Wednesday, April 29, 2015

How many children do you have?

So today I went to get a massage. And while filling out the questionaire beforehand there it was...

How many children do you have?

It stung sure but it was more of a buttersweet feeling. 

I PROUDLY put 3. It made me sad but I was also proud. Proud of my boy for most likely trying to fight off an infection. 

Proud of his presnce he keeps around us. 

He is mine. Always will be. 

My 3

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Quotes

So the debate for trying for another baby is hot snd heavy in our house and Indon't mean in a good way. 

I'm not ready to divulge that topic yet and want to put andisclaimer out now. 

This is very normal especially for women to feel. 

In no way, shape, or form am I trying to replace Grant. He will always be in my heart...in fact that hole will always be in my heart too. 

Until the day we die we will mourn the loss of our son. 

But I do need joy. I do need to bring life into this world. I do need to feel in control of something. 

So I will leave you with two things that have stuck out to me in researching about pregnancy after a loss for hopefully when that time comes I'll already know all the emotions that come with that. 


Monday, April 27, 2015

Urn

That's something you don't think about for children or infants....urns

Mr. B and I had narrowed it down between two completely different urns. 

We wanted something to sit on our mantle so we could talk to Grant whenever we wanted (not that we need that to do so) but also something that regular visitors wouldn't know what it was. 

We decided to let the girls decide between the two. And wouldn't you know it like always they disagreed. Over and over and over again. 

So later on I journaled to Grant and said you'll see this for the rest of your life and you'll end up being the deciding factor a lot :). Please give me a sign on which urn you think is best. 

So a little later I showed the pictures again and like the first time Ali picked the one we went with but when it was Ava's turn she IMMEDIATELY yelled that one!  Which was the one Ali wanted. 

I asked a few times showing her the pictures and each time she said the same thing. 

I looked up and smiled and thanked my sweet boy for helping with such a tough decision. 

Today the urn came in...

It's beautiful. 

Grant came in a clear bag from the funeral home and this urn had a nice little cream satchel. So we put the clear bag in the satchel and we all gave him a kiss. 

Now our Grant the Great resides on our mantle where alllll of those wonderful cards are to show just how precious and important he was/is to everyone. 

You will always be with me my love. But now whenever we move you'll come too. 

My baby you'll always be....


Sunday, April 26, 2015

Written on April 21st

I miss your kicks
I miss the BH contractions
I miss the feeling of not being able to breathe
I miss rubbing my belly and smiling
I miss talking to you
I miss day dreaming of our future with you
I miss Ali kissing my belly saying Hi baby
I miss Ava saying Baby Grant

I'm so sad about Halloween and Tday and our first christmas together

I'm sad those polos I got you to match daddy won't be worn

I pictured you in my arms with my thick dark black hair

I pictured you bigger than your sisters

I pictured your gas smiles while sleeping

I pictured your eyes fluttering during REM sleeping

I pictured you sitting with daddy watching football this football season

I pictured having a good mothers day

I pictured having the best bday present ever

I pictured smelling your breath right away just like I did with your sisters

I pictured nursing you

I pictured you sleeping on my chest

I pictured your sisters being in love with you

All of that can not be but we will always love you. 

You were our first born son

You were our third child

You will always be talked about. Never ashamed. 

Your sisters and possible future sibling will know you too. When people ask how many children I have I will proudly say 3. 2 loving girls and one boy born sleeping. Because you were real. 

You were ours. 

My baby you'll always be

Delivery

We arrived at 12:30 on Saturday the 18th for the induction. 

Megan was our nurse. 
She was so incredibely sweet and walked us through everything that would be happening. 
She took a ton of blood so she wouldn't have to bother me again. 

Then she gave me ---- which would help me to start contracting. Very soon after I started to feel crampy. 

When I laid on my right side the contractions were much stronger. 

Mike fell asleep for a bit and I was able to for a little bit. 

At 5am I was checked and I was still not dialted. So another round of --- this time the contractions really hit hard. 

It was nurse switch and nurse Kim came on at 7. 
She was so sweet and told us more on what to expect. 

The contractions were becoming harder so I asked for something but not an epidural because that would most likely mean an overnight stay. She gave me stadol. 

I did not like that!  As soon as I took it with contractions I felt like I was going to pass out. I felt very hot. Kim started leaving a bp cuff on and said my bp was fine. 

The stadol took the edge off of the contractions but I still felt like a knife was stabbing my vagina. 

Also from about 5am I would have diarrhea every hour like clock work. 

Dr Davis came in around 9 and said I was 2 cm or more. I was also told that I probably only needed to be about 5/6 dilated to have Grant. 

She did not want to give another round of --- because she felt my body was doing it on it's own but if I noticed my contractions slowing a lot we would do a dose at 1pm

From then on the contractions got heavy. Very painful. And I started to feel sick. 

Mike was facetiming with the girls and then I got sick. 

Nurse Kim gave me a shot of phengren to help with that. 

I would literally fall asleep for 30 seconds to two minutes and wake screaming with a contraction. 

Around 11 I asked for more stadol but it did the same thing as earlier. No help. 

Nurse Kim was going on lunch so Nurse Kristin would be covering. 

I finally was going to bite the bullet and get an epi but asked to be checked. 

This was about 11:45. She checked and said I was dilated 10cm and she could feel the bag of waters bulging. 

Because of the circumstances she said I could still get an epi but I said no. 

They paged Dr Davis. She came in and checked and said the same thing. She said she did not want to break the waters because of situations like this especially since I've had two previous sections he could possibly just follow right out from the bag. 

I had been bearing down during contractions for awhile to help through them. 

They were soooo painful at this point. I kept pushing through and felt a little pressure. 

Then I really felt pressure. I knew something was about to happen. 

I think it took two or three more contractions and with a push gooosh!

And I opened my eyes for a split second and there was the water bag, blood, fluid, and my baby boy. Laying on his right side and he had turned (well the fluid made him float and turn) and he came out head first.

 (The confirmation ultrasound listed him as breech). 

I closed my eyes to get through the rest of the contraction. 

Then Dr Davis cut his tiny little cord and they scooped him up to clean him and take some pictures. 

They started me on pitocin to help get the placenta out and start contracting my uterus since I wouldn't obviously be breast feeding. 

They let us hold him for a minute then took a few naked pictures. Then took him to bereavement to take a few samples to test for infection and chromosomal. 

About 15 minutes later Dr Davis came back in and asked if I was contracting. I wasn't so she went in and pulled my placenta out. 

She's testing that as well. 

They then cleaned Grant up, did his foot prints, dressed him, took some pictures then let is hold him and took pictures of us. 

I was able to get a little cleaned up which felt good. 

We took turns holding Grant and talking to him. 

Mike was a mess. Crying a lot. 

I stayed strong that whole day. I knew that day I had to be strong for my baby boy. 

I looked over every crevice of his body that wasn't clothed. I whispered special things to him that only him and I will ever know. 

I couldn't tell if he had my toes because they were too closed together but he definitely had my chin. 

It was hard. He had been passed for awhile so his eye brows and lips were white where the skin was changing. 

His face was a little swollen so I fully expect it to come back as some kind of infection. 

But from his side view I could see a resemblance of the girls. 

Some parts of his body his skin was peeling (shoulders etc). 

His body was soft and tacky and reddish of course. 

But he was my boy. 

We had a chaplain come in and bless him. Nurse Kim stayed and prayed with us. 

The chaplain gave us a beautiful white cloth with a cross stitched that she put on him while praying. She also gave us a bigger cross which was nice. 

Around 4 we were going to be transferred to recovery so we said our final physical goodbyes to our first son. 

In recovery I was able to get to eat after I hadn't eaten in 24 hours. 

Someone came in to take info for the death certificate....death certificate. What a horrible thing. 

I was doing well so I asked if I could be released around 5:30

I got dressed and waited for a wheelchair. 

It never came. So I opened my door. 

And there on the door was a picture of a leaf with a rain drop falling on it.

I knew right away that meant parent of a loss and to try and keep her away from crying babies. 

My nurse came back and wheeled me to the car. 

And with that we left our sweet boy there alone. 

I love you my son. Until we meet again...



Saturday, April 25, 2015

April 16th

It was the day of my 6 month appointment. 

The night before I actually had a tiny bit of reddish to pink discharge but no cramping. This also happened at 11 weeks and I had to see a NP and did an internal ultrasound which showed everything was well. 

Then it went away. 

But I mentioned it to my doc. I had an uneasy feeling deep down. I'm sure I knew on some level. 

Grant just wasn't a kicker. So it was common to go a day without feeling him. 

I had even brought the girls. 

And then she couldn't find the heartbeat on the doppler. 

The girls were being loud and silly and I knew my doctor was growing anxious. I'm sure just blaming it on them but I knew better. 

She brought in her old ultrasound machine. She had to turn the lights completely off. 

I knew right away there was no heartbeat and my doctor started to cry and say I'm sorry. 

She wanted me to get a real ultrasound just in case. So the nurse escorted me and the girls down (the looks in the waiting room of the doc and ultrasound were of oh shit this can't be good looks). 

I Was escorted right away into a room and the nurse kept the girls outside. 

The tech right away said I'm sorry.

She did a quick measurement and when the info popped up I saw EDD 8/10/2015 then the computers EDD 9/5/2015. 

Right away I knew something bad happened soon after my 5 month scan. 

It was picture perfect by the way. I say it was the most detailed ultrasound I've ever had. And I've had roughly 20 between the three. 

That tech checked placement or organs and functionality of them, valves in the heart, certain things in the brain, even checked for cleft lip and palate. 

My quad screen was negative at 16 weeks. 

So we shuffled back to the doctors actual office. 

The girls were oblivious. Getting suckers and kicking off their rain boots to relax. 

I couldn't even muster the strength to cal Me. b. I text. We lost him. He called inconsolable and I told him In Couldn't right now. 

My doctor told me that I could go for an induction right away or come back whenever I Was ready. And even though I had two previous sections she wanted me to deliver vaginally. 

I literally thought what in the fuck?  But she said he would be small enough she wasn't concerned with any issues and it wasn't good to have a section for him being so small. 

So I left saying I would call the next day (Friday). 

Mr. b had zoomed there and met us at the elevators. 

I kept my cool until we got to the car and we both lost it. 

Our baby boy...our first boy....our third child was gone....

Those horrible gut wrenching words...

I'm so sorry. There's no heartbeat. 

I sucked at the blog thing. I really did. 

I felt such guilt over not updating weekly like I did with the girls but I was sooo sick this pregnancy coupled with working from home, doing all household stuff and having the girls at home left me no available feeling giddy enough to update. 

But let me assure you. My little boy was soooo loved by me. So so loved. 

And then it was all taken away from me in an instant.