January 10 I had down syndrome
ultrasound done, measuring of the skin
in back of neck. They were excited
how perfect the baby lay and asked me
if I would let a technician do a scan
for her recertification. I reluctantly
agreed. After she was done another one
showed up and asked if she please
could scan for her certification
quickly. Reluctantly I let her,
feeling uncomfortable having my baby
exposed to ultrasound for such a long
time. She pressed on my stomach hard
with the ultrasound to get the right
angle. I went home and the next
morning I woke up bleeding. I rushed
to the ER. They could not find a cause
for the bleeding, except there seemed
to be a small blood clot behind
placenta. They ordered bedrest. I was
spotting for about 10 days and then
the spotting stopped but I had a
yellowish, very wet discharge. At
times it was so much I had concerns
about fluid leaking. I had my ob/gyn
check for infection, which she did
visually, taking no swabs or tests and
was told that this discharge was
normal in pregnancy. I also got an
appointment with an infectious disease
doctor as I was worried about my
chronic Lyme disease flaring as I had
been having low grade fever and sore
throat since second week of January.
She tested me for strep throat and
told me everything was just fine, not
to worry so much. Next visit I was
suspected to have a bladder infection,
however the antibiotic were not called
in on time and I was told to wait till
Monday when the lab results would be
back. Sunday I felt really bad, as if
I was coming down with something, my
fever went high and I was burning up
and lay in bed with cold towels
wrapped around my head. At about three
Monday morning (February 11) I got up
to go to the bathroom and found watery
discharge pouring out of me. Because
of my regular very wet discharge I was
wearing a pad, the pad was soaked, as
were my panties and pajamas. When I
sat on the toilet it was like peeing
out of the vagina. I was very worried,
this was not normal. The smell of this
discharge was strange, almost foul,
but a weird smell I had never smelled.
Yet as I hadhad this very wet
discharge and had been told this was
normal, I resolved to go to my doctor
first thing in the morning. The doctor
was not there and the nurse sent me to
the emergency room. At the emergency
room I was put in a room and a student
doctor came in and did a vaginal exam
that hurt a lot. I was told my cervix
was firm and closed. I went to the
bathroom and there was some pinkish
tissue discharge after I went, which I
blamed on the painful exam with
whatever tool he shoved into me. Two
nurses came in and tried to find a
heart beat with a doppler and they
could not find it, they kept telling
me they were not ob/gyn nurses and not
to worry. They took blood and sent me
uo for an ultrasound. The ultrasound
technician did not say a word to me,
and was talking in a very low voice to
a student. I kept asking her, "Is the
baby aright? Is the sac alright?" And
she just yelled at me, "Ma'am, I;m
doing pictures of the whole uterus
right now...." I started crying. She
continued the vaginal ultrasound and
it hurt. Suddenly I heard a heart
beat, the same strong, regular
heartbeat I knew was my baby's and I
became very hopeful and paryed. She
said she was scanning for a radiology
doctor right now and then had the
radiology doctor called in. That lady
also stared at the screen and did not
even say hello to me. I heard her
say, "There is very little fluid left
around the baby." Only then I knew
what had happened. My cell phone rang
and it was my husband and I told him
the two things I had learned, there
was very little fluid left around the
baby but there was a heart beat. I
heard my husband choke up at the other
end. He was at work and he had no car,
as I had the car. He told me he would
be right there. He ran more than three
miles from his work to the hospital in
icy cold weather, with his hands and
cheeks getting frostbit, no gloves and
tears freezing on his face. They moved
me back down to the emergency room and
when my husband got there they were re-
pulling my blood as they had lost it.
The emergency doctor did not show up
for the longest time and then never
told me what had happened, but nurses
started asking me "When did your water
break?" from which I deferred what had
happened. They said they would send me
to the specialist, the same one whose
office had done the down syndrome
scan, and he would "go over the
options with us." The lady that did
that ultrasound was nice. I was
holding my husband's hand and she let
us see the screen. She scanned each
body part and measured the baby and
let us hear the heartbeat and showed
us the kidneys, stomach, spine, face,
feet, hands etc....
Then the specialist came in and said
that if the water breaks at such an
early gestational age the prognosis is
dim and that he will take a wait and
see approach. He told us that if I
make it to 24 weeks, when the fetus
is "viable" he would put me in the
hospital and put me on antibiotics as
witout a sac I and the fetus were very
prone to infections. Asked why I could
not have antibiotics now he said that
the fetus was not viable yet, and that
the practice was to just wait and see
till 24 weeks. My husband asked if I
could go to work, he asked what I do,
I said Patient Care Assistant (which
is a physical demanding job) and he
said, "Sure you can go to work....." I
asked what the survival rate of babies
whose water broke at such an early
gestational age was, he
answered, "Well, it is not zero."
Asked if Iw as on home bedrest he said
that there is no prove that bedrest
made a difference and that this would
He told me to see my regular ob gyn
the next day. The heartbeat was there
again. She told me to not give up
hope, that she would see me once a
week till 24 weeks and the specialist
would see me once a week. I asked if
the lab results for the bladder
infection had come back and she said
that the sample had been contaminated.
She asked if Iw as "done taking the
antibiotics she called in on Friday."
I told her that on my Friday call the
nurse had told me that they were
waiting for the return of the lab
results which would be on Monday, no
one had told me that antibiotics had
been called in to the pharmacy. I
asked if Ishould take antibiotics now.
She said she would rather not have me
on antibiotics since so few were safe
during pregnancy and that my white
count at the ER had come back normal.
She also said that she wanted me to
stay home from work
So I went home again and started
researching. After a few days of
research I ran into this site and
started carefully reading the stories.
It seemed that those on bedrest and
antibiotics right after PROM did
better than those just sent to "see
and wait." I kept pouring fluid.
Knowing that fluid was mostly baby's
urine it was a sign to me that baby
was alive. However, the fluid got
bloodier and bloodier and Valentine's
Day in the mornng there was a blood
clot and then there was no fluid and I
did not feel baby move anymore. I
prayed for a miracle, the miracle that
the sac had sealed.... In the evening
I started having cramps which I
dismissed as gas pain but I woke at 3
am and the pain was so great and
coming in waves, that my husband told
me those were contractions and he
called the on call doctor who told us
to go to Delivery and Labor. We made
it there and they put me in a room and
tried to do all the things they had to
do and the pain became unbearable.
They were trying to do a vaginal exam
and I was slapping them away and
trying to bite them, my husband had to
hold me down. The baby was born 6:38,
had been dead inside me. I don't want
to talk about the pain that has been
there ever since the hope was
gone.
He was a boy and we named him Canku
Sica, "Rough road" or "Sad road" in
Lakota, as my husband had seen this
boy in a vision long time ago and I
remembered Canku from when he shared
this with me and I recognized Canku as
the little baby we just lost. My
husband got his pipe bag and sage and
they let us do the necessary Lakota
ceremonies to pray for a safe journey
back to the spirit world. I see my son
ride through the yellow grassed
prairie on a buffalo. everything is so
peaceful and the grass dances in the
wind, the dusty earth is warm,
butterflies and swallows fly overhead
and the sun is warm, all the earth
children are standing soldiers to
embrace my son and protect him on his
journey back to the spirit world. Then
I see the buffalo climb up into the
clouds and with him the little bundle
on his back. Climbing up into the
spirit world, perhaps he turned into
an eagle, my tears won't let me
see....
Hau mitakuye oyasin.
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