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Sunday, May 4, 2008

Losing Sophie

Sophie was our second child. Our second daughter and a child that we had been wanting to have for years. I got pregnant in May of 2007 after almost a year of trying. Getting pregnant is not always an easy task when your husband is in the Army. Between field problems, deployments, and general long working hours, we never seemed to be able to get the timing right. We had basically stopped trying, since my husband was supposed to be deploying again in November. I didn't want him to miss the birth of our child, while he was overseas. I've heard that you always get pregnant when you stop trying and in our case it was true. I was shopping in Wal-Mart for a my husband's birthday card, when I nearly hurled at the sight of salsa displayed in a center kiosk. It took a moment for it to click and then I started to do the math in my head. Could I be pregnant? Any woman who has been pregnant before knows those early telltale signs. So on this particular trip, I purchased a birthday card and a pregnancy test. That afternoon I took the test and low and behold....two lines! I ended up putting the pregnancy test in a gift bag and giving it to my husband as a birthday present. For some reason the children I give my husband are always gifts in more than one way. Our oldest daughter was a Christmas present, since I took that pregnancy test the day before Christmas Eve. Now I would be giving him our second child as a birthday present. Everyone was ecstatic that we were having a child. Especially, our five-year-old daughter. She had been begging for a baby brother or sister for years and now her wish was coming true. We were a little disappointed that my husband would miss the birth, but we figured that if we waited for a time that he wouldn't be deployed, we would never have a child, so it was decided that we would move our furniture into storage and my daughter and I would move in with my parents, until my husband came home. My pregnancy was and easy one in the beginning. I had very little morning sickness and I was able to do most of the normal things with my oldest daughter, that I had done before. We moved our things into storage, moved in with my parents, and adapted to a new life. Christmas came and with it, preparations for our new little girl that would be arriving in the beginning of March. I bought new baby items and even received a few things for Christmas. We decided on the name Sophie, since it was my grandmother's. Two days before the new year, I went for a regular doctors visit with my ObGyn and my urine showed positive for protein. I had to go to the hospital for what would be the first of several overnight visits. They did a non-stress test and everything appeared to be OK. They had problems keeping the heart-rate on the monitor, but they chalked it up to an overactive baby, moving around constantly. I went in a week later for another non-stress test, just as a precaution and red flags started to pop up. They were still unable to keep her on the monitor and couldn't get a good reading, so I was taken for an emergency sonogram. The sonogram showed that I had too much amniotic fluid, but didn't show a reason why. Sophie was also not practice breathing at the rate for a fetus her age and her stomach was not showing up in the pictures. I was sent to a larger hospital immediately, for further testing, since our local hospital didn't have the technology needed. They kept me overnight yet again and did further sonograms and non-stress testing. The next day a specialist came in and told me the news. They suspected esophageal atresia, which basically means that the esophagus isn't connected to the stomach. Because there was no connection, Sophie wasn't able to swallow the excess amniotic fluid and it was building up without relief. They also suspected trisomy 18, which is a severe form of mental retardation and those who suffer from it rarely survive one week. Basically, they handed my child a death sentence. I was scheduled for another appointment, the following Monday, so they could do a 3D sonogram, to see if they could better detect what was going on. At the appointment, the doctor scheduled the first of what would become three amnio-reductions. Basically, it is an amniocentesis, but instead of just taking a sample of fluid, they reduced the amount, since my body was unable to dispose of it normally. They also wanted to run genetic testing to see if trisomy 18 was a correct diagnosis. At this point, the prognosis was not good, so I sent a red cross message to get my husband back home. If we were going to lose out child, I wasn't going to do it alone. My husband flew in the day of my first amnio-reduction. I was terrified, because his plane was not due in until after my appointment and every amnio-reduction runs the risk of putting the baby in distress and requiring an emergency c-section. I was terrified of the needle, of the pain, and of possibly losing Sophie before my husband came home. Everything came off without a hitch though. There was no pain and no emergency c-section, but I would still have to be careful and watch for any signs of problems. My husband was safe in my arms and we were able to hold each other and cry for our child. My next appointment was a week later and they would have the results of the genetic testing and I would have another sonogram, to determine how much fluid had accumulated and when we would have to do another reduction. The day of the appointment brought good news. There were no genetic abnormalities and trisomy 18 was ruled out. The death sentence was lifted, but we were not out of the woods yet. Sophie still had esophageal atresia and would require surgery after she was born to correct it. She would need to be delivered in a hospital with a neonatal intensive care unit and would need a feeding tube put in immediately. There was still a chance we would lose her, but we now had hope. I was also ballooning up with amiotic fluid again. I would need another amnio-reduction to relieve some of the pressure that had built up. I was very uncomfortable and was so huge that I could not drive, tie my shoes, or reach the faucet handles to turn on the sink. As uncomfortable as I was, I didn't want to deliver my child. As long as she was inside me she was safe. My body was her life support system. She didn't need to breathe or eat on her own, as long as she was inside me. In my womb she would stay alive. I had three amnio-reductions total. During the third and final reduction, Sophie kicked and caused the needle to nick the placenta. They had to end the reduction early and were not able to take as much fluid as they wanted. I was 36 weeks pregnant, which is far enough along for a normal delivery, but not for one with complications. My placenta was starting to shred from all the expanding and reducing of fluid, so they tested the fluid that day for lung maturity. Sophie's lungs were not mature, so I would have to try and hold on a little longer. On January 28, 2008 at 5:00 in the morning my water broke. I was only 36 weeks pregnant with a baby whose lungs were not mature enough to deliver. The hospital where I was supposed to deliver was almost two hours away, so we had to go to the local hospital first, so I could be stabilized and transported to the other hospital. While they were monitoring me at the local hospital, Sophie started showing signs of distress and they decided I would not be able to be transported after all. They had to call in a life-flight neonatal specialist team, to stabilize Sophie after she was born and fly her to a better facility. I would also need to have an emergency c-section. Giving birth to Sophie was the most surreal moment of my life. My husband sat on my right holding my hand and the neonatal specialist team was set up at a small station to the right of him. They would take Sophie immediately and get her stabilized for transport. It took the doctor two tries, to pull Sophie out of the womb. At 11:28 am she was born and never cried. I remember laying there and waiting to hear the first scream out of her lungs. It never came. The specialist team took her over to their workstation and started trying to save my daughters life. I couldn't watch and I tried so hard just to stare at the ceiling and detach myself, while the doctor finished the c-section. I was detached, but at the same time, I was totally aware that my child was still alive, but not breathing. They ended up calling in another specialist, to do a tracheotomy and after 20 minutes, Sophie was able to have enough air to keep her alive. After the c-section, they wheeled my out of the operating room. They specialists were still stabilizing Sophie and I passed by her on my way to the door. They allowed me to stop for a moment and pushed me over, so I could touch her. Her hair was so dark and curly and it was so soft when I touched it. This would be the first and last time I would touch my child while she was alive. While I was in recovery, they life flighted her to a larger hospital and three hours later we received a call to say that they did everything humanly possible to save her, but it wasn't enough. Sophie came into the world at 11:28 and departed at 3:30. The next few days in the hospital were a blur. I remember waking up in the middle of the night and having a moment of panic because I couldn't feel her moving inside me, only to remember that she wasn't there anymore. I could hear the other mothers on the maternity ward and their happy visitors. I hated them. I heard the mother next door to me ranting because she was tired and wanted them to take her baby back to the nursery. I hated her. All I wanted was to be able to hold my child, even if only for one more minute and she didn't want her child near her at all. They brought Sophie to the hospital where I was, before taking her to the funeral home. We were able to hold her for awhile and say our good-byes. Our oldest daughter was with us. We wanted her to be able to say her good-byes too. She was sad that her baby sister was dead but wanted more than anything to be able to see her. I held her for a long time and just looked at her and cried. Our oldest daughter sat beside me and snuggled into my side and was gently patting Sophie's head. We took some pictures that are still on a roll of film yet to be developed. They are the only family pictures that we will ever have with Sophie in them. Then it was time to say our final good-bye. Our oldest daughter kissed her baby sister on the head and told her good-bye and my heart broke for my living daughter who wanted nothing more than to be a big sister and prayed for baby Sophie every night. I filled out the birth certificate papers that night. As I wrote Sophie's name, I realized that I would never be teaching her how to spell or write it herself. There were so many things that I would never get to do. I cried silent tears the whole way home from the hospital. I just couldn't help but think that this was not the way it is supposed to be. I should have my baby with me. She should be here. But she wasn't. So I just cried, but made no sound. The tears just quietly flowed down my cheeks. I came home to a room with an empty crib and a bedside co-sleeper that is still in the box. There were baby clothes and blankets ready to be washed and put away and a new diaper bag that would not be used. I couldn't put them away though. Part of me wasn't ready to let them go yet. I was still in pain from the c-section and it was such a bitter pain, because there was no joy of having my baby in my arms. Sophie was buried on a Monday afternoon. The skies were gray and no sun would shine on that day. It was very cold and there was a light drizzle of rain at times. The weather seemed to fit the mood as if the heavens were crying with us. We had a small service at the funeral home with our family. Her casket was so tiny, smaller than any I had ever seen before. I broke down when I saw it. I hadn't actually really cried until that moment. There were tears with no sound, but there was no outright bawling before. I think it was the finality of seeing the casket there. We ended by having a small burial service at the cemetery. Sophie was laid to rest in the plot next to the one where I will be buried someday. She is near her great-grandmother and her second born child who was stillborn. I remember staring out my grandma's grave and wishing that she could be there. She lost her second child too and I just wanted to be able to ask her how she survived and have her there to tell me that it would get better.

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