Apparently breathing through the mask worked wonders. I woke up to an extremely itchy nose but as I went to scratch it I realized I was still wearing an oxygen mask. The room was empty and to my right all I see is a door. I have no idea what this room is and not only do I have an itchy nose but I am still so thirsty. I look to my left and I see a nurse and I say 'my nose itches' and she comes over and removes the oxygen mask. At this point I have no idea what is going on, I barely know where I am and I am not pregnant anymore but I don't hear or see a crying baby. I don't even see my husband. Why am I all alone? This isn't right. I was here for the happiest day of my life yet I am in a bed, numb and alone. The nurse says 'Have you gotten to see him yet?' I replied 'him? I had a boy?' I went so overboard with pink that towards the end of my pregnancy my biggest fear was delivering a boy. The nurse says 'I don't know what you had, don't you know what you were supposed to have?' Me: 'I was supposed to have a girl, but I had a bad feeling towards the end that she was going to be a he.' The nurse walks out of the room as I lay helpless in this bed. I still feel foggy from the drugs and I can't move.
Finally Mike walks in and asks how I am doing. I don't believe I replied I think I just asked where our baby was and was she really a she. He said 'Yes it's a girl and her name is Mia. They are just checking her out a little more.' I asked if he was able to cut the umbilical cord and he said 'no.' I said how come? He just said 'I don't know.' At this point I am realizing more is going on than what I am being told. I am just so confused, where is my baby and what is wrong with her? It is 2006 in this day of modern technology and a quote unquote normal pregnancy how can anything be wrong with my baby?
Mike leaves the room and said he was going to check on the baby. When Mike was gone the nurse came back in and I asked her for some water. I said I've been asking for a drink forever, I am so thirsty. She said I could have ice chips. Fine I will take ice chips at this point I will drink from the toilet, someone just help me. She then asked if I had a camera and of course we did this was labor day! She suggested I have Mike take pictures of the baby just in case. Just in case? Just in case what I wonder?
Mike returns to give me the straight forward real details. Our daughter was born at 8:38am, just 9 minutes after checking into labor and delivery. He was not present in the room and he was left in the dark. He was asking doctors and nurses what was going on but wasn't getting answers. He walks over to the door of the operating room and that is when he sees an imagine that he still can't out of his mind. Me laying on an operating table with a drape over me and above the drape he sees Mia's blue and lifeless body being lifted up. She was vigorously resuscitated and intubated and moved directly to the neonatal intensive care unit. In the NICU she was hooked up to monitoring equipment and given medications. When Mike spoke to the doctors they said they do not know what caused Mia to lose oxygen during labor/delivery, her cord was not wrapped around her neck or in a knot. For whatever reason labor was too much for her and she was losing oxygen which was why her heart rate was so low. The doctor then explained that after suffering respiratory distress like Mia did there was a chance that she would not make it through the first 24-48 hours.
So what was supposed to be one of the happiest days of our lives was quickly turned into one of the scariest and most painful days ever. Pathology of the placenta revealed no abnormalities. To this day we do not have an answer as to why Mia's heart rate dropped so low and why she was not breathing at birth. What we did have was a birth diagnosis of Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy (HIE).
To Be Continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment