This is the story....I continually
leaked fluid from
from 16 wks to 29wks. I would
reacumulate and leak
just about all day every day. It just
got to be in
bigger quantities as Kaden got bigger
with less room
to move. It was thursday August 4, and
in the late
afternoon around 5:30p and I woke up
from a nap with a
big gush of course so I went to the
bathroom, and then
laid back down in the hospital bed. I
asked the nurse
when she popped in around 15 minutes
later to listen
to Kaden's heartbeat and she was
having a lot of
trouble finding it. So she brought in
several other
nurses and went to call my doctor to
come up and do a
sono. They thought that the beat they
were hearing in
the 70's was me. They then wheeled me
into the sono
room and Dr. Howard did a sono, and
his heart was
beating very slowly. I have never been
told exactly
why it dropped and didn't come back
up. The only thing
that would make sense is that he
rolled onto his cord
and didn't roll off. Not sure though.
No we didn't
have an autopsy done. I didn't want to
put his body
through all of that and he would have
still been dead
so what difference would it have
made?... Just my
thoughts on that....SO anyways, the
Dr. told me to
roll over onto my side, and his heart
rate still
didn't go up, so he turned to the
nurse and said.."
get her down to the or for an
emergancy
section"....and they ran for a gurney,
and had me get
on it on my side. WE noticed that
there was blood on
the sono table at that point. We all
piled into the
elevator...me, justin, nurses, my mom,
and step dad
were all in there. They were telling
me to just take
deep breaths and my mom asked
me..."heather are you
alright?.." and I said I was just
scared. I was
shaking, and i started to cry a
little. They sent
everyone a different direction when we
got off the
elevator, so I was all alone
surrounded by bright
lights and medical personnel. they all
started ripping
off my clothes and had me get on the
operating table.
they tied my arm down and dr howard
was already
scrubbed and waiting. they had me sign
some forms, and
inserted a catheter, and put a mask on
my face with
the anesthesia medication in it. The
anesthesiologist
was rubbing my forhead while tears
were running down
my face, and he said not to worry that
he would take
care of me and that i would be okay. I
was just all
around scared. Not really for myself
or for
Kaden...just scared. He said to take
deep breaths and
so i did. I said i felt like i
couldn't breathe, and
they all go..."that means it's
working"....how
reassuring is that?.... THe next thing
I remembered
was hearing dr howard say..."heather,
we got the baby
out and he's not doing too well".....i
think I said
okay...but i don't know for sure. From
what I was
told...they wheeled me into a recovery
unit. All the
while, they stabilized Kaden, and took
him to the NICU
and he crashed on the way there. THey
tried 4
different vents and took them out and
put them back
just to make sure it wasn't a tube
issue. My family
was all in a room waiting and it had
been about 45
minutes from the time we parted ways.
THey then saw dr
howard and his assistant coming down
the hall and he
told them what he knew. the
neonatologists came in and
basically told justin that kaden
wasn't going to be
able to breathe on his own for very
long and the blood
work they did showed " metabolically
incompatable for
survivability".....they said. They
told justin that
the best choice would be to take him
off life support
and let him pass when ever his heart
stopped. He just
looked at the dr, dumbfounded by his
words. My mom was
there with him and she told
him..."justin, honey, they
have to hear you say that's
okay"....so he said okay,
and signed a DNR....From what they
have told me they
would see small rises in his o2sat
which was like
somewhere around the 60's at it's
highest. His lungs
were sooooo rigid. Anyways, they took
him out of the
nicu and took the whole entire
family....like everyone
i am related to, and put them in a
private room, and
justin sat there and rocked kaden, and
prayed that god
would make some miracle and kaden
would get better. he
said that his chest took a big gasp
and the neo came
in and pronounced him dead at
8:05pm...he was born at
6:34pm weighing 2.11.8 lbs and 15
inches.....he had
little rolls on his thighs....so cute!
THe next thing i remember was my mom
on my right in
the recovery area and justin on my
left. the nurses
knew that he was dead and said that i
asked about him
over and over but i don't remember
that and apparently
they just told me they didnt know...
so my mom ask me
to open my eyes, and she
said..."heather, he didn't
make it" i felt a huge breath of peace
from God sweep
over me at that point and said "i cant
hear anymore
right now"....then the next thing i
remember was being
wheeled into my room and the family
was all there
waiting. the nurses brought kaden to
me and i just
laid there and cried...and it hurt so
bad...on top of
a broken heart. i kept him until
around 1:00 am and
then they brought him back to me
around 6:00am that
morning and i had him until 3:00pm or
so. I felt
comforted in some way having him in my
arms.
He looked as if he was asleep, yet he
was cold to the
touch and quite blue in the face, but
his skin was
like velvet. There were two nights
left to spend and
deal with recovery after that....i was
heavily
medicated throughout all of it. I was
hysterical. I am
pretty sure the whole ward heard me
whaling at night.
I was released on sunday afternoon and
had to attend
the viewing of his body that same
night with the
funeral the next morning. It all
happened so fast.
that is the whole story in a
nutshell
Physically I am
doing very well, emotionally I am
devistated, but
there is hope. That is what the dear
preacher friend
that officiated Kaden's beautiful
funeral said , and
that is what I know in my heart to be
true. The women
who are a part of this website that
have experienced
the same loss as me, I have a new
found respect and
understanding for. God in His mercy
and grace decided
to take my precious baby boy to heaven
and spare him
from the suffering he may have endured
in this world.
There are no words that decribe the
utter pain,
disapointment, heartbreak, and dispair
that Justin and
I feel at this time. The
neonatologists that were
working on my baby boy while I was in
recovery said
that the bloodwork
showed "metabolically
incompatible
with survivability"......If Kaden
would have lived,
they said he would have been
profoundly cognitivley
defected, meaning severe cerebral
palsy. I to this day
cannot process that in my mind. Me?
My
child?....mentally disabled in such a
way that I would
have been bound to a lifetime of
changing daipers and
tube feeding my child whom I have an
undescribable
ammount of love for?....It is a
bittersweet and
uncomprehendable situation. I am
thankful to God that
my baby did not suffer for long. That
he went from his
earthly daddy's arms to his Heavenly
father's, and now
his perfect little body is laying in a
2 foot box on
28th street, six feet in the ground
next to many other
babies. How disturbing is that? I
would give anything
to be lying back in that hospital in
that isolated
antepartum room, incubating my
precious boy. Or I
Would give anything to be spending my
nights in the
nicu with him cuddled up to my chest
singing him the
same lullabies I have been for the
last 7 months. As I
write this letter to you, I can not
hardly see to type
for the tears in my eyes. The deep
aching pain inside
of me makes me reflect on Mary the
mother of Jesus.
How did she watch them hurt her child?
How did she
manage to watch him suffer. The man
that she had once
given birth to. The toddler she held
on to as he
learned to take his steps. The pain
must have been
undescribable. I have thought to
myself in the last
few days that surely if she could
endure all of that,
in time maybe in some way I can learn
to cope with the
loss of the baby I so wanted to show
the world, the
baby I so wanted to rock in my arms,
the baby I so
wanted to have look into my eyes and
know that I would
do everything in my power to love and
protect. There
is no fairness in this situation. It
is an unfortunate
circumstance that is a part of Life
that my son will
never have to experience. He was
beautiful. Like a
sleeping angel. I have no answers for
why we must go
through bad things in life. All I know
is that God
still loves me and my husband, He is
softly rocking my
precious baby, and though there is no
joy now, there
will be , and somehow by His Grace we
will walk
through this valley together drawing
closer to Him
than ever before; depending souly on
His strength to
carry us through, and His grace and
mercy to help us
endure this undescribable pain.
I want every woman who has been in
these shoes to know
that we are called by God to share a
special love with
the world. I beleive there is a reason
why we have had
this tragedy occur in our lives. I
don't know what it
is today, but God in His perfect
timing will reveal it
to us, and like I said joy will be
restored. Thank
everyone of you for your continued
thoughts and
prayers. In memory of my angel...I
never wanted to
have an angel by the way. I wanted to
tell you that I
had a miracle child and he beat the
odds. My miracle
was only for an hour and a half and
now he is perfect.
Kaden Michael Kruse B/D August 4 2005
laid to rest
August 8 2005 2.11.8 lbs 15 inches 28
wks 6 days prom
16 wks
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