Year of Hell / Dodging the Bullet (BLOG)

[Dodge 7,265]

This post is the Blog entry that is getting removed. I'm posting it in the forum to keep it from being deleted...

 

2015 - The Year of Hell

March 24, 2015 changed my life forever. That day, my wife gave birth to our still born boy at 24 weeks. I had never known what a loss like that could do to a family. I expected my wife to be sad. I expected to be sad. I expected my other kids to not really understand what happened, and have a lot of questions. I was not prepared for the months to come. I was not prepared for any of the repercussions of this Event. Come to think of it, the whole pregnancy was doomed. It was doomed from the beginning. Maybe that's what was so hard about it. We fought so hard for this, and came home to an empty crib... I guess I should start from the beginning.

My wife has medical issues. Issues that until recently, have gone undiagnosed. Her symptoms included chronic pain, fatigue, OCD, irritability, and others. Most dangerously, Pulmonary Embolisms. Because of the PE's, she was on Beta Blockers, Blood Thinners, and several other drugs. We weren't necessarily preventing pregnancy, but we weren't trying for a child either. However, in 2014 we found out that we were expecting #4. We were happy, of course, but we had some mixed feelings a bit as well. Its a little scary having 4. At least for me. But, in the end, it is a blessing having children. It's actually a miracle, if you think about it. 

Everything was ok at first. We had to switch my wife over to a different set of drugs that could be taken by pregnant women. The worst transition was the Blood Thinner. Instead of an oral thinner, we had to move to Lovenox. That's a Blood Thinner that has to be injected in the stomach. My poor wife was stuck with needles daily, and left with dime to quarter sized bruises all over her stomach during the entirety of this pregnancy. This was all bad enough, I think. Dealing with this type of stress along with raising an 9yo, 7yo, and a baby of about 5 months.

Sometime during the late months of 2014, hormones started really kicking for my wife. Her breast milk started to dry up. All of a sudden, the Demand was far greater than the Supply. Baby Dodge wasn't getting all she needed from her feedings anymore. So we tried to start bottle feeding. Supplementing with Formula. Supplementing with Donor Milk. Anything we could get our hands on. Eventually, we discovered that it wasn't enough. Baby Dodge stopped eating all together. She just flat refused. This wound up putting us in the hospital. Baby Dodge was diagnosed with "Failure to Thrive". That was probably the scariest moment for me as a parent. Those were hard words to hear. Was I failing as a parent? How could I let my baby starve? How in the hell are we going to fix this? My mind is going a mile a minute. My wife is stressed, so I have to remain cool to keep her from freaking out. Typical husband stuff. (As a side note, that's about the time I dove hard core into this Crew. It was my escape.) After a week in the hospital, we were released to go home. But, Baby Dodge had to have a Feeding Tube installed. This was to left in for 60 days.

There were some trips back to the ER after Baby Dodge had ripped the Feeding Tube out of her body. It had to be reinserted, and X-Rayed to make sure it was in her stomach instead of in her lung. You could imagine the problems that could cause. Luckily, we were able to get her used to bottle feeding Formula after about 30 days or so. So the Feeding Tube was removed. Shortly after that, we were able to start getting her on a solid food diet. *Sigh* Dodged the Bullet...

...to be continued...

[Dodge 7,265]

... fast forward a couple of months. Things were going well. We had several good weeks dealing with normal family issues. Around the middle of March, 2015, my wife called me at work. Frantic. The baby's Kick Count was down.

It was going just fine. Then she felt the baby moving like crazy for a few minutes. Then...

Nothing...

She had a horrible feeling. I told her it was nothing, of course. But, she had me worried. She had given birth 3 times before. This wasn't a new experience. We had a doctor's appointment the next day. My wife didn't sleep that night. I really didn't either. The next morning, we did what we had to. 

The OB conformed our worst fear. No Heartbeat. My GOD, there's no Heartbeat... We then had to go to the hospital to have a 3D sono completed for verification. The news kept getting worse. He was dead. The pregnancy was far enough along that something had to be done evacuate the womb. Things went fast at that point. What happened? Did we do something wrong? Did we forget something? The doctor's started talking about doing a D&C. That is basically an Abortion procedure. The other option was to induce, and deliver the baby. 

We chose the delivery. We couldn't bear the thought of the baby being extracted. We were warned that the delivery was difficult. But, to my wife, it was the only option. We had scheduled the Induction for the following morning. We handled all of our business for the next few days, found places for our other kids to go. Contacted a Funeral Home about the remains. Cried. 

Not really knowing what to expect, we informed the oldest 2 children about what was happening. I anticipated questions. I anticipated tears. I didn't anticipate the attachment my kids already had with this unborn child. The questions came. Hard questions. Some we couldn't answer. Some we felt uncomfortable answering. We answered to the best of our ability. After all, there was nothing comfortable about this whole fucked up situation. From that night forward, my daughter would never be the same. My beautiful little girl has been scarred for the first time. And there was nothing I could do about it. I went from feeling sorry for myself, and being sad about the loss of my child, to feeling devastated over my children trying to cope with something that hurts. Cut them so deep, that they can't comprehend all of the feelings that are involved. Honestly, I didn't know how badly they were hurting. I wouldn't understand that for months. We had a long road ahead...

We couldn't Dodge this Bullet.

To be continued...

[Dodge 7,265]

... the morning of the Induction is a little fuzzy for me. We had done this before, right? You go to the hospital. Get Admitted. Go to you a Labor and Delivery Room. Then wait for the Nurses and Doctors to get everything ready. Just like the 3 births before. Nope. This was completely different. There was no happy thoughts on the car ride to the hospital. Just the anticipation that this would be over today. What I wasn't thinking about was -that the soothing light at the end of the tunnel, was just a freight train coming my way-Metallica-.

We chose a small hospital outside of the city we live in. We did this because it was easier to for us to manage the remains. I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here.

In the hospital, I remember thinking that it was really quiet. There wasn't anyone in the lobby, nobody at the Valet desk, the pharmacy wasn't open. It was 5:30 in the morning. But that didn't change the feeling, and the ambiance of the whole experience thus far. We took the elevator to the Maternity Floor. Things got better there. The nurses on the Maternity floor were expecting us. They were all very empathetic to what we were feeling, and dealing with. They had blocked off the end of the hallway, which is where our room was. It was thoughtful. Really, in retrospect, it was thoughtful in a couple of ways. We were separated from the rest of the floor. People could comes and go as they please. Everything was to be as easy on us as possible. On the other hand, most people were coming to that particular section of the hospital for a happy occasion. Nobody would want to see an entire family crying, or anything that could make an expecting mother think that anything other than a perfect baby was in her very near future.

...to be continued...

After we had gotten settled in, it was time to begin he Induction. On the paperwork that needed to be signed for the hospital, our Induction Reason was listed as: ABORTION. This was truly unsettling for my wife an I. We understood the reasoning behind the label. But it seemed very unfair, maybe even heartless, to call what had happened, an Abortion. This was not something we chose. This was not something we had decided because of Maternal Health, Rape, or any other reason that can be conjured up in the Prolife-Prochoice argument. This was a fetus, that died in utero. NOT AN ABORTION!

I'm getting off subject...

I can not remember, for the life of me, the name of the drug used to Induce at this time. Normally they use Pitocin, or Oxytocin. The drug they used for this was not available for live birth situations. This was used for D&C, or Abortion situations. We were told that this would cause heavy and rapid onset of contractions. Good to know. They were wrong. This was by far, the most violent thing I've ever seen my wife endure. The contractions were so heavy, and so intense, I could watch the pain shoot through her entire body. The look on her face was utter shock every time they hit. I was beside myself. What can i do? Nothing really. I've watched this woman give birth 3 times. She is a machine in labor and delivery. She doesn't do pregnant very well. And I love her for enduring it. But, Labor and Delivery? She crunches these like Boss, and exits with a mic drop! No bullshit. But, this was different. I've never seen her is this kind of pain before.

It was truly, hours and hours of hell. 

In the end... Our baby boy was delivered. Brennan Jon was still-born at 24 weeks. He was 5" long. 1.6 ounces. He was perfect...

I'm sorry.. I have to stop for a minute...

[Dodge 7,265]

... he was Perfect...

He had what is known as a Cord Incident. He a knot tied in his Umbilical Cord in 2 places. There was no defect, no problems with this perfect little boy. Just  a freak accident. There was some solace in knowing that we didn't do anything wrong. But that didn't change what had happened. Nothing did...

My wife held him all afternoon, all night. Family came to see him, see us and how we were doing. We had him Baptized, and the hospital gave us the whole Birthing Package. Crib Card, Blanket, Announcement Card, etc. The hospital Staff was really accommodating. Actually, they were down right awesome to deal with. 

Most of the day, and the couple following are kind of a blur. We dealt with a Funeral Home in having the remains removed from the hospital. We had him cremated and now have the urn in our possession.

Over the course of the past year or so, my family has dealt with every challenge so far. All the way up until his birthday. We did a balloon release on his birthday. I think that really marked the beginning of the healing for most of us. We've seen some death this past year. We've lost our son, we lost 2 other family members as well. My kids are far too familiar with death, in my opinion.

So we decided to start working on making a positive out of this. If there can be one. We are removing some bushes, and creating  memory garden in the front of my house. I'll try to update this when I can.