It was October 24, 2012. I hadn't felt the baby move since the night before. My husband and I had fallen asleep to his energetic and rhythmic kicks, as I had every night for the past 33 weeks and 4 days. I woke up the next morning, with a slight bit nausea and a twinge of cramping. This was unusual for me, but it was mild, so I thought nothing of it. I laid and soaked in a warm bath - my morning ritual before getting ready for work. It was a time that Nicolai and I had to ourselves in the mornings. A few brief minutes of quietness before the craziness of the morning arose, before my husband and my 4.5 year old daughter woke up. A few minutes to mediate and reflect on the day. He always woke up during bathtub time to roll around with me. I would imagine him swimming in my belly as I floated in the tub. But he didn't wake up that morning; and we would never be able to share those moments together again.
I should have known at that point that something was wrong. Around the time that I registered he wasn't moving or waking up, I heard my daughter call my name from the other room. She had stayed up late the night before, so I knew that getting her ready for preschool was going to be a challenge. My mind switched from the stillness in my body to the responsibilities of the morning. My mind was distracted with everything I had to get done at work that day. I hurriedly got my daughter and myself dressed, popped her in the car, and halfway carried her still sleeping into the classroom at school.
I was acutely aware on the 45 minute drive to work that my belly continued to be silent. I
told myself that it was probably because I had not eaten, and I was
sure that as soon as I ate something or drank some caffeine, Nicolai
would wake up. After all, he had woken up every morning for the past 33
weeks and 4 days. Why would today be any different?
I should mention here that nobody, even my OB, had ever told me anything about doing kick counts - not what they were, when to do them, and what to be aware of. Kick counts were not something that I had done with my daughter 5 years before when I was pregnant with her. Had I been doing kick counts that morning, I would have registered that something was seriously wrong hours earlier than I did.
I got to work and was immediately sucked into the morning hysteria that comes with being a therapist at an outpatient mental health & substance abuse clinic. I did an assessment on a woman slightly younger than myself who had just had an emergency C-section 2 days prior at the same hospital that I was supposed to be delivering Nicolai at in just a few weeks. She had gone into pre-term labor and almost lost the baby. Her baby boy would probably be in the NICU for at least a month. She noticed my pregnant belly and said, "I don't tell you any of this to scare you, and I'm sure that things will go much smoother for you."
Later, a client asked me how much longer I had before my due date. I jokingly said, "I wish I could deliver him today - i don't think my ankles can get any more swollen!" Those were words that I would end up eating later that night.
I texted my husband at 9:20am that I hadn't felt the baby move all morning and how that seemed odd. I texted him again at 11 - still no movement. I still thought that I was being paranoid. Afterall, babies stop moving around as much as they grow bigger inside - that's what everything I had ever read told me. I tried to control my impulse to fly out the door and act on my paranoid feelings (which I have been known to do, too many times.) Those who know me well might classify me as a bit of a neurotic, and I have a tendency to jump to worst case scenarios at a drop of a hat. But still, I stayed. I didn't call my doctor. I didn't go to the hospital. I tried to talk my self down and rationalize the situation. We were understaffed that day and I had so much to do. 12:30, I grabbed a hasty lunch, expecting him to jiggle around at any minute. I visualized him napping inside my belly. Still, nothing. I told myself that if I didn't feel anything after my 1:00 group session, I was going to call the doctor.
Group ended at 2:00. I had fully intended to call the doctor. And then an emergency assessment walked through the door and I was the only one there to do it. My boss was already pretty nonplussed at all the time I had taken off due to my pregnancy so far. At that point I was going for twice weekly NSTs (I was considered high risk due to my diabetes - even though it was very well controlled) and had just had an ultrasound the day before. It didn't help that both my OB and the hospital was 45 minutes from work, so each appointment meant 2-3 hours out of the workday that I was absent.
4:00 came. I was now officially worried. I called my OB and waited anxiously for the nurse to call back. I tried occupying my mind by finishing my notes and approving the notes of others. I chatted with coworkers. Played with a baby whose mom had come in for a group. Waited. The nurse called back at 4:15. I told her what was going on and she said that she wanted to call the doctor before she advising me of whether or not I should go to the hospital. 4:30, she called back and told me to go ahead to the hospital where they could hook me up for monitoring. I had already left when she called. The impending sense of doom had set in, and I knew that I was headed to the hospital whether the nurse advised me to or not.
I called my husband and asked him to pick up Natalie from school. I didn't want to scare him any more than I had already with all the text messages from the hours before. He wanted to meet me at the hospital, but I insisted that everything was fine and that I didn't want Natalie stuck at the hospital with us. I would be home by dinner.
I kept trying to convince myself that I was just being paranoid. I called my mom and told her the same thing I told my husband. I told her that I was sure everything was fine, I was just going to go get checked out. 20 minutes later she called me back and told me she was heading to our house (about an hour drive) to stay with my daughter because my husband called and said he really needed to be with me. It's like everyone subconsciously knew what was going to happen but me. I called my friend and told her the same thing I told my husband and my mom - that everything was fine, I was just going to get checked out at the hospital and I would call on my way home. If I said it enough times, to enough people, maybe it would come true.
The closer I got to the hospital, the more nervous I became. As I turned on the road that led to the hostpial, an ambulance with red lights and sirens rushed immediately in front of me. For some reason, it registered with me that this was not a very good sign. I wanted to turn around and go home. I was scared. Really scared. I followed the ambulance at a comparable speed, parked, and ran to the emergency room.
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