Declan / Rosemary

September 18, 2012

 2003 had been a bad year already. In April of 2003, I finally had a scab on my face biopsied. It was skin cancer. Basal cell skin cancer, and it was easy to remove. No big deal, but now it is something I worry about and I go to the dermatologist every year for check ups.In June of 2003 Spencer turned 1 year old and he was still nursing.I got a period, which I don't usually get while I am still nursing, it was weird.In July, I didn't get a period.A friend of mine always seemed to get her period back while she was still nursing so I asked if she was regular right away.She said no, not really. So I didn't think about it any more.

At the end of June I had a one year follow up at the Ob-Gyn. I had had an IUD put in about 8 weeks after Spencer was born. During the check up the Dr. couldn't find the string for the IUD. I told him I'd never been able to feel it.We did a sonogram that day and found the IUD was still there..He wanted a more accurate idea of the IUD's location, so I had an level 2 sonogram done and found the IUD to be there, but slightly off center. The doctor recommended I get the IUD removed and a new one put in. He didn't like that it wasn't where it was supposed to be.We scheduled a surgery day at Mather Hospital and the pre-surgical testing was done on August 20, 2003.

That morning, bright and early I went to Mather Hospital for the pre-surgical tesing. They took about 6 vials of blood. I joked with the phlebotemist about what they needed all that blood for. Vampires, maybe ?. She laughed and said no, and proceeded to list off all the tests they would be doing. One of the tests she mentioned was a blood pregnancy test. I laughed again and mentioned how sure, you want to test for that since that was where the doc was going and they wouldn't want to find any surprises in my uterus while they were in there. Something like that.Ha ha, chuckle chuckle and I left.

I spent the rest of the day out east with my sister-in-law Bonnie and Ted, Pat and Spencer. We went to the Animal Farm and Petting Zoo in Manorville, then we had dinner at Bonnie's and didn't get home until about 10:00 pm that night.

I got home around 10:00 and find a message on the answering machine.

"Hi Cynthia, it's Kathy from Dr. Blaszczyk's office. There was something with your blood tests and we need you to call the office as soon as you can."

Well, I had to wait until morning to call them back. I told Don about the phone call and wondered what it could be as I tried to fall asleep.That morning I started wondering what it could be. Then a thought crept into my head. What if I'm pregnant ? that would really be something ! I took a home pregnancy test and sweated. Then there it was, a line in the result window and a line in the other window.

Holy crap !
The nurses usually get into the office around 8:30, at 8:31 I called the office. Kathy answered the phone.

"Something came back on your bloodwork"

"I'm pregnant, aren't I? last night I started thinking about what could it be and this morning I took a home pregnancy test. It was positive"

"Yes. According to the blood work about 8 weeks"

"Holy crap !"

"We'd like you to come into the office this week and see the Dr. and figure out a new plan"

So, I went in on Monday the 24th. We did another sonogram and found a yolk sac. I couldn't believe it. Getting pregnant with Spencer had actually been a bit of a project and here I was pregnant, and hadn't even been trying. It seemed like a real gift. However there was risk. The Dr. said we could do a couple of things. We could try to remove the IUD, and hope that that didn't cause a miscarriage, or just leave the IUD in and see what happened. The IUD was so off center that it didn't seem to pose much of a threat. He mentioned how a couple of times he had delivered a baby and then the IUD would come out with the baby. One baby ha an imprint on it's ankle from where the IUD had rested against it.

We all decided to just leave the IUD where it was and hope for the best. It was considered risky, but not impossible to carry the baby to term.They wanted me to come in every week for sonograms to check the baby and the position of the IUD.By September 6th we had told a few people.On Friday the 12th of September, there was a heartbeat. We went to a family wedding on the 13th and we told a few more people.At my next appointment on Monday the 15th, the baby seemed to have moved a little and they couldn't get a heartbeat.They told me it something might have happened and that I was to call them if I started having any kind of cramps or bleeding and we sheduled another appointment for Friday morning. Thursday morning, I woke up pretty tired. Back to School night had been the night before, and I was really tired. By the time I got to work, I was feeling pretty lousy. At work, Laura commented on how I didn't look too good. As the day went on, I felt worse and worse. My temperature went up and my back started to ache. At one point, both Dwight and Laura were at the office and commented on how 'green' I looked. Laura felt my forehead and could tell I was burning up. She told me to cal the nurses.They told me to come in right away. I didn't have to check in at the front desk or anything, just come back and see them.I called Don and told him I needed him to come home and stay with the kids so I could go to the Dr's office.The whole ride there, I was sweating like crazy.

As soon as I got in, they got me into the sonogram room.

There was no more heartbeat.

The baby just sat there. There was no movement, no nothing.

I don't remember everything, I just remember this feeling of vacancy.I asked if they were sure. She said yes and looked again all over. They gave me some orange juice to see if the sugar would make the baby have any sort of reaction, but there was nothing.

It was over.

I told her that I hadn't had any cramps or bleeding, nothing except the constant ache in my lower back.She said sometime it can take a while, but it would happen eventually.

I went in to see the doctor. He was concerned about the IUD and wanted to remove it before the miscarriage started.He told me to go home, get some stuff together and go to the hospital for xrays to find out exactly where the IUD was. He said they would probably admit me that night for observation if there was room at the hospital and do the D and C on Friday morning, and then I could go home.

It was a long ride home.There was a hurricane coming. Hurricane Hannah was supposed to be headed our way and it was really windy and cloudy, but the sun was still shining.
Until I got home.
As soon as I started to tell Don that the baby had died, it started to rain. 


We gave the boys dinner. I don't remember who came over to watch the boys, and then we went to the hospital.

We waited and waited.As we waited, my fever started going up, I was getting a headache and the ache in back started radiating down my legs. They took the xrays and told me that I would be staying overnight. Then they asked me if I wanted some pain medication, would I like some morphine ?

"You betcha !" I said. Once they put the morphine into my IV I felt it rush up to my head (where it killed my headache) and then it sort of trickled down to the rest of my body. While the pain disappeared, it made me realize how much pain I had actually been in. It was the first time all day that I felt no pain. I could totally see how people can get addicted to that stuff.

After they brought me upstairs and settled me into my room, Don went home to be with the boys. Hurricane Hannah had turned into a windy thunderstorm and the rain pounded against the window of my room. Once I was alone again, I felt so sad and disappointed. Finally, I fell asleep.

Around 8:00 am they came in and told me that I would be going downstairs around 11:30. They told me to pack up my stuff, because I would be going home later.As I was getting my stuff together, a nurse came in. Her name was Karen, she had been a nurse in my OB-GYN's office and she had recognized my name on the patient list. I told her what happened. Then we both started crying a little.

100,99,98,97....................

When I woke up I was aware of the room being full of sunshine.Dr. Arato was there.He said everything went fine,and asked me how I felt. I fel terrible. I was feverish again, and everything ached all over. He said that he didn't like the way I looked, something didn't seem right and he asked me if I'd like to stay in the hospital one more night. I was so exhausted, I just wanted to keep sleeping. He laughed and told them bring me back upstairs. He said he would call Don and tell him that I was staying.

Of course, by the time I got back to my room I couldn't sleep. While I had been gone I had gotten a room-mate.I don't remember her name but she had had gall bladder surgery, and she was always talking on the phone.Sometime around 6:00 pm she noticed her car keys were missing. It seemed that her boyfriend had brought her in for surgery and then left in her car. He never came back. She was convinced he had stolen her car. Sure enough, he wasn't at her apartment taking care of her dogs like he was supposed to be.This lady spent the whole rest of the night trying to get out of the hospital. She finally arranged for someone to pick her up and she signed out of the hospital AMA.I felt bad for her, but I was not sorry to see her go.

That night, my fever came back like crazy. I was either sweating or freezing. They gave me these IV anitbiotics, because it seemed I had some sort of infection. The worst thing about it was that I had to go pee every 10 minutes.Because they couldn't figure out exactly where the fever was coming from, they kept me another night in the Hospital.

It wasn't until Saturday afternoon that I got to talk to Dr. Arato and he told me what they found.They first did a hysteroscopy (they put a little tiny camera up into the uterus) to find the IUD.

IT WASN'T THERE !

They did the D and C and then went looking for the wayward IUD

Next, they did a laparoscopy ( a tiny little camera through the belly button) and looked around in my abdomen.They still couldn't find it.Then they looked in my pelvic area. They finally found the IUD.....OUTSIDE of my uterus, resting on top of it. The Dr. said he just reached in and plucked it off. He said he's never seen anything like it.

"No wonder I couldn't feel the string ." I said "How did it get there ?"

"Well, it probably happened during nursing, while your uterus was contracting to get back to it's regular size, and then it somehow passed through the uterine wall.That isn't uncommon. What puzzles me is how you weren't in excruciating pain when it happened"

I told him how there had been one morning, about 2 weeks after it had been put in that I felt a very strong pain during nursing. I doubled over and then just rested in bed for about 20 minutes until the pain went away. It never bothered me again after that.
"That's probably when it happened, then" he laughed. 

They couldn't find out what was causing my fever, so I stayed on the IV antibiotics until Sunday. I had a lot of free time in the hospital. I spent a lot of it walking around with the orderlies and Nurses. I went to the hospital Chapel (in my hospital gown, no less!) and prayed and listened to others pray. It made me feel as though they were all praying for me also.

They switched me to an oral medication and my fever and pains finally went away. I finally got to go home on Sunday evening.

I was so sad. I talked everyone's ears off. My friends and family were all great, but I missed my Mom terribly. She had two miscarriages herself and I wished that she had been there to talk to. Of course, once I was home I needed to listen to Duran Duran, and find a way to feel better. Their music has always helped me, and this was definitely one of the times that I needed them. I listened to 'Proposition' and for the FIRST time, I felt what the song was about. The feeling of loss and sadness, and the right to feel angry. It made me feel better. It made me feel that my anger was ok. Slowly, I started to come out of the fog of grief.
I was exhausted.The whole experience had been such a whirlwind. It had been a month of amazing highs and crushing lows. All the people that we had told about about the baby now had to be told about the loss. I let Don do a lot of it, I just couldn't.We hadn't really started talking about names. I 
never knew if it was a boy or a girl, but I needed to call the baby something, to help me grieve about it. I needed to know who I was sad for. I picked a boy name and a girl that I always liked,but ones that I would be Ok about never being able to use again.

It has been 9 years now and this week never goes by that I don't think about my lost baby.

Declan or Rosemary, we loved you very much, and we wish we could have held you in our arms. For one crazy month we were allowed to hold you in our hearts, and that will have to be enough.

'Proposition' is the song that got me through.
While I had always felt like I knew what the song
was about, it wasn't until it happened to me, did I really understand it.