Remembering

Since the beginning of the school year, Katelund has been taking a gymnastics class every Thursday. She loves going and I love going to watch her. One of the first times I took her, I was very surprised to find out that one of the girls in Katelund's class was the daughter of one of the doctors in my OB/GYN group. The first time I saw her there I didn't know what to do. I didn't know if I should talk to her or not. What if she didn't recognize me. Well she did. She came over and offered her condolences and asked me how I was doing. We talked and cried together for awhile. Ever since then I have only seen her one other time because she usually has her nanny there with her daughter. Well, yesterday she was there again. As we said our hellos and talked briefly, the memories all came flooding back to me.

As I drove home I couldn't help but go back in time as I remembered. I think about Clairisa every single day, but I try to forget some of the more traumatic details of that day...Saturday, July 26th. It was a Saturday that will forever be etched in my memory. A day where my worst fear became a reality. Friday night had been a horrible night. I had been having contractions every five minutes and I had a horrific pain in my back all night long. I kept calling the nurse but there was not a whole lot she could do for me. I was already taking the maximum dose of the procartia they were giving me to relax my uterus (it was very irritated b/c of where the placenta was located...which is why I was having pain and contractions). Anyways, it was a very long night and by the time the morning came, I was very tired and upset because I was just not feeling very good. I called Cory crying and he told me to hold tight because he was going to make me an omlet (Cory's omlets are AMAZINGLY delicious) and be up there with me as soon as he was done making it and after he bathed the girls. As we were getting off the phone, my favorite nurse, Tammy, came in to monitor Clairisa's heartbeat (a routine that was done for an hour every morning and for another hour in the evening). They normally don't monitor the baby's heartbeat so much while you're in the high risk maternal unit, but Clairisa had an arrhythmic heartbeat so they watched it closely. Her heartbeat would be between 140-180 (it was usually always in the 150s) but then it would drop really low for a couple of beats and then go back to normal. They said it was very normal and nothing to worry about but they still wanted to watch it closely. So while Tammy was monitoring it everything was great until the last 15 minutes. Her heartbeat dropped and wasn't coming up. We thought that she had just moved b/c when the monitor can't find the heartbeat it just stays where it was or goes to my heartbeat. Anyways, after a couple of minutes, we both started to feel a little anxious. She went out to call the doctor, but he just happened to be in the hallway at that very moment (this doctor was known for coming very late in the day to do his checkups, but for some reason he had felt impressed to do things differently that day). He came in with the ultrasound machine and by the time she was on the screen her heartbeat was very weak.

As much as I want to, I will never forget the next 15 minutes. When he said the words "we need to take her out now!", I can't even begin to tell you how scared I was. I was trying to call Cory but he wasn't answering (he was giving the girls a bath and didn't hear his phone) which made me panic even more. Once I was in the O.R. they were still trying to find her heartbeat just in case it bounced back up. At one point, the nurse got all excited b/c she said she'd found the heartbeat at 150. The doctor ran over and then said, "No, it's Melissa's heartbeat." It was such a surreal experience. I had a lot of things going through my mind, but honestly I never thought I would really lose her. By the time the doctor got her out and handed her to the pediatrician, her heart had stopped beating. My mom actually asked the doctor at one of my check-up appointments when her heart had stopped beating, but he said he didn't know. By the time he'd gotten to her it was very faint and then gone.

The biopsy of my placenta showed that there was an abruption, which means that my placenta had torn off of the uterus wall just a little bit...but enough to cause Clairisa to lose too much blood. Had it happened on Friday night when I was experiencing so much pain? I don't know. But I do know the Lord was in control. It was all in his hands. I know that with all of my heart. But, as I flash back on the previous experience, I feel my heart trembling within me as I think about what could have been. I miss her. I miss her everyday. Traumatic experiences really change a person. I feel like in many ways I feel more gratitude and love, but in other ways, I feel like I just want to run and hide and pretend like it never happened. It is hard to remember the details. To remember when they told me she had not made it. To remember holding her for the first and last time. To remember giving her to the nurse and watching her lay her little body in a box that I would never be able to open again. To remember waking up on Sunday morning and crying in agony because it really hadn't just been a bad dream. To remember attending my own child's funeral.

It hurts, but remembering is part of healing.

{Thank you to my friend, Laura C., who spent so much time with me yesterday while I was visiting teaching to just let me remember.}