Stillbirth Support Group
This community is dedicated to those who have been impacted by a stillbirth. A stillbirth occurs when a fetus which has died in the uterus, during labor, or during delivery exits a woman's body. For help and support, share your experiences and learn how others coped. Don't forget that you are not alone.
Hi all,
Last Thursday my husband and I lost our baby girl, Madelyn Louise, at 32 weeks. I had a busy morning in court and went to the bathroom and noticed a little blood. I didn't think anything of it and continued throughout the day. After lunch I noticed even more blood. I started to feel like I could be going into preterm labor. My husband works at the same office as me so we went outside to call my Dr. They advised that we should come to see what's going on.
I sat up on the table and I was prepared to have the hearbeat checked and to be measured like every other visit. We had a very uneventful pregnancy and all tests came back clear.
The Dr. came in and started to check for a heartbeat. There was nothing. Silence. My husband's face started to turn white. I remember asking where is she? where is she? The Dr. rushed down the hallway to get an ultrasound. The tech frantically looked all over for a hearbeat. Nothing. My husband started crying, what's going on? what's happening? The Dr. and the tech wouldn't say anything to us. After what seemed like hours, the Dr. said we needed to go to his office. There is no heartbeat. The baby is gone. You need to go home and pakc your hospital bag.
I have to deliver this baby?? On top of the grief of losing her, I could not wrap my head around the fact that I had to deliver my dead daugher. I had never heard of such a thing. I was in absolute shock. I asked if I could get an epidural at the hospital he reccomended that we go to, he said yes.
My husband and I zombie walked out of the office. Once we got to the parking lot we lost it. I still can't believe they let us leave there without checking to see if we had a ride. My husband fell to the pavement. He started gasping for air. He was throwing up. He was having a full blown panic attack. I reacted completley differe than he did, I was on auto-pilot, in aboslute shock. We called our friends to come pick us up and take us home. Our friends took our dog to her daycare.
At home, we showered, cried on the floor, and then somehow managed to get ourselves to the hospital. We arrived through the maternity wing and they rushed to the labor and delivery area. They put us at the very end of the hall. The Dr. came in after a few hours and told me that the other Dr. was wrong, that this specific hospital would not give me an epidural. I would have to have a natural delivery. I was terrified.
I was induced and had 19 hours of labor. The pain was indescrible. I was screaming at the top of my lungs. My husband was at my standing for hours rubbing my back throughout the contractions. My mother was crying and rocking on the floor. It was the most traumatic experience of our lives. It was discovered that Madelyn had the cord tightly tied around her neck several times.
She was delivered at 1:13 PM Friday September 15th. She was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. My husband held her. I could not hold her. I didn't think I'd ever be able to let her go. She was baptized. We have many photos of her. I was able to hold her hand and rub her back. The nurses were amazing. They were so compassionate. They let us spend about 7 hours with Madelyn. And then she was gone.
We came back home to a house that was rented because of her. Everything about our new lifestyle and home was for her. We came back to a perfectly completed nursery.
We are both home on leave. We have no idea what do with ourselves. The pain is unbearable. We miss her so much and just wish we had her with us right now. It just doesn't make sense. How did this happen? Is this real? Why us?
There's nothing I can say to make it easier. I've been there, I clearly remember the rawness of those first days. I lost my son at 41 weeks 3 months ago. Also a cord accident.
It's fairly early for me also, but the pain is not as raw as thr first weeks, I can smile again from time to time. I think about him all the time, and I miss him very much but I can do that without breaking down and crying every second of the day now. I promise things will get easier with time, the love for your baby will give you strength and you'll be able to find yourself again.
It's so unfair, so wrong, what happened to us. No one should go through something like this.
Take it one moment at a time now. Try to communicate with your husband as much as possible. And respect each other's grief.
I wish you both strength.
I'm sorry that you weren't offered an option for an epidural. That makes absolutely no sense to me. My epidural wore off halfway through labor but was quickly re established. The pain I felt for that 20 was the worst pain I have ever experienced in my life. To have gotten through that with no epidural - I'm speechless.
I hope you and your husband find comfort in each other.
Our son Ian was born asleep on 08/08/2017. I was 36 wks along and had lost my mucus plug and had began to have contractions. I called my Dr. and she said come in right away. I live 40 mins from the hospital and have a history (2 previous pregnancies) of delivering within 3 hrs or less. We have two beautiful healthy daughters ages 9 and 4 but this was our first boy. I often tell myself that women who have to go through this with their first born are the strongest people on this earth. It would be so easy for me to lock myself in my room, under my blankets and never come out. However, having the girls keeps me going. Telling them that we weren't able to bring our baby home was the hardest thing I hope I ever have to tell them. We all just cried for hours together.
It's true that the grief does come in waves. No day is really better then another but some days I'm able to remain busy enough to not feel the hurt so strongly. I never thought my heart could physically hurt.
There was no determination on why Ian passed. As previously stated I had two healthy pregnancies and everything seemed to be going great with this pregnancy as well. No cord issues. All my blood work came back normal. I did develop a blood clot (DVT) postpartum so I'm undergoing extensive testing with a hematologist to figure out if I have an underlying clotting issue.
Has anyone thought about trying again?
Everything was so normal with the pregnancy. All checkups and tests showed our little Scotty boy progressing nicely, even just 3 days before we lost him...
I woke up with pain the morning of 9/14/17 which got increasingly worse. We went to the hospital but it wouldn't have mattered even if we had gone first thing when I woke up. He had passed sometime in the night when my placenta suddenly abrupted and cut off his oxygen supply. We found out at 9:00am and had to go through the entire labor process to finally deliver our perfect boy at 5:30pm that day. Tests afterwards couldn't give us any answers as to "why." Apparently this "just happens"...to 1 in ~150 moms and they never get any answers.
So all the feelings you're feeling are exactly what I'm feeling: sadness, anger, confusion... It's just a really sh*tty situation and not having any foresight or answers is driving me nuts. I feel you, mama.