The Nightmare Continues.

They began inducing my labor Wednesday night.  Nothing they gave me for sleep worked.  The truth is, I was terrified to go to sleep.  Terrified that I wouldn't wake up.  Terrified that I would wake up. Terrified that I would wake up and think it was all a dream only to have reality come back to me.

We had to start making decisions before he was even born.  The doctor asked if we wanted to see him and hold him afterward the birth.  My heart stopped. I hadn't even considered that part of this ordeal.  I was immediately terrified again.  Terrified of what he would look like.  Terrified that his face would be one of pain and struggle and death.  There is nothing on earth that can prepare you to see a dead baby.  No amount of self talk, rationalizing, anything can ready you for that experience.  Especially when it's your baby.  Your baby that was kicking and tumbling around in your belly just 24 hours ago.  My husband luckily made the decision for us, and I am infinitely grateful that he did.  Yes, we wanted to see him and hold him.  For as long as possible.  My husband was not terrified like me.

Around 4pm on Thursday, the doctor decided my cervix wasn't making as much progress as it should be, and was still tightly closed.  My body continued to not want to let him go.  Initially, I refused pain medication.  I needed to feel every pain.  Every tear.  Every contraction.  I needed to punish my body for failing my beautiful child.  Eventually, the medical staff convinced me that I need it, and I consented to the epidural.  Then, a device which looked like a metal straw and a little balloon on the end was inserted into my cervix.  Its purpose was to dilate me from 0 to 5cm instantly.  The pain was immense.  And then came the heavy gush of my water breaking.  I felt life pouring out of me in waves.  I sobbed until there was no water left to replenish my tears.  This was really happening.  I was really getting ready to deliver a still baby.  My still baby.  My precious little son.

The contractions came quick and hard after that.  I pushed three times.  One, two, three.  And then he was out.  4lb and 14oz of perfection.  Soft, dark hair like Natalie's was when she was born.  All of my husband's facial features.  My little toe.  And such a look of peace on his little face. I couldn't being myself to open his eyes.  

He was so warm.  So pink.  If you were to hold him at that second, you may not even know that he had died.  I kept rubbing his little chest hoping for a miracle.  The miracle never came.

I examined every inch of his body.  He was perfectly formed - even the doctor said that there wasn't a thing visibly wrong with him.  He was exactly on target for weight and length for his gestational age.  There were no obvious abnormalities with the umbilical cord or placenta.  There was simply no visible reason for why this happened.    

The nurse bathed him and dressed him in a little blue gown, knit by a mother who lost her baby at the same hospital.  The nurse took some pictures, and so did we.  I wish we had known or been told about the Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep Foundation by the hospital.  There are several of photographers in our area affiliated with them, and it would have been a great service to have.

My husband and I were still in shock.  Our eyes, hollow and empty as we held our son close to us. We wrapped him and held him with us as all night long.  I was moved downstairs to another room, mercifully no longer in the maternity ward surrounded by the cries of new, living babies.   My body refused to sleep.  I laid awake all night with my baby and husband, cradled in the cramped hospital bed that we all three were sharing.  My husband and Nicolai, it was like they were lying, sleeping, gazing into a mirror at each other. Their faces are identical.  This is both a blessing and a curse on sleepless nights when I watch my husband sleeping.

Morning came, and by early afternoon I knew that it was time for us to let him go.  He was no longer the warm, pink baby that I had birthed the evening before.  He was beginning to change, and that is an experience no parent should ever have to see.  Death is a cold, cruel mistress full of blues and grays.

Our son was gone. And so was a part of me.