Almost 20 years ago today I gave birth to my first daughter, my first child. She weighed only 5 pounds 12 ounces and I only held her once.
The story began nine months earlier. I was young, 22 years old, and I was with, but not married to, my first husband and the father of my two oldest daughters. I was on birth control pills so I was not expecting to become pregnant. I was about 10 weeks along before the idea even crossed my mind. When I took a test and the result was positive I was horrified. I didn’t want to be pregnant, I didn’t want to be a mom, and I didn’t want to carry this baby. I immediately made an appointment to have the pregnancy, the child, aborted. My appointment was in 9 days and during those days I completely ignored the life inside me. Every reminder made me angry and was nothing more than an inconvenience. The day arrived for my procedure, as I called it, and I arrived about 20 minutes early. I signed the register, filled out the first time patient info and took my seat. 15 more minutes passed as I sat. Then the door opened and a young nurse called my name. I didn’t flinch. All of a sudden I couldn’t move. She called again and still I sat. I told myself to get up and get it over with but my body would not respond to me. This was what I wanted…to terminate this problem that was inside me. But still I sat. She closed the door and I sat for another 30 minutes and then I got up and left.
I didn’t know what to do. No one knew I was pregnant. I thought of running away and having the baby and putting it up for adoption and then coming back home. But I knew that was impossible…my mom, my boyfriend, they would find me and I was too young and had no job.
Okay…so I had to tell them. I told my boyfriend first, and he didn’t believe me. The stress I had been under was making us fight and we hadn’t seen much of each other and he thought I was using it as a ploy to make us closer. In reality I was glad for the separation and was enjoying some quiet and solace from the arguing. So I let it go, and I let him go. Next I told my mom. She wasn’t mad as I thought she would be. Instead she hugged me and told me she was sorry I had been worrying about it so long all alone. I was now almost 15 weeks pregnant. She made me an ob appointment and off we went. I heard the heartbeat. Took all the tests. Went to all the rest of the appointments and took my vitamins.
We bought unisex clothes, (I opted not to know the sex), and we bought a bassinet and all the other newborn things I would need to care for my baby. We set everything up in my room and I fiddled and nested everyday.
At 20 weeks I still was not really ‘showing’, but I began to finally feel what I knew to be definite movement, signs of the life growing inside me. Halfway there and still scared and confused. My mom was overjoyed, as I was living at home again, and she was excited at the prospect of the tiny newborn that was about to come into our lives. I began to get excited too but was very immature and had never dealt with or even held a small child or an infant. I was the youngest in my family. I was spoiled and unprepared for life.
In my 22 years I had always focused on me and had not really even decided if children were something I wanted or not. I resented this obstruction and felt like something had been stolen from me. At the same time however, I had this amazing maternal instinct kicking in and it was quite confusing and unsettling to be bouncing back and forth from resentment to overwhelming love and joy at the excitement of seeing, holding, and falling in love with this tiny life inside me.
By the time I was 35 weeks along and coming to the final few weeks all focus had turned on the birth and the anticipation of becoming a mom. In all reality I knew that my mom, who was only 45 years old, would have been the rock that pulled me through this experience. I was flying by her lead. She was my resource book of information. She was the shoulder I cried on when I was overwhelmed. She had attended every prenatal visit with me.
Then when I was 37 weeks pregnant I began having pains in the night. The pain was above my belly just under my rib cage. I went to the emergency room and everything checked out ok…they actually just assumed I had some heartburn that I was not accustomed to. They weren’t busy though and the ultrasound tech offered to scan the baby just to take a look. She was joking with me as we rolled into the room to see if I wanted her to try and get a peek at the sex of the baby or if I still wanted to wait. I told her maybe…depending on if she could tell for absolute sure or not. As she began to scan my belly she suddenly got very quiet. Then she abruptly shut off the monitor and told me she would be right back. I asked her, as she was rushing out of the room, if she could tell the sex of the baby or not and she just said, “no, I couldn’t see it”, without even pausing as she exited the room. I lay there for about 5 minutes...in the dimly lit room with my unborn child squirming inside me. Then another tech, a male this time, came in and said “ok, we are all done here”. I was a little confused, but still was alone and very young and had never had any experience in the medical procedures and techniques to do with pregnancy or anything else for that matter. I was easily bossed and foolishly trusted that everyone would always do what was best for me and those I loved. So I accepted their dismissal with no questions. That was a grave mistake that would haunt me forever….
My 40 weeks came and passed as we all awaited the birth of my first born. Then in the middle of the night on November 30, 1988, I woke up with a contraction. I was 11 days past my due date. We gathered our things and headed to the hospital. My labor wasn’t too bad. We were happy and everything seemed to be going along as it should be. By 9:20 am I was 10 centimeters and ready to deliver my child. Then at 10:12am she was born…
Immediately chaos ensued. They didn’t hold her up for me to see. There were suddenly 20 or more people in my room and I could only look in the direction of where I new my child was. I never heard her cry. I asked if it was a girl or a boy and a nurse told me it was a girl. Someone came over and told me they were taking her to another room to ‘work’ on her, they told me she was having difficulties breathing and maintaining a heartbeat. For the next 20 minutes they repeatedly came in giving me updates and asking me questions about family medical histories. Then they told me they were airlifting her to another local hospital, a trauma center, which had a neonatal intensive care unit or NICU. They told me they would bring her through my room on her way to the roof. They described to me what I would see….there were no words however that would have prepared me….
Krystal just before they airlifted her to Shands
All I could do was reach in and hold her fingers. I pleaded to be able to just kiss her anywhere and I was helped to lean in and kiss her foot. Her eyes were open…she looked right at me…and I wept.
During the next hour I had to sign papers and argue my way out of the hospital to go to be by my child’s side. The staff did not want me to leave but I knew I was not going to sit idly by and wait. I needed to be closer to her, not separated by miles in-between us.
When I arrived at the other hospital I was wheeled up to the floor she was on but I was not allowed in to be with her. I was told that I needed to wait for the doctors to come and speak with me. I waited for almost 20 minutes. A young doctor came out and he told me they had done all they could, but that she had a problem with her heart and that her heart was not going to be able to sustain her life. She was going to die and it would be in the next few minutes. The wheeled me in to where she was. She was unconscious and barely taking a breath. They had removed the tubes and they had dressed her in a gown. They placed this beautiful tiny child in my arms and she died in 37 seconds.
They snapped this just as they placed her in my arms...
This was the first baby I had ever held. I didn’t know what to do. I cried and cried and was afraid to let her go. I couldn’t tell you how long I held her. Someone took her from me and they placed her in a bassinet beside my chair. After awhile they told me they needed me to go back to the hospital I had given birth at. They took my by ambulance and I never saw my child again. The next day the doctor that had preformed the autopsy on her came to my hospital and sat with me. He brought me a lock of her hair and the gown she had worn, along with her ID anklet and bracelet. He also brought me the Polaroid shots that you see here. He told me that her heart had somehow become enlarged during about my 30th week of pregnancy. He told me that the reason it wasn’t detected was because it was after my ultrasound, (the first one my ob had done that was on my records), and that no detection could have been made by listening to the heartbeat because as long as she was in utero with the umbilical cord attached the heart still maintained its normal function. It was birth that killed her. The separation of us…when she became dependant on her own heart to sustain her and not mine.
He said he had never come across a case like this before. He labeled it as cardiomyopathy that killed her…but with no known cause of why it had developed. Then he said it was most likely genetic and that I should be screened very carefully before having any other children.
The next weeks were a nightmare. They moved me off the maternity floor when I returned to the hospital and I had no post natal nurses to care for me or teach me how to care for myself after a birth. Two weeks later I ended up back in the same hospital with a massive uterine infection and high fevers that were causing me to have night terrors at night of them stealing my baby from me. I would be woken up from the nurses screaming for them to bring her back to me. After I was physically healed I was feeling so many mixed emotions. I should have had counseling but I never did. When I returned home everything we had bought for my baby was gone…packed or given away. I wish I could have held everything one more time. Touched the bed she would have slept in once more, but it was all gone in the hope of protecting me. Months went by and I would see a baby I thought was about how she would have looked and I would openly breakdown and cry. Just seeing a carseat in a car was enough to overcome me.
I remembered the ultrasound incident that night in the hospital and then understood that these young untrained techs had been mortified and scared by what they had seen and that was why the reaction was so odd. They must have been terrified to have been playing around hoping to see some cute baby images when instead they detected a defect and ignored it.
I thought sometimes that she was taken from me because in the beginning I didn’t want her and the guilt began to be all-consuming.Then as the years went by, and I grew and matured, I began to realize that God does not hurt us or take from us. He gives us all that we need and sometimes His lessons are tough. I was, at 22, a young foolish child that took life and everything it held for granted. I was selfish and self centered. Then within ten months time I was taught one of the most important lessons I would ever learn. Love, unconditional. I learned how to love from the depths of my heart with no boundaries and no limits. I learned it wasn’t all about me, and I learned that I was, one day, going to be the best mom to my children as I could be. I learned they will always come first no matter what and I knew I would be thankful and careful with them from the moment they existed deep beneath my heart.
Thank you Krystal my love…and thank you God...
Just a footnote…..Almost 20 years later in the hospital after delivering my beautiful daughter G, I was given the German measles vaccine. I asked them why they were giving it to me again as I had received it a number of times before, and they explained that I had tested negative for the antibody during my pregnancy and they were required to give it to me before I could go home. At that moment a revelation flooded me. I remembered getting the vaccine during the time I was pregnant with Krystal, right around 28 weeks, just as clear as if it had been yesterday. I didn’t mention it to the nurse but I did ask her why they had to wait until after delivery and she said it was not allowed to be given to a pregnant woman for safety reasons. I went home and researched the vaccine and sure enough one of the complications from the vaccine administered during pregnancy is cardiomyopathy in the unborn child. I looked into study dates and found out this was a known complication as far back as 1986…two years before Krystal was born.
Too late for the court systems and bringing the doctor to justice…but not too late for me to know I didn’t will my unborn child to an early death. Terrible things happen in this world we live in. But God will always be with us and carry us through if we let Him. Yes, I still cry this time of year...I don't believe there is a parent that has lost a child anywhere that does not still feel overwhelmed from the loss at times no matter how long it has been. But I learned...I loved...and she is with our Heavenly Father, where I will once again hold her one day.
