from nightmares about a child you will never know.  They don’t show agonizing over what to do with your child’s remains or how hard it is to find the right urn.  They don’t show the desire to memorialize your baby’s life in any way you can.  They don’t show the endless “what ifs” that inevitably plague you.  I know these parents are being distracted by three newborn babies, but I just think the show misses out on the chance to really dig into the emotional part of losing a baby.

I am so glad that this show has at least chosen to address stillbirth as a potential outcome of pregnancy, I only wish that it did a little more to show the world what that experience is actually like.  I hope that this ends up being a good first step.  Perhaps the world isn’t ready to see all the brutal details of baby loss on primetime television, and maybe this is just an initial introduction.  I also hope that this doesn’t end up trivializing something that, for those who experience it, is the most difficult thing that we will ever face.

An Ode to The Nurses of Speare Memorial Hospital – Part 1

/ Isaac's Mom / 7 Comments

From the moment I found out that I was pregnant, I had a lot of ideas about what Isaac’s birth would be like.  I was scared about all of the different birth scenarios that ran through my head, but none of those scenarios involved giving birth to Isaac, stillborn,  in a 25-bed hospital in Plymouth, New Hampshire at 32 weeks gestation.  We had chosen Chester County Hospital in West Chester, Pennsylvania.  For the sake of comparison, Chester County has 245 beds, a level 3 NICU (the highest level of care available for sick babies) and a brand new maternity ward.  I’m not saying there is anything wrong with a small hospital, but I am saying that Speare was the exact opposite of what we had planned.

From the moment they wheeled me into Speare, I spent my entire stay in one room.  I actually didn’t get out of my bed a single time from the moment I first laid down on Thursday until Sunday morning.  I didn’t realize that I had not moved rooms at all until my husband and family told me.

The most surprising thing about this tiny hospital in New England was the nursing care I received.  It may sound cliché to say that nurses don’t get enough credit, but this experience showed me that it is undeniably true.  They could not possibly be getting enough credit.  The nurses at Speare were incredible.  I can’t imagine I would have received quite such personalized care had I been at a bigger hospital.  I had several nurses, but each one of them provided exactly what I needed at some crucial point in time.  They were so amazing that I’ve decided I need to share some of these stories and thank them.  I’ll start at the beginning.  For the sake of anyone reading this, I am going to split this into two parts.  Yes – these women were that amazing.

Kathy
When I arrived at the hospital I was in denial.  I think that deep down I knew Isaac was gone hours before being told as much.  I simply couldn’t wrap my head around it for another few hours (maybe I still can’t wrap my head around it).  I had called Speare’s Labor & Delivery Department on my way in and spoke to a nurse, Kathy.  She was expecting me when I arrived, quickly got me changed and set to work looking for Isaac’s heartbeat.  She kept me calm, repeatedly reminding me not to panic.  She could find no heartbeat and the first doctor came in for his own attempt.  Fast forward a bit, the doctor has just said, “I don’t see any cardiac activity.”  My husband and I are crying and confused, and, eventually, I have to send my husband to call my parents to have them come to the hospital.  I remember laying there in shock and repeating over and over, “I knew it.”  Kathy swooped in quickly with her unfogettable barbie pink glasses and comforted me.  She reminded me that despite any fears I had previously, I couldn’t possibly have known something like this would happen.  She told me how sorry she was and held on to me as I cried.  I know there was much more to our story that I can’t remember.  Shock will do that to you.  The last time I saw Kathy was at the end of her shift.  She told me I was about to get a new doctor.  She knew I wasn’t particularly comfortable with our first doctor and the last thing I remember was her telling me I was getting a new doctor and she thought I might like him more.  It provided a glimmer of hope to my otherwise bleak outlook.  I didn’t realize I wasn’t going to see her again.  I never got to thank her for her kindness at the most heartbreaking moment of my life.  Kathy, you are a gem.  Thank you so much.

Janice
Things happened quickly after we found out Isaac was gone.  I didn’t realize what was wrong with me (Preeclampsia and HELLP Syndrome), but I was immediately put on an IV bolus of Magnesium that had me really uncomfortable and sick.  That was followed by something to reduce my anxiety and some pain medication.  I was totally out of it and drifted in and out of consciousness for the 12 hours or so of Janice’s shift.  I remember Janice, but the bulk of what I know about her comes from my family.  I know she let my parents and three younger sisters stay in the room with my husband even though it was certainly more people than I was supposed to have there.  She knew I needed them.

Days later, I learned that I cracked jokes throughout the hospital stay.  At some point, someone in the room said some now unknown thing.  It doesn’t matter what it was, but it must have been about food.  As I prepared to blurt out one of my go to lines of the summer in response, Janice beat me to it and said, “The snozzberries taste like snozzberries.”  It was exactly what I had been about to say.  She even nailed the voice. I still can’t believe that of all the funny lines to drop, she dropped my favorite one.  It’s like she was in my head.  I also have a vague recollection of her telling me not to fight her as she repeatedly tried to check my reflexes.  I know Janice sat at the little table at the end of my bed and kept an eye on my vitals as the hours slowly passed.  Janice is another nurse I don’t remember leaving at the end of her shift.  So – thank you, Janice.  Thank you for putting up with my large and loud family, and for knowing that I needed them there.  Thank you for keeping a sense of humor on the longest day of my life.  Finally, I swear I wasn’t trying to fight you as you checked my reflexes.

Meghan
Gosh – where to begin.  Meghan and her pink scrubs had me for my most intense moments in the hospital.  She was there with me my second night in the hospital when I suspect I was the most difficult, but she never lost her cool.  She had me for five terrifying hours of epidural free labor.*  She had me as I refused to breathe through contractions and as my BP skyrocketed into the 200s.  I can’t imagine I was particularly charming after finding out my son had died before I ever met him and 24 hours of labor.  I vaguely remember cervix checks and being intensely frustrated when I found out I hadn’t progressed much at all.  Then things escalated . . . quickly.  I went from 3cm to 10cm dilated in less than an hour.  I guess I didn’t realize that the doctor wasn’t at the hospital anymore, but he was not.  Things had been moving very slowly and it was really late.  Despite the doctor’s absence, at some point, it became clear that Isaac was on his way whether we were ready or not.  I said that I felt like I needed to push and I know Meghan told me not to.  I couldn’t have stopped myself even if I had wanted to.  Meghan delivered Isaac at 12:06 AM.  The doctor arrived at some point soon after.  I know she cleaned Isaac off and let me hold him, despite my ongoing inability to remain conscious.  I know she took pictures of my husband, Isaac and I.  They aren’t the pictures of his birth I had imagined, but considering the circumstances, I love them.

The next thing I knew, I was waking up at dawn.  I was comfortable and didn’t realize what had happened at first.  Meghan came in at some point and gently explained that she had our son in the nursery.  She brought him to me as my husband lay sleeping and I had the only moments alone with my son that I will ever have.  When it became too much for me, she woke my husband.  We spent some time alone and at some point she gently took him away.  I never saw her again after that and was initially disappointed.  I found out a few days later that Meghan had been exhausted (rightfully so) and, at the end of her shift, had gone home and passed out.  Then she woke up and called in tears.  She was so upset that she hadn’t said goodbye to us.  I’ll never forget Meghan or how grateful I am for her.  She delivered our son under scary and unusual circumstances without ever skipping a beat, and that’s remarkable.  I needed to be kept calm, and that’s exactly what she did. Thank you, Meghan.  You handled an incredible difficult situation with such patience, compassion, and composure.  I can’t imagine a way that it could have been done any better.

*I didn’t want to change my own recollection of things, but my husband has pointed out that Meghan was also my nurse during my first night at the hospital.  My father has also told me that he remembers Meghan having quiet and peaceful conversations with me to manage my anxiety and confusion.  I clearly do not remember either of those things, but am grateful all the same.

There is more to come on the amazing nurses at Speare, but I do want to recognize that I can’t cover every single nurse that helped me during my hospital stay.  I know a lot of patient nurses and technicians made their way in and out of our room.  Heck – there was even a lovely nurse who got down on the ground next to my bed to take blood from my fingertips when my veins refused to cooperate.  I can’t remember each and every one of these amazing people.  However, I am endlessly grateful for all of their help.

Feeling Blue

/ Isaac's Mom / 4 Comments

I know I’ve been quiet the last two weeks.  I  realize that I don’t owe anyone any explanations, but I’ve been in a funk recently. I think it started last Tuesday.  We started telling close friends that we were pregnant with Isaac a bit after the 12-week mark.  On a cold day, we cuddled up on the couch with our 12-week ultrasound images and Facetimed our friends down in North Carolina.  With one particular set of friends, just after we showed them our pictures, they responded with their own.  They were expecting too and just two weeks behind us.  A bunch of our North Carolina friends ended up expecting Fall babies, but no one was due quite so close to Isaac.

Last Tuesday, our friends gave birth to a healthy baby boy.  I saw it on Facebook while I was laying in bed, and, at first, I was okay.  I was happy for them.  Then I started to worry about telling my husband.  Should I tell him?  I had recently told him that another friend of ours was pregnant, and he had told me that he didn’t want to know that.  I ended up waking him up to tell him.  Moments later, I was crying.  I am so happy for them.  It just hurts so much to see what we are missing out on.

The next day was even more difficult.  I woke up in a bad place and things just kept going wrong.  I had to challenge a contractor on the project I am managing, and I stressed for most of the day over how to do it. A package I was excited to receive that day got delayed.  Then the MFM we were supposed to meet with Friday called to say they couldn’t see us Friday and needed to reschedule even though my husband had reworked his whole week to be home Friday.  Then at the end of the day, in response to my questions, the contractor quit.  Every last one of those things ended up being resolved just fine, but I was a wreck on Wednesday.

We ended up getting to meet with the MFM on Thursday.  It went well.  They have a plan, part of which is getting my arthritis under control before attempting another pregnancy.  It seems there is some link between autoimmune diseases and preeclampsia.  They even got us an appointment with a rheumatologist in the same hospital for this week (I had tried independently and was told they couldn’t see me until next year).  I actually left the hospital smiling, because I felt so much hope.  Then, I saw another baby boy had been born to a sweet girl that I went to high school with.  I didn’t have any immediate reaction.  However, then I started thinking more about our new doctors and how seriously they take our care.  It made me realize how NOT seriously our care was taken during my pregnancy with Isaac.  Isaac deserved this care just as much as our future baby does, but he did not get it.

If the doctors had taken us more seriously and paid even half as much attention as they are now, we’d probably be cuddling Isaac instead of figuring out how to keep living after losing a lifetime with our baby boy.  It’s hard to see how easy it is for doctors to help us now when it is too late to save Isaac.

All of this stuff has made be feel a bit uninspired lately.  I’m not excited about my pottery class and I haven’t been able to come up with coherent blog posts.  It’s even resulted in me struggling to write the letters to Isaac in his journal. Times are tough, but I know that’s to be expected.  Hopefully, if I keep plowing forward day by day, things will get a bit more manageable.

Progress

/ Isaac's Mom / 12 Comments

Going through pregnancy I was always counting down the days until my next pregnancy related doctor’s appointment.  While I always got anxious that something would be wrong at the next appointment, this approach made time pass.  I think this is because it was a goal-oriented approach.  Instead of counting down to the ultimate goal (having a baby), I broke it into mini targets.  Sometimes I only had to make it a few days, but it was never more than 4 weeks at a time.  For some reason, making it to 4 weeks ten times was a lot more manageable than making it to forty weeks once.  Yes – they are both the same thing in the end, but time feels more manageable when broken down into smaller segments.

I didn’t make it to the ultimate goal in this case (that date will hit in about 12 days and I am intensely aware of it looming over me).  Now we find ourselves starting over.  We’re starting over with an unknown timeline.  We don’t know when we could be expecting to have another baby.  No one can promise a certain date at which we will be pregnant again.  We still miss Isaac and we are still coming to terms with our loss and our grief.  However, my husband and I agree that the thing that lets us keep going every day is that we are going to try again.  We have the diapers, the crib, and the cute little outfits along with every other trendy baby gadget.  We just don’t have our baby.  If we wait for our grief to end to start trying again, we will be waiting our entire lives.  Losing Isaac will hurt forever.

So, to pass the time faster, we are already starting the never-ending schedule of doctors’ appointments that will lead up to trying again.  We have a ton of information flowing in about our loss.  In terms of a future pregnancy (both getting pregnant and being pregnant), we have a ton of concerns to manage including Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, blood clotting genes, an autoimmune disease, and now Preeclampsia/HELLP Syndrome.  Because we lost Isaac, we need a plan to manage all of this before we even begin trying to get pregnant.   This Thursday we are going to see our fertility specialist.  In a few weeks, when we have our final pathology report from Dartmouth, we’ll hopefully meet with a Maternal Fetal Medicine specialist.  Then we’ll find a high-risk OB to help come up with a treatment plan for a future pregnancy.  Once all of that happens, it will be almost time to try again.  I hope.

Truth be told, I am terrified.  I am scared that someone is going to tell me that we have to wait longer than we’re expecting (4 months or so).  I am scared we won’t get pregnant nearly as quickly as we did the first time (first round of treatment).  I am scared that we won’t get pregnant at all.  I am scared that something will go wrong again.  However, I know Isaac would have wanted a sibling – lots of siblings. We want him to have siblings.  Being scared or paralyzed by our grief isn’t going to make that a reality.

Failure

/ Isaac's Mom / 9 Comments

Needless to say, losing Isaac has left my husband and I feeling helpless.  I have been lucky thus far in life.  I have lost just one grandparent and one great uncle that I was especially close to.  Other than those two losses, I haven’t had to deal with the death of anyone particularly close to me.  Both of those men died from illnesses but lived full and happy lives prior to their deaths.  Neither of them was robbed of life’s many joys before leaving us.  I was heartbroken by both losses, but I didn’t feel them nearly so intensely as I do with Isaac.

There are a number of differences that I know make this feel so distinct.  I carried Isaac and he felt like an extension of myself.  He also never got to experience all of the highs and lows that come with life.  He never got to experience anything except my belly.  While I know that Isaac’s death isn’t directly my fault, it does feel like some sort of failure on my part.  I failed to bring Isaac into this world alive, and, as a result, I will never hold him again.  I tried my hardest to do everything right in my pregnancy with Isaac.  I exercised, I ate well and I followed my doctors’ instructions exactly.  We sill lost him.

Other than challenging my doctor when he told me abnormal symptoms were normal, there wasn’t anything else I could have done.  This is a difficult thing to accept for me.  I’m not used to problems that I can’t fix.  I haven’t really encountered issues like this before.  I would do anything in the world to bring Isaac back, but no amount of effort could do that.  Until now, if I put in the effort, I could accomplish just about anything I wanted to.  I’m not saying that I always have put in the effort, but I could always look back and identify certain things I should have done (and generally knew that I should have done) to achieve some desired outcome.  In many cases, I was still able to fix any undesirable outcome.  Grades could almost always be improved, writing could be edited, and I could work harder to accomplish almost anything I wanted.

I have a lot of resentment towards my doctor at the moment.  I keep finding myself wanting to ask why he chose to brush off my concerns and to ignore my elevated blood pressure.  It’s as if knowing why he didn’t think my symptoms were important will somehow make our loss make more sense.  However, it does not ultimately matter.  I could rehash every step of my medical care and interrogate my doctor at length.  It will not change the fact that Isaac is gone.  I do realize how obvious this sounds.  I can’t bring Isaac back.  I can’t go back in time to the moment I so often relive, the moment where I wish I had insisted the doctor recheck my blood pressure.  I cannot fix this problem, this failure.  It’s a pretty terrible feeling.

At some point, I am going to have to figure out how to let go of the “what ifs”, the “could haves”, the “should haves”, and the “would haves”.  I will have to accept that Isaac cannot be brought back.  I will have to let go of the anger I feel towards the doctor.  I’m just not sure when I will be up to that task.

Doctors Are Supposed To Know Everything

/ Isaac's Mom / 1 Comment

I still haven’t shared the full story of losing Isaac and his subsequent birth, but I wanted to talk about the missed signs that something had gone wrong in my pregnancy.  Of course, I have no way of knowing whether Isaac could have been saved – he did, after all, have a knot in his cord.  I also do know that it is normal to want to blame someone when you lose a baby or anyone for that matter.  However, in our case, there were concrete signs that all was not well with my pregnancy.  Perhaps the other doctors I have spoken to are just humoring the grieving mother, but it does not seem I am entirely alone in thinking that my doctor failed us in this case.

I should start at the beginning.  I was a high-risk pregnancy from the start.  I am the lucky owner of two defective blood clotting genes that can be triggered by the massively increased estrogen associated with pregnancy.  To prevent a dangerous clot from harming either me or Isaac, I began daily injections of blood thinners as soon as I was confirmed pregnant.  I was also sent to a perinatologist after my first OB appointment.  This is the first point that something was off.  I didn’t realize it until I was in the hospital after losing Isaac, but I should have been seeing the perinatologist regularly throughout my pregnancy.  I saw one of the doctors at my first visit for a discussion, and he simply made recommendations to my OB (of which I constantly had to remind him). Another one of the perinatologists came in to tell us everything was normal at our 28-week growth scan and told us he thought the other doctor was being overly cautious with my care.  He and my OB had told us that it was fine to wait until 33 weeks (rather than 32) for the first weekly non-stress test.  That’s a test that could have shown Isaac was distressed, that could have shown us something was wrong.  I learned at the hospital that I should have been regularly overseen by a high-risk specialist.

At 29.5 weeks, I saw my OB.  My OB isn’t just a random doctor I found online.  He is the doctor that delivered me and my younger sister.  He is a very capable doctor.  I had seen a different doctor at the practice 3 weeks prior to this appointment and had found myself questioning my choice of doctor briefly when I realized the other doctor seemed to pay a bit more attention to my situation.  At this visit, however, it felt like something was off.  The first warning was that after gaining weight at a healthy rate throughout my pregnancy, I had gained 9 pounds in 3 weeks.  I hadn’t changed anything.  I was just quite swollen.  My cheeks had taken on a chipmunk appearance, and my boney ankles had been replaced with cankles.  When the nurse came in, she took my blood pressure.  She even asked me if I had a history of elevated blood pressure.  I had not.  In fact, I’d never had elevated blood pressure.  The nurse suggested that I was nervous and that must have triggered it.  I did tell her that I was not at all nervous, but she didn’t suggest that they try to take my blood pressure again.

The doctor came in and told me that I had passed my gestational diabetes test and that I was the least anemic patient in the practice (at least I had that going for me?).  He listened to Isaac’s heartbeat (I wish I had known that was the last time I would hear it).  Everything was fine.  He asked how often he was seeing me at the moment, and, upon noticing the previous doctor had picked 3 weeks, he suggested I return in 3 weeks.  I explained that I was planning to be out of town and that he had previously and repeatedly given us the all clear for that week.  I suggested I would be home in 2 weeks (for a high-risk pregnancy, in particular, that would have been normal) and in 4 weeks, unless that was a problem.  He said, “See you in 4 weeks!”  As he sat me up, I told him I had some questions.  I asked him if I should be concerned about my “elevated blood pressure” (I didn’t know what it was until I was in the hospital).  I also told him that I had been seeing spots and noticed significant increases in my swelling.  I asked if that was normal.  “Totally normal,” he said as he patted me on the back and ushered me out the door.  I went on to ignore these symptoms for too long, having been told by a medical professional that they were normal.

I learned later that my blood pressure was such that they should have retested me in 4 hours to see if it remained elevated.  If it had remained where it was, even in the absence of protein in my urine, I would have met the criteria for diagnosis preeclampsia.  I also learned that my out of character weight gain should have been a red flag.  It was so clear that I was retaining too much fluid.  Further, the swelling and seeing spots were two standard symptoms on the checklist for preeclampsia diagnosis.

To the perinatologist, who suggested that his colleague was overly cautious with my care: you were wrong.  To the OB, who told me my symptoms were normal: you were wrong.  The problem seems to be that these doctors see TONS of patients around here.  I became just another statistic to them.  It’s not just their fault, I should have stood up for myself.  My doctors were making me feel like a crazy pregnant woman for asking questions when really I was just a concerned mother-to-be.

There is a clear lesson to be learned here.  If you have doubts about your doctor, change doctors.  Insist that your questions be answered.  We, as human beings, are not just statistics.  If you don’t stand up for yourself, you could end up like me, full of “what ifs” and other regrets.

 

 

Day 19

/ Isaac's Mom / Leave a comment

Agust 5, 2016

Dearest Isaac,

Your Daddy went back to work today.  I missed him so much even though it was not a whole day.  I did OKAY.  I woke up, I took care of Mowgli and I even took my medicine.  TI took me 4 hours, but I eventually ate my breakfast (and lunch).  I didn’t feel like doing anything, so I watched TV.  I never realized how many TV episodes have pregnancy, birth or baby loss in them.  One episode featured the birth of twins.  I thought I was fine.  I thought that if I could watch, I’d get closer to being able to go places.  When the babies gave their first cries, I totally lost it.  I knew I was missing out on cuddling you, nurturing and loving you. I didn’t realize how much it hurt that you were silent and still when you were born nearly 3 weeks ago.  I guess it didn’t hit me because I was so out of it that night.  I don’t even remember what it felt like to push.  I just remember how you felt coming out (it was nothing compared to the contractions, though).  We were robbed of that happy moment when the baby finally comes out and cries.  At least it was peaceful, I suppose.

Your grandpa reached out to CHOP to help us find the best medical care for the future.  We ended up speaking to one of their doctors. She was nice as can be.  She can’t treat me, but she can help get us the right team. She already had someone in mind for us to contact.  She basically confirmed my suspicion that you and I didn’t have sufficient medical care.  I am so sorry I did not realize it sooner.  She did, however, put some hope back in Daddy’s and my life.  She said we CAN try again.  She also suggested that trying could commence at 4 months instead of the 6-12 months we heard previously.  It would still be risky.  Now that I have had HELLP Syndrome, there is a 1 in 4 chance it will happen again and it would likely happen earlier.  BUT if it happens, they would catch it sooner.  Things didn’t have to end that way and, hopefully, they never will again.  Mommy couldn’t bear it.

I am so broken over losing you, but now I have a spot of hope on the distant horizon.  I have to get healthy, to eat well and to exercise.  It’s what I know you would want and what must happen for the sake of your future sibling.  I will still count the days and weeks from your birth, still count down the days until your due date, until we could have taken you home.  But now I can also count the days until we can try again.  To be fair, “trying again” seems wrong.  We succeeded, the first time.  We made a wonderfully beautiful miracle named Isaac.  Nothing can ever change that.

Love you to pieces,

Mommy

Day 17

/ Isaac's Mom / Leave a comment

August 3, 2016

Dearest Isaac,

I still can’t believe that it’s August.  I keep finding myself mentally arranging furniture to make room for your bouncer or other accessories.  Then I remember you’re in another place where you don’t need a bouncer.  I hope it’s a better place, baby boy.  I miss you dearly.  Your magic butterflies and goldfinches were still here today.  I think all things happy and whimsical will belong to you in my mind.  Beautiful birds, butterflies, and even rainbows will belong to you.  Although, you will have to share rainbows with your great Bup Bup Sandy.

I’m writing to you with my new Isaac pen.  Your daddy and I each have one and will forever think of our love for you when we use them.  They are beautiful and have your name engraved on them.  I also love how it writes (never underestimate the impact of a great pen).

Daddy had some appointments today and I was alone at the house.   I struggled with his absence.  I am terrified about being here alone tomorrow when he goes back to work.  I even forget to eat when he isn’t here.  I panic.  I find myself doing dangerous research about what happened to us and what it means for giving you siblings.  I get myself worked up and we won’t have any answers until we start going to doctors again at the six-week mark.

I swear I do not want to replace you.  I never could and I never would.  However, I do need hope.  I do need to fill my days looking to the future.  I just don’t know what I will do if the doctor says that this hopeful future simply cannot be.  This ordeal could have taken both of us.  I’d trade myself for you in a heartbeat.  I just need this future that involves your baby sibling in our lives.

I sought help today.  Your grandma insisted on it.  It was a very hard phone call to make.  It only took five tries, but now I am going to see a bereavement next Tuesday.  I told her our story.  I know from past experience that talking helps.  Unfortunately, talking can be the hardest thing to do.  I have a lot of processing to do still.  I hope this helps.  I’ll never get over this – never get over you.  I do need to find some way forward.  However we get “forward” we will do it together.

I love you very very much, even more than I love myself.

Mommy

Day 14

/ Isaac's Mom / Leave a comment

July 31, 2016

Dearest Isaac,

Today we went home.  Every second of it felt wrong.  I know you are with me and Daddy always, but it still felt like saying goodbye.  Bringing you home in a tiny box, containing an even tinier red velvet bag, felt so wrong.  Traffic was brutal, I cried until I was sick, and both Mowgli and Cali ended up sick.  Daddy held you in his lap the whole ride home.  It’s not a  ride in a car seat back from the hospital, but it is the best we will ever have.

This house feels like a prison of memories.  Seeing the nursery returned to a guestroom brought me to my knees.  Thank goodness your Daddy was there to catch me.  I found the package of positive pregnancy tests I had saved.  The so comforted me once, proving that you really existed.  I couldn’t believe we could be so lucky and so I proved it to myself every single morning.  I’ll never part with them – my concrete proof that this wasn’t just a terrible dream.

Daddy keeps trying to comfort me, saying there will be another baby.  While I so want a baby, there will never be another Isaac Immel.

Unfortunately, I’ve become a bit obsessed over what happened to you.  I know my body failed you, but I can’t help wondering if there was something else we missed.  Maybe your toes, while perfect to me, might not have been normal?  For all I know you were genetically perfect – I mean you were perfect and we love every millimeter of you.  I just want to know why I am not laying here cuddling you.  What did we miss?  Could we have prevented it?

The doctor in New Hampshire said we would have results in a few months.  I need answers now.  The wondering is eating me alive.

Mommy’s are supposed to be strong and I promise I am trying.  I will be better for you.  I just need more time.

Your Grandpa almost finished your signed for me today.  He sanded it down and hammered on a gorgeous copper border.  It still needs varnish, but it came out better than I imagined.  I am certainly going to make one for home.  We also got a letter from Grandpa’s friends.  They’re going to get us a pin oak for home too.  I can’t wait.  We want to have a physical place to feel close to you.  We will put a bench under it and it will be lovely.  This isn’t how it was supposed to be, but we will try to make the best of it.

Love you,

Mommy