Reid Edward 22 November 2011 ~ Our Story...LONG!!!!
Our story begins in August 2011. It begins in August because this is the month that the Chinese Gender Chart said that in relation to my age and the month, I would conceive a boy. I know it sounds silly but I guess it was just a bit of harmless fun. Little did I know how quickly the fun would run out.
I'll apologise now if its all over the shop. Its a long story and there are heaps of things that I've missed. Maybe later I'll come back and add more. But for now, here is the main of it.
It’s the 25th of August and I’m 13 days into the infamous two week wait. I decide I can’t wait any longer and decide to take a pregnancy test. To my surprise and delight, two lines show up immediately. I’m pregnant! You could’nt wipe the smile off my face if you tried. I immediately take a picture and send it to a few close friends. Sharing is caring right?!
Fast forward to 5 weeks – the day the bleeding starts. The sight of it frightens the **** out of me. I lost a babe last year and couldn’t be to go through it again. What do you do when you’re bleeding at 5 weeks? They practically laugh at you when you say “I’m 5 weeks pregnant and I’m bleeding”. So I go see my GP and she sends me for an ultrasound. I have to wait a few days for my appointment. In the meantime, the bleeding stops and starts.
So finally the day arrives for the ultrasound. There’s not much to see at 5 weeks but we vaguely see the tiny flicker we all hold our breaths for. They see a small sac of bleeding beside the baby. A peri-sac bleed they call it. A subchorionic hematoma - the same thing I had when I miscarried last year. I worry but try to remain positive. I quiz the forums for stories of successful pregnancies with bleeding. There are plenty of happy endings so I try to put the worry to the back of mind.
The bleeding continues all the way through the first trimester and into the second. At 14 weeks I meet with my Midwife. I express my concern to her about developing an infection from the bleeding. She says that it’s possible and that I should monitor myself closely. We talk about our plans for the birth and it becomes exciting. I tell her about my fear of losing the baby at this point or god forbid, further along.
My bleeding continues so I decide to make an appointment at the Early Pregnancy Assessment Unit (EPAU). I speak to a Midwife who explains to me what a SH is and explains that the chances of miscarrying at this point are minimal. She also says that I may just have one of those pregnancies – meaning the ones where you bleed throughout. I can’t stand the thought of having such a “touch and go” pregnancy. We get a quick scan done which shows out baby happily moving around inside. There is no sign of the SH. We are sent on our way.
Friday 18th November 2011 – The beginning of the end.
Today I have an exam on. I’m in the library when I notice that my bleeding is a little heavier than normal. I’m passing little clots. I’m not sure what to do as its only half an hour until my exam starts. I decide my babies life is more important than any exam so decide to go the ED. I go to the ED and have to wait for hours. I finally see a House Dr (Student Dr I assume it means) who goes through all the normal ****. He finally gets the Doppler but seems to have no idea of how to use it. He cant find the heartbeat. I take it from him and try to find it myself. Nothing. Panic sets in now. I’m sure as **** my little one has gone.
Dr K leaves to find someone more experienced with using the Doppler. Another Dr comes in and finally finds the babes heartbeat. Relief! An appointment is made with the EPAU for the 24/11/2011 and I’m sent on my merry way.
I had to work that night and needed somewhere to hang out before work. It’s a Friday arvo and everyone is out so I’m driving around in my car not knowing what to do or where to go. Then I feel it. I feel what I think is blood gushing out of me. I drive around for 20 minutes and it continues the whole time. In my head I’m thinking “this aint normal!” but I don’t know what to do. If I go back to the ED I’m gonna look silly. I finally decide that going back is the right thing to do.
I go back to the ED and am told to change my pad and that I’ll have to wait in line again. They know that I’ve just left and for what for and say I shouldn’t have to wait long. I go to the toilet and finally get to see the pad I’ve been gushing into. Its soaked. Pinky loss with patches of bright red blood. I pass a large clot into the toilet. I start to think that maybe today is the day my baby will die.
I’m finally called in and taken straight to a bed. I’ve kept the last pad even though I’m told they don’t want to see it. I tell the Nurse that the pad is in my bag if she wants to see it. She gets it out and asks if I’ve had a fluid loss over the last few days. I ask if she means my waters, she says yes and I say no. Its at that point that my brain registers and I think “god, it does look like waters”. God knows why I didn’t think about that when I first saw it. The Nurse finds a Doppler and we hear the baby beating away in there again.
I wait and wait and finally see a Dr who asks ME what I want them to do. I want to know where the bleeding is coming from. I’m told that they can’t do an ultrasound because its afterhours. I get upset and the Dr goes away to speak to his “boss” about it. He comes back and says yet again that they can’t do an ultrasound, that they wont find where the bleeding is coming from and that there is nothing they can do. Its not a life or death situation he tells me. I refuse to leave until they tell me where the bleeding is coming from.
(In the meantime, I hear them arrange an ultrasound for a pregnant woman across the hall from me.)
The next person I see is an OB/GYN Reg who’s towing a portable ultrasound machine with her. She says that she’s not really experienced in using these machines but she can show me baby and baby’s heartbeat. I tell her its not baby I’m worried about, its me. Something is wrong with me. Her phone rings, it’s the Sonographer giving the results of the scan for the woman across from me. They converse about her then about me. The sonographer was going to scan me but this OB cancelled it. So she does the scan and gives me the pep talk about this and that. Then sends me on my way.
NO-ONE EVER MENTIONS THE SOAKED PAD!!
Sunday 20th November 2011
(I’ve flown to Townsville to surprise my sister for the her birthday. I wouldn’t have gone given the circumstances but the flights were booked and paid for.)
I’m hot. I don’t feel well. My joints are achy. I think I’m getting the flu. I go to bed early but wake frequently feeling hot and having to wee a lot.
Monday 21st November 2011
I wake my Mum at around 1am to ask for the thermometer because I feel so hot. She touches me but doesn’t think I feel hot at all. I have a few strong contractions during the night but they settle and I sleep until my Mum wakes me at 6am. The pain in my back, abdomen and kidneys is still there so I take some panadol. 7am I start having regular contractions. 3 minutes apart. I lie in bed and wonder if I should go to emergency. I’m supposed to be flying home this evening so don’t want to go in case they want to keep me in. The pains get worse so I decide to go in.
I’m stuck in the waiting room at Townsville Emergency Department. The pains are irregular now but still painful. They are making me vomit. I’m really worried now. They do all the normal stuff like take my BP, temp etc. Nothing is mentioned about the results. I tell them about the soaked pad from Friday but again nothing is asked about it.
After 2 hours my name is finally called. The Doppler is used to find babies heart beat. I ask for a speculum to check if there is any change in my cervix. There is a lot of blood but they finally see that my cervix is still closed. Swabs are done. Because I am flying home that night they leave it at that. Again I’m told that its probably going to be “just one of those pregnancies”. I go back to my Mums still feeling quite unwell and hot.
That night I fly home. The contractions have disappeared but I still feel unwell. I get home at about 11.30pm and hop into bed. I have a fever that night. I’m boiling hot but I feel really cold. I have a few strong contractions throughout the night but nothing regular.
Tuesday 22nd November 2011
The girls come into our room at 7am. With them comes the contractions. Mild at first but 3 minutes apart on the dot. Brent takes the girls out to get them breakfast and ready for school. I stay in bed to try and make the contractions settle. They don’t. The only get worse. And worse even. By 8.30 I am in full blown labour. The contractions are coming 2-3 minutes apart and are excruciating. I ask Brent to call our Midwife who advises that I should try and rest and relax. I try and call the EPAU to organize to come in to be seen that day. All I get is the damn answering machine.
I decide to call the Birth Suites instead. I speak to a Midwife who advises me that the EPAU should be just about open and to either go there or go to the ED. I don’t want to go to the ED because they don’t give a hoot if I lose this baby or not. I’m not 20 weeks or more so there isn’t anything they can do for me. Brent takes Briley to school and I hop into the shower. I decide to head into the local ED as I need help NOW! Call it denial but I still didn’t realize I was in labour. I just kept telling everyone I was having contractions.
We get to the local ED and I’m takin in to see the triage nurse who says that I have a high temp. My contractions are still intensifying and I’m taken into a private room. Its all action immediately really. An IV is put in straight away and I’m given antibiotics and morphine. The Doppler is used to find babe’s heartbeat. Its 10am. It sounds quite quick to me but given the circumstances, its normal. This is the last time I hear the babies heart beat.
Everything becomes a blur now. I asked questions through the haze of morphine and gas. I feel so weak for needing pain relief. I had 2 drug free births with the girls, but this pain was unlike the pain of them. I think the physical pain mixed with the emotional pain makes this labour unbearable. I think im still in denial at this point. I don’t actually think that I’m going to have the baby. But I do remember saying, “I don’t want to push the baby out alive”. The staff at this hospital were amazing. They were so supportive and quick. The only problem I had was when I asked them to check the babies heartbeat they wouldn’t. They didn’t want to be the ones to tell me that there was no heartbeat.
I remember that during the contractions I was grunting a lot. Like I wanted to push but it was never that unbearable pushing sensation you get normally.
At 12pm I was transferred to a bigger hospital. By now I’m pretty out of it. I taken to a room with a double bed. I know these kinds of rooms. I know what they are for. But at the time I was lost in a world of drugs and contractions. I remember a contraction starting as I got off the ambulance stretcher. It was so painful. I kept saying to them “I need it to stop. It hurts”. The Midwife who was with me asked if I needed to push with that one so I must have been sounding pretty grunty by this stage. They give me the gas and I’m left alone. (Brent couldn’t come with me because he had to pick Briley up from school)
By now the contractions had started to die down. They came back in at 4pm to take me for an ultrasound. The pressure in my vagina and bottom was really painful. Even at that point I didn’t realize what the pressure meant. I just thought I had to pass a large clot.
So I was taken for the ultrasound. I watched as the picture came up on the screen. I remember thinking he looks like squished now. I asked if there was a heartbeat but I knew there wasn’t. The flicker was gone. She kept on with the ultrasound and then said the words “Regrettably no there’s not. I’m sorry”. I didn’t break down or anything. Silent tears just fell.
I was taken back to my room and I crawled back into bed. The contractions were pretty much gone now but the pressure was still there. I stayed on the bed for a while longer but eventually got up to go the toilet. I made the Midwife put in a little container in the toilet incase the baby came out. As soon as I sat down on the toilet I pushed and could feel the baby come down. I got scared and said should I push? She said if you want to so I did. I pushed and could feel that stretching and that instant relief!!
I looked down into the toilet but I couldn’t really make sense of what I was seeing. I asked her if it was the baby and she said she thought so. I stood up and could see the placenta so I knew then that it was my baby. I walked back to the bed while she carried the container over. She shifted the placenta and I could see into the sack. I could see the babies tiny leg bent. She opened the bag and brought the baby over to me.
I cried when I saw how perfect the baby was. She then asked what sex the baby was and we looked. A boy. A perfect little boy - Reid. It broke my heart. I finally had a Son and he was gone. I touched his perfect little hands and feet. I was so shocked at how perfect he was. His features were perfect. He was just oh so tiny. I tried to work out if he looked like anyone but I couldn’t see any resemblance.
I spent the next little while just gazing at him and taking photos (somehow in that mess I was in at home, I had packed a bag and with it I had packed the camera). I was then asked if I wanted to call Brento to tell him. I called him and told he that I had given birth to the baby and that he was boy. I was sad that he couldn’t be there with me. I always seem to do these things alone.
The next few days were a blur. People coming and going. So many phone calls. All the while I had to accept the fact that my Son was no longer alive and happy, squirming around inside the safety of my body. I had to stay in hospital for 4 days as the infection that caused this mess was a nasty one. One that if left untreated could apparently take my uterus with it.
I write this 2 weeks to the day after Reids birth and I’m doin ok. Part of me is still in shock that this has happened. I never, ever thought this would happen to us. But who does I guess? Today we brought Reid’s ashes home from the funeral home. I haven’t put too much thought into what we’re going to do with his ashes yet. Brents family want to bury it under a tree on their family farm in NSW but I don’t think that’s what I want. I don’t know what I want yet.
They tell me that Reid’s early arrival (I refuse to call it a miscarriage) was due to an infection. They first said Chorioamnitis which is an infection in the sac surrounding Reid. But then they told me it was a Septic Miscarriage which is a miscarriage due to an infection. I have an appointment in February to debrief so hopefully I’ll get some more answers then.
I suspect that my water did break that Friday afternoon and that infection got into my uterus that way. We're waiting for the tests results to come back on placenta which will tell us whether there was infact a infection inside the sac or not.
I'm not sure how to end this. This story ends with an ending and beginning. Yes its the end of my Son's life but its just the beginning of his memory.
Reid Edward
22/11/2011, 16.45pm
Born Sleeping 16 weeks 3 days
Last edited by Ilithyia; December 7th, 2011 at 01:46 AM.
Thank you for sharing Reid's story with us Sara. I am heartbroken for you losing your darling son. I hope you are able to get some answers. Not that anything can take away the pain, but so something can possibly be done, either at the hospital or in future pregnancies.
Take time to grieve and heal. The grief never leaves, you just learn to live with it. Losing a child changes you forever and it can take time for you and for others to learn and accept what your new "normal" is.
As for Reid's ashes, that's so personal. We have our boys together in one urn in our bedroom. We also wear memorial jewelery in which we've placed some of the ashes, so they are always with us. Others bury them in a place they like to visit. Dont rush the decision.
Reid will always be with you. You honour him with your story. Thanks again for sharing with us.
Oh sara thanks for sharing reids story. I am sorry you had to go through that alone. I was so sad when you wrote 'and that was the last time I heard his HB'.
I hope the debrief can give you some answers I sort of hope they don't bring with them a 2nd wave of pain knowing that there could have been something done.
Sounds like a few hospitals have learnt nothing when it comes to supporting women >20weeks pregnant. It's not like you can be half pregnant. You either are or aren't. And should be treated them same. The outcome is just as important to any mother.
There is no rush to decide where Reid will stay.
Hugs Sara and again thank you for sharing something so private. I'm glad you had your camera.
Thank you for sharing the birth story of Reid. I have such a mix of emotions for you what an experience you went through and may your little man rest in peace watching over you x
Sara, that was so beautifully written, I really feel like I just went on a journey with you. Thank-you so much for being so open and honest with your experience. Much love and strength with you as you walk through the healing process....
I felt the thud onto earth and the reality of waking from dream state this morning, it's not an easy place to walk.
Sara that is beautiful. Even after having you tell me in person and us crying together I find myself in tears now.
You are an incredibly strong and beautiful woman and I am here if u need me. Xxx
what an heart breaking story Sara - thank you so much for sharing. I'm in tears for you and gorgeous little Reid - I'm so sorry that this happened to you
Reid Edward 22 November 2011 ~ Our Story...LONG!!!!
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I'm so sorry for the loss of your precious son Reid.
thank you for sharing and I am so sorry Reid had to leave.
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