quick clicks

moms today articles

moms today q&a

community & groups

research baby names

prepare a birth plan

content channels

ip channel rss feeds

read birth stories

read parenting stories

recommended books

e-newsletters

safety recalls

ip diaries

ip store

mom of the month

dad of the month

editor's letter

letters to the editor

Holly's Diary Entries Diary Navigation: Choose A Diary Entry -------------------- Latest Entry: 8/25/04 -------------------- 8/13/04 8/2/04 7/25/04 7/8/04 6/25/04 6/21/04 6/13/04 6/7/04 5/31/04 5/24/04 5/15/04 5/12/04 5/11/04 -------------------- Holly's Introduction

May 11, 2004

How does one begin to tell a story that will surely upset others and cause significant sadness for oneself? I guess I will just start… Forgive me if it is at all scattered, these thoughts have been running rampant through my Post-Partum-Depression-plagued mind for nearly 6 weeks.

We discovered that we were pregnant in January. Since we live far away from our family and most of our friends, we were reluctant to share the news – so many, especially our parents, were upset that we would have another baby while living so far away (how could I possibly function without their sporadic and sometimes unwelcome help?!). We, on the other hand, were totally thrilled. The thought of helping God bring another beautiful and joyful child into the world was (and still is) humbling, awe-inspiring and totally exciting.
Well, true-to-form, I was sick as can be from 5 weeks on. It actually let up “early” at around 16 weeks, which was awesome because I was chaperoning a trip to Europe (20 teenagers) with a friend who is a high school teacher during week 18. The trip was awesome – Paris and London, the highlights being Veneration of the Crown of Thorns (what is regarded as the original crown worn by Jesus at His Crucifixion) at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and a visit with my Aunt and her husband at their home in London. Anyway, back to the story… During my flight back to the States (I was alone since everyone else was returning to Tampa and I was returning to Atlanta), I started spotting between London and Philadelphia. I was crying (hell, I had 3 prior miscarriages earlier in pregnancy – I know what bleeding means…) and didn’t want to disturb the nice British boy sitting next to me (he was on his way to Disney world for goodness sake!) by going back to my seat. But, hey, when you are on a plane with a couple hundred people and every daggone seat is full, you can’t exactly hang out in the loo for 4 hours.
I pressed the assistance button (from inside the lavatory) and waited. A couple minutes passed as I tried to wipe the mascara off my face so I wouldn’t scare someone else as much as I was frightened in those moments. Finally, a flight attendant came to the door and asked if everything was alright – “obviously not, I pressed the ‘help-I’ve-fallen-and-I-can’t-get-up! button’”. Well, shortly after explaining to her that I was 18 weeks pregnant and bleeding, she shut me back in the loo and went off presumably to figure out what to do – next thing I know, they are announcing over the public address system that there is a need for a Dr. or other medical personnel “any volunteers to help a freaking out pregnant lady in the restroom?” Okay, they didn’t say THAT, but it makes the story sound funnier, doesn’t it? No? Well, consider this black comedy. Okay, onward… The dr. was a nice woman from Washington DC who knew less about pregnancy than I do, so everything that came out of her mouth was rushing around in my head already. The nice thing was that she was there and willing to sit with me for a while since I was all alone. The flight crew gave up their own seats so I could lie on the floor with my feet up on a seat (they had a nifty little area with a curtain so the passengers seated all around could not see my face, but obviously knew there was something wrong with me – hello! I was lying on the floor in an airplane with eyes so swollen I looked like a red balloon with a nose and mouth. Anyway, someone had arranged for an ambulance to meet the plane in Philly (literally – I was led off the plane by paramedics to an ambulance right there on the tarmac, a Customs Agent was even brought to the ambulance to check me through) where I was taken to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. (For those of you who are addicted to birth shows on TV, the Discovery Health channel has a show that films a lot at this hospital.) I was rushed right up to L&D, but sat there forever waiting to be seen – it was as if nobody realized that I was rushed there by ambulance from an airplane. I was pretty disgusted as I sat there, getting no answers – no indication when I might be seen. Finally a nurse checked me and saw no “active bleeding” but avoided answering my question about my cervix being closed and tight – I didn’t notice this avoidance until much later. I waited again forever, this time hooked up to a contraction monitor that was showing no contractions (what a good golly surprise!). I was getting impatient and knew I was probably going to miss my connecting flight if they didn’t do something soon. Eventually, I went in the hall and asked the nurse to sign me out – I would rather come home and go to my own hospital with my own doctors with my husband at my side since they obviously didn’t see this as an emergency (I had been waiting for almost 3 hrs at this pt). Well, I would have to be checked by a dr. before they would release me. In the meantime I tried calling the airline to get on a later flight (there wasn’t one) and the dr. came in just as the airline was giving me flight info for the next day. She told me that since I wasn’t getting on a plane tonight, then there wasn’t any hurry and she would come back to check me out in a bit. I tore her head off at that point – did they realize that I was 18 weeks pregnant and bleeding?! That I was there all by myself and now would be forced to spend the night in a strange city… Well, she didn’t care and walked right out the door. ARGH! I calmed down and when she returned a while later (15 min. or so), I apologized – obviously she is not directly responsible for my wait. Well, she took me into a little u/s room and put the cold gel on my belly and started moving the scanner around, then said “There is your baby’s head…” and as she moved the scanner down over the chest, I said “Oh, God, no…” She tried moving the thing around, poking at my belly a bit, but nothing happened… “There is her heart, but it isn’t beating, is it?” I implored. She refused to answer me. She wouldn’t look at me; she kept looking at her knees, her fingers, the screen, never at my face. I asked her if she would try to discover the sex of our baby so I could tell dh when I called him back. Her little legs were crossed and the amniotic fluid was low, so we couldn’t get a good look, we would have to wait for the birth. Another more senior resident came in to give another scan to confirm what I already knew and she just said, “I am so sorry”. In those moments, the attention I received in that hospital drastically changed. 2 nurses offered me use of their cell phones to make calls and they decided to admit me (though not medically necessary) in case I went into labor overnight – they didn’t want me to be in a hotel by myself in a strange city. Sadly, I was taken into an L&D room for the night. I didn’t sleep much, but was relieved when at 5 am, I was checked and still only dilated 1 cm. They called me a cab and sent me to the airport to catch the first flight to Atlanta.
I made it to my husband without any further drama and convinced him to take me to see our daughters before going to the dr. office (he had called my midwife the night before to let her know what was going on). That afternoon, the midwife just comforted me and told me what to expect in the hospital with the induction – then she sent me home to have dinner with my family and get my girls tucked into bed before coming back to be induced. What an angel she was for allowing me that time with my family before the ordeal that lay ahead. We were able to tell the girls that the baby had died and that dh’s mom would be with them the next day because I was going to be at the hospital. We didn’t go into details or anything, but wanted them to know that I was coming home (I had just been gone for over a week already).