Moksha's story Part II - the ending from hell

...continued from last post
(This is still really long despite my having split it in two - but it's what I want to write).

On Friday afternoon, I had calls from several of my friends who had become new mums and who knew I was going to be induced the next day. They were excited about welcoming me into their new club as I graduated from pregnancy to motherhood.

DH came home from work that evening all excited. I started feeling a bit more apprehensive. We were to go the hospital at 3pm on Saturday. After another nice dinner cooked by my Mum, we had a Skype conference call with my Dad in the UK (he was to fly out the next week) and my brother in the US. Somewhere during this call, I started to wonder when the last time Pumpum had moved was. In the early afternoon during a physiotherapy appointment for my aching shoulders and lower back, I had felt kicks. DH said he saw one when he came home at 7pm and did his usual caress of my belly to say hi to Pumpum. Now it was 10pm.

I lay down on my side and concentrated. Nothing. I spoke to Pumpum. Nothing. I poked the hard bits on my belly. No response. I had had itchy stretch marks in the last week (PUPPP) and since it was so hot I had rubbed a piece of ice wrapped in a towel on my belly a few days before to cool down the itching. Boy, Pumpum hadn't liked that much! The ice was kicked immediately and vigourously. I tried that again. Nothing. That's when I started to feel worried although I still didn't really believe that it was possible something bad could have happened less than 24 hours before being induced. DH called the hospital and they told us to come in for foetal monitoring just to be on the safe side.

My mum, DH and I jumped into the car and we took my prepacked hospital bags with us. Mum and DH were excited rather than worried. The baby car seat was already installed. We drove the 15-20 minutes to the hospital. I really still believed it was just going to be a reassurance check and they would tell us to come back the next day as scheduled.

When we arrived we went up to the maternity wing. A midwife was waiting for us. We went into a birthing room and she put the sensor on my abdomen. Silence. No heartbeat. She moved it around. No heartbeat. I think I knew what it meant straightaway and shock started to set in. She mumbled something about the baby being turned the wrong way and kept moving it around. I knew that every single other time I had had this monitoring done, the heartbeat could be heard immediately and the sensor was just moved around to get the stongest signal. She said she would call our OB and left the room.

I should point out at this point that my mum is a hospital doctor. She's not an OB but she is used to hospitals and hospital equipment. She told me afterwards that she thought the midwife was dumb as clearly the machine was broken. (I didn't think this for one moment). I said to DH and my mum, "There's no heartbeat." DH told me not to worry and reminded me of what the midwife had mumbled.

Whilst our OB was on her way in, the midwife came back in with a colleague and an ultrasound machine. They smeared on the familiar gel and took a quick look. Nothing moving on the screen. The only looked at it for a minute as we were all getting distressed. That's when Mum and DH started to understand. It was a possibility that the foetal heart rate monitor was just not picking up sound, but for the picture on the screen not to show any movement indicating a beating heart as well....

My OB arrived. She switched on the ultrasound machine again. She took less than 30 seconds to look at it and then took my hand and looked directly into my eyes. I have some bad news, she said. The baby is gone. I don't remember her exact words. My DH and I wailed together in agony. He put his head on my belly and held my hands tightly. I will never ever forget that moment. It's burned into my brain with a branding iron. My mum asked the OB blankly, "How can this happen?" "It's an accident of nature," said the OB. I started repeating to DH and Mum, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry". They and the OB jumped in to say it wasn't my fault. But that wasn't what I was thinking. I was so sorry for the pain and suffering and disappointment they would have to go through. My mother and my husband. Grandmother and father. No-one wants to see their loved ones suffer.

I asked the OB if she could tell us whether Pumpum was a boy or a girl. She said she could tell me but didn't tell me immediately. She said I would be induced immediately but that it might take 6-12 hours before contractions started. I asked if it was possible to have a Caesarean. I could not imagine giving birth to a dead baby or staying there waiting for 6-12 hours. She persuaded me that it was better for me to avoid a Caesarean if possible. I asked again: is it a boy or a girl. She paused and said, it's a little boy. We had the name ready for a boy - in this blog I've given him a virtual name: Moksha

By now it was about 1am. We had to tell our immediate families. I called my brother in the US first. I had been Skypeing him just hours before, all of us were excited. I wanted to make the call myself as I didn't see why it would be easier for anyone else to make. I was in shock and I remember feeling strangely calm. I wasn't crying. I called him and he was on a busy street somewhere. I heard the excitement in his voice but he couldn't hear me. He ducked into some building and said, now I can hear you.

My baby died in utero I said. I heard the shock in his voice as he said how sorry he was and said how much everyone loved me and did I know that. Obviously that is NOT the news he was expecting on getting a phone call from me. In addition my SIL is pregnant, expecting her second baby for Christmas.

DH called his parents. We debated about calling my Dad as he was on his own at home. But then we did anyway, we couldn't keep it from him. Everyone expecting a phone call with such different news. I am so glad that both DH and my mother were there.

I was given Prostaglandin pessaries at 2:30am. Contractions started not 6-12 hours later but within 15 minutes. My itchy stretchmarks became almost too much to handle. The midwife brought some emollient cream to try and soothe it. DH said he would to rub the cream in - he had been gently doing that for several weeks and afterwards he would lay his hands on my belly, feel the movements, and read a story to Moksha to familiarise him with his voice. As he rubbed in the cream he dissolved into tears in front of me and said, I can still feel him inside - his limbs, his buttocks. I'm so sorry, I said again. Another moment burned into my memory forever.

I gave birth to Moksha at 8:28am. My mother and my DH were by my side. The OB used a ventouse, I'm not sure she would have done so so quickly if we hadn't already known what was coming. They put Moksha on me (they had asked before what we wanted to do when he was born).

Now the moment I am so ashamed of. I feel like I didn't deserve to have Moksha because of this moment. Moksha was perfect, only his lips were a little blue. Part of me was repulsed as I thought, "he's dead".

Part of me didn't know how to hold him as I don't have much experience with newborns and I was afraid of doing something wrong. I so wish I had cuddled him against me and held his head close. I held him gingerly cradled in my arms. His skin was soft. He was warm. He had a head of black hair, like mine. My mother lifted one of his eyelids to reveal beautiful unseeing blue eyes. I'm so glad she did that as I don't think I would have thought to do it. Of course we don't know if his eyes would have stayed blue. (Mine are dark brown, DH blue). The only time I saw my son open his eyes was through the grainy screen of the ultrasound. What did he see? What did he perceive?

I know with my head that I couldn't have physically held him any differently, I still had my legs in stirrups whilst I was being stitched up. But I question whether I wanted to hold him differently in that moment. Today, yes, you cannot imagine how much. But then in that moment, the magical moment of his birth?

The midwife dressed him in a pyjama suit which we had originally wanted to take him home in. DH had the reflex to take a photo of him whilst he was still naked. Once the pyjama suit is on, you can only see head and hands. DH held him and played with his little arms and hands and took more photos of him. He wept - one photo we have (out of the grand total of 13 photos) shows his utter sadness with tears rolling down his face as he holds our son in his arms.

My mother and DH's parents, who had arrived in the morning, all held Moksha in their arms and kissed him. DH's parents took my mother home and we were moved to a ward room. Moksha came with us and was put in a little hospital cot. Another time I deeply deeply regret. Instead of holding Moksha, getting to know his little body, talking to him, we went to sleep! After about two hours, since we had agreed to an autopsy, they had to take him to a cooler room. I said goodbye before he left and I never saw my beloved son again.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

The autopsy results showed that nothing was wrong with Moksha. His internal organs were all normal. He showed no sign of infection. He was 6lbs 14oz and showed no IUGR. Tests on me showed no sort of infection, no mismatching of blood type, no liver problems and I don't know what else - just no problem. There was nothing wrong with the placenta. The cord was around Moksha's neck but only loosely, like a scarf. My OB* said that might have been a problem had I gone into labour, but I hadn't. The amniotic fluid was clear and plenty. His heart just stopped and nobody knows why. I think that he probably didn't suffer and died with the familiar sounds of my body in his ears. I regret that he must have heard me yelling at his Daddy, the best one he could have wished for, during the last weeks of his life. I love you little one. I hope you knew that.

Moksha was cremated and a week after his birth we scattered his ashes in a small peaceful lake in a forest near our home with only immediate family present. The heatwave ended on the same weekend as his birth and the rain fell softly. I found the change in the weather somehow comforting as if the world acknowledged that Moksha was gone. Each of said something. The streams running out of this lake flow into a much bigger lake and eventually to the sea. I am agnostic but I think I believe that Moksha's soul has gone to some other place.

*I don't believe that my OB could have done anything differently. I had so many check-ups and ultrasounds, I can't imagine it to be possible to have any more without spending 9 months in hospital. Three days before Moksha died in utero, my check up with ultrasound showed everything to be perfectly in order. Her follow-up since has been exemplary.

Read Moksha's story Part III