In the first week of July, Gayatri was to give birth to our first child.
Getting to the stage of being pregnant had taken us a while, several months of consultations, some treatment and numerous attempts.
People frequently asked me if I was nervous. Truth now be told, I'd never looked forward to anything more.
Your life will change forever, they said. "That's the idea", was what I always secretly said to myself.
Each regular checkup brought us a step closer - the first ultrasound, the first time the baby yawned, moved, the first time we saw the spine, the first thump of the baby's heart beat.
We picked out baby names - boys' and girls' - and tried not to go overboard shopping for the new Mommy and the baby.
We wanted a girl; the great-grandparents wanted a boy.
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Tuesday, May 29th, was our regular appointment that marked the start of the 9th month.
It was then that the Doctor noticed that the baby didn't seem to have grown in the last 2 weeks i.e. since our previous regular appointment.
An ultrasound showed that there was interrupted blood flow to the baby through the placenta.
We then knew that the baby was going to be premature.
The biggest risk with a pre-term baby is that its lungs haven't grown enough.
Steroid shots were given to Gayatri (one on Tuesday night and one on Wednesday morning) to boost lung growth of the baby. Gayatri was given Amino Acids drips.
Meanwhile an anxious mother and an anxious husband paced around her hospital room nervously through the night, hoping that things would improve by the next morning.
The next morning's scan showed that blood flow to the baby had improved from the previous night, though hadn't yet reached ideal levels.
According to procedure and to give the baby's lungs the best chance to grow and survive, we'd need to wait 48 hours from the last steroid shot, before doing a C-section.
The C-section was then scheduled for Friday evening.
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Friday evening arrived and the best description of the mood at the time is probably nervous optimism. The situation and blood flow hadn't regressed. The fetal heart rate was normal.
A team of nurses came in to prep Gayatri for surgery. It was 5pm and the fetal heart rate was still normal.
At 6:20pm nurses once again came in to wheel Gayatri into the delivery room. At that point, fetal heart rate couldn't be detected.
Doppler machines of different sizes were brought in and no fetal heartbeat was observed.
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Sometime between 5 and 6:20pm on 1st June 2012, Gayatri and I lost our baby.
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It takes courage to face up to facts when someone tells you that the baby that you've been waiting a year for isn't alive anymore.
To face that fact and then have to deliver that stillborn baby, through a normal delivery without painkillers and injections in her spine, is one of the most courageous acts that I have ever seen.
It requires strength that is beyond my comprehension; that beggars belief. It is why women, even the emotional ones, will always be stronger than men.
It is why holding her hands through that will be my moment of greatest pride.
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Our still-born baby was a girl.
I'd like to think that she would have been creative like her dad but more importantly strong and beautiful like her mom.
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I'm not sure what the reasons are for my writing this but I know what the reasons aren't.
It isn't because I want this to be shared so that someone else somewhere may be helped. What happened is far too recent and I have never been very selfless.
Perhaps I feel that it is necessary for me to get things off my chest for me to be able to start again.
The last 2 days have been filled with relentless thoughts and very little sleep. Some thoughts fly in and out and are forgotten, while others keep coming back and are perhaps significant, in a way that their recency will not let me see.
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Today feels better than yesterday but I'm kidding myself if I feel that life will soon be normal.
Our journey back to Normal is only just beginning and maybe, if we get there, these lines and posts will let me know the road that we took.
4 comments:
It's like the title AJ. One step at a time... And even if it feels like you're far away we're right there with you
After I read your blog, I couldn't find the right words to say what I feel but just that we are always there for you...
Our thoughts are with Gayatri and you.
Thinking of you and Gayatri. All my love
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