February 25, 2004

Monday, March 28, 2011

February 25, 2004

One week later, February 25, they were doing the monitoring as usual.  I was having a tough day, feeling lonely and tired of being there.  Usually they only monitored for 30 minutes, but this day they kept coming and telling me that they wanted to go a little longer.  They kept telling me to drink water and tea.  Finally, after 1 ½ hours, they sent a nurse in to tell me that they wanted to do an ultrasound.  Something came up with the monitoring and they wanted to look at her.  I was upset and wanted to talk to the doctor.  He walked in, someone I had never seen before, stood at the end of my bed and said, abruptly, “there’s something wrong with the baby and we need to do an ultrasound”, then he walked out.  I was very upset then.  The nurse came in with a wheelchair.  Normally they let me walk to the ultrasound, so this was strange.  When I got to the room, the doctor who I had just seen was there with another doctor.  He said to me “I understand that you have a problem with the way we are doing things here.  If you have a problem, you don’t have to stay.”  I was so mad.  I stood up from the wheelchair and I looked at him and said, “You don’t understand anything.  For three weeks I have been on a roller coaster here trying to figure out what is wrong with my baby and then today you walk into my room and say ‘something is wrong we want an ultrasound’ and walk out without explaining anything to me.”  I was crying at this point and he looked a little sheepish.  He said to lie down and we would take a look.  Just then my favorite doctor came in.  He sat down right next to me and touched my leg and said “I understand you don’t know what is going on here.  We just want to take a look.  The monitor of the baby’s heart rate was low and we want to see if we can see why.”  He took over.  I looked at the screen and immediately I could see her little heart barely beating.  I knew something was wrong.  He, my favorite doctor, told me that they wanted to take me down to the delivery and prep me and monitor me some more.  If things didn’t shape up soon they would have to do the cesarean that day.  I got back in the wheelchair and they literally ran me down the hall to the delivery room.  I had to take off my clothes and they began prepping me while they monitored her heart.  Then the doctor came in on the phone, looked at the monitor, spoke to whomever and quickly walked out.  Next thing I knew, four doctors came in looking very serious.  My favorite doctor said, “I just got off the phone with the geneticist and we have the full results from the amnio.  She (he pointed to a female doctor) speaks English the best so we will have her explain it to you.”  She looked at me (I later remembered that she was the anesthesiologist) and began.  “The geneticist said that your baby has a chromosome disorder, a deletion on one of her chromosomes.  We can’t tell what this will mean because it is rare and there isn’t a lot of literature about it.  There is a 99% chance of some type of disability, either mental, physical, or both.  We need to know how you want us to proceed.”  I wasn’t sure what they were asking so I asked what they meant.  My favorite doctor said, “We need to know if you want to take the baby or let nature take its course?”  I looked at the four of them and said, “Are you asking me if I want you to try to save my baby?”  They said yes and nodded.  I told them, “My husband and I don’t believe it is our decision if our baby lives or dies.  That is up to God, but we will do whatever we can here to help that.”  So he asked, “Then you want us to take the baby?”  I said yes.  He said “ok, you are having a cesarean, NOW.”  I asked, “Can someone call my husband and tell him?”  Next thing I know, I am lying on a bed in the OR and the anesthesiologist is next to me telling me what she is going to do.  They put some stuff in my IV and I remember thinking, “I wonder how long this will take…..” and I was out.   

I awoke to two doctors over me looking very concerned.  I thought they were looking that way because Mollie was dead or wasn’t doing well.  I kept trying to talk to ask them about her but I couldn’t because my throat was too dry and hurt a little (from the tube).  They continued to rush around me all concerned while I finally sputtered out “my baby is she ok?”  They looked at me and said, “The baby is fine but your blood pressure is bottoming out.”  Immediately I laid back in peace and my blood pressure went to somewhat normal.  After that, they let Phillip come in, he had just arrived.  The drive from our house to where I was at took a little more than an hour.  As soon as I saw him I asked if he had seen her.  He said he wanted to see me first and I basically told him to get out and go see her.  I needed to know if she was ok and I couldn’t go.  (Later I found out that he was afraid to go see her because he thought she might be dying and he couldn’t bear that)  Finally he went and they had taken a picture for him to bring to me.  She was so beautiful and looked perfect.  I was totally relived then. 

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