*It's a long one*
I really did mean to write before now. I want to remember these last few weeks forever and I wish I would have written while I was in the hospital, but I was very very tired and emotionally drained and just couldn't bring myself to do it. So, I will try to remember as much as I can. :)
September 16th:
Jeremy and I were not very smart and we had stayed up watching a movie the night before. I really just wasn't tired, even thought I knew we had to be up at 3am the next morning. I think I fell asleep around 12:30am... so on a little sleep we left Washington at 4am to drive to Cedar City so we could be there at 5am and start the ECV. We arrived right on time and our room was all ready and by the time I was changed and had my IV hooked up the anesthesiologist was there to start my epidural. He asked me if I had trouble with my previous epidurals and when I said yes, he wanted to leave. I'm sure doing something like that would be more daunting on someone who had had two previous bad experiences. And this time proved to be no different. :) After a few tries, we thought he had it, but I soon started hyperventilating and then it seemed as if someone was squeezing my lungs. I felt like I was was trying to breathe through mud. It was a very scary feeling and tears started immediately. I just leaned on Jeremy and cried. They nurse was yelling at me to breathe and I wanted to yell back 'What do you think I am trying to do!' It was all very intense. After taking it out, the anesthesiologist ran to the OR to grab a different kit, moved up a section on my back and it went in like clock work. Which is great, but we used up a lot of my numbing time and Dr. Newman and Dr. Gathrum were waiting and I was not completely numb when they started the procedure. That and the unimaginable amount of pressure was enough to make me want to regret agreeing to the procedure in the first place. WOW! They quickly realized that instead of being in the transverse position she had been in on Friday, she had now moved up to being totally breech again (maybe I should not have gotten that massage a few days before :) ) They tried 3 times and although they could get her body to move, her head was not moving. After the third time though, I couldn't stand it anymore. Dr. Newman told me I still had choices :) albeit not very many :) I could A: have a c-section now. B: wait and schedule one for later in the week. C: wait a week and see if she will turn on her own and if she doesn't then schedule a c-section then (but he and Dr. Gathrum both didn't think she was going to turn)... fabulous choices right? Thinking about my recent epidural and the fact that Jeremy was already down and had time off, I chose option A. As soon as I chose, it was like a dance started. There were all these people twirling around doing things and prepping things... "There is no dignity in childbirth" one of the nurses said as she was quickly "prepping" the area. Man, that is true. Jeremy was given clothes and told to change and wait for someone to come get him. I was nervous leaving him I didn't want to do any of this by myself. But he smiled and kissed me and said he would be there soon. He is good at hiding how much he is freaking out. :)
Now, I don't know what I had in mind as far as how a c-section goes, but this next part was NOT it at all how I imagined. They push me into this bright white, busy looking room with a baby warmer and a big metal bed and it is freezing and they lift me onto the metal bed and I want to apologize for the chocolate cake I had the night before :) My arms were layed out from my body, but were not strapped down like people had told me they would be (so thankful for that.) When they threw up the big blue sheet, I guess I really didn't think they would immediately start, but, they did and I had what is called a hot spot where the epidural wasn't working and I could feel the cut. I screamed out and the anesthesiologist started pushing drugs into my epidural and IV. Poor guy, I just kept screaming. Finally he said to Jeremy, "this is the last thing we can try before we just knock her out." Now these kinds of drugs are weird. As a person who has never done drugs before, I don't know if it is like this all the time, but in my mind, I felt completely lucid. But, completely out of control of what my body was doing or what I was saying. Jeremy said at this point I sounded like a zombie. Said it asked him out a bit. That there were 3 times when I "moaned" while exhaling for 45 seconds. He said when he asked if that was normal the anesthesiologist was like, "It's just the drugs." and then when I didn't stop, he quietly would push more drugs into my IV. I on the other hand remember things spinning and shapes and thinking that this is what the Ender's Game movie would be like :) I remember a baby crying and asking if that was Kate. I remember, vaguely, a baby next to my face and asking if Cooper had been born yet. I remember my doctor reassuring me that both my babies were born. Then I remember feeling it was almost violently that I was waking up. There was so much pain and I was very aware of it. I could only focus on that and I remember thinking that I should ask where my baby was and where Jeremy was, but the words never made it out. Just "It hurts". Back in my room, Jeremy came in and I was given some morphine and the pain finally was bearable. It was about an hour from the time Kate was born to when she was brought in. I don't think I can put into words properly what it was like to see her. the only thing that comes to mind is love at first sight. It really does happen :) It was different with Jac and Reese. I watched as they entered this world and were placed on my chest and it was beautiful and I wanted that so bad with Kate. But when they placed her in my arms, it was pretty amazing too :) She latched on perfectly and I don't think I let her go for the next 10 hours :) Things were just about perfect with her there.
I asked Jeremy if he had seen Cooper and he told me he had. As much as I didn't want to, I needed to know how that was. Without going into to much detail he explained that there wasn't much of his body left, 4 inches of calcified bone and a flat placenta. That was hard to try and wrap my head around. Here I was holding this perfect little 7lb 4 oz girl and the baby that I once felt, along with her in my belly was 4 inches of calcified bone. We had been assured that after the birth the hospital would be able to take care of his remains for us. That we could spend our time focusing on Kate. But it was only a few hours before we were visited by the hospital social worker explaining to us that in March of this year a bill was passed that moved the still born age from 20 weeks gestation to 16 weeks gestation. Meaning that Cooper wasn't a miscarriage, he was a still birth. Meaning, the hospital could not take care of his remains, we would need to have a mortuary come and handle his "body". We would need to pay to have him buried or cremated. We would need to fill out a death certificate. We could not just focus on this happy time of Kate's birth.
PLEASE don't get me wrong. recognizing my son as a still birth does not bother me. Paying doesn't not bother me, it was the shock of having to deal with it all. When a singleton is miscarried at 17 weeks, the mother is then induced and the baby is born and the family grieves and deals with it then. We, I, have been dealing with this for 20+ weeks dreading and looking forward to the day I would deliver. To finally get to a place where I want to focus on Kate as much as I can and have this be the happy celebration it should be and then be told that I have to deal with the death of my son all over again. That night they had to give me something to sleep. I cried. A lot. I wrote my Legislature to try and get my point of view looked at. That maybe in the case of a multiple birth when there is not much left of the baby's body, that the hospital be allowed to handle the baby's remains. After all, there really is no "body". And it breaks my heart that I couldn't give my baby a kiss and lay him to rest tucked in a blanket and buried. It completely breaks my heart.
We were released from the hospital on Thursday and made the drive back to Washington. It has been good to be here at my parents. I literally don't know what I would have done without them. C-sections are so different and I was not expecting this type of pain. BUT Kate is here and we love having her here. I feel Cooper with us and I know he will be with us someday. Now it's my job to be worthy to raise him :)
