Nathaniel Adam
After reading some of the other birth stories I felt compelled to share
one of my own birth stories. I hope that reading this may help
someone who has gone through a similar situation.
It was August 1995, the time that my husband, Greg and I had been
planning for for the past year. We were already the parents of two
healthy, beautiful children and had decided that it was time for us to
have our third child. I was already a registered nurse, but had gone
back to college after the birth of my second child to obtain a
bachelor's degree in nursing. We had planned this pregnancy so that the
baby would be due about the time that I graduated. So on September 15th
while on vacation at the beach, I did a home pregnancy test and
discovered that I was pregnant. We were thrilled and so was our
daughter and son. The pregnancy progressed normally without any
complications.
When I was 20 weeks, we had an ultrasoud done and learned that we were
going to have another son. We were thrilled. About 4 weeks later my
daughter was hospitalized with gastro, and the next day I also became
sick. By the end of the day I still wasn't able to hold anything down
and decided it was time to call my doctor. Being a labor & delivery
nurse myself i knew how easy it was to get dehydrated during pregnancy.
So I left my daughter in the capable hads of my mother and the pediatric
nurses and went down to the maternity floor where I worked to get myself
taken care of. The next couple of days were a blur. Once I got settled
down in my room, I asked Denise, one of my best friends, to check the
baby's heartbeat because I didn't think that I had felt him move today.
I knew that his movements had been normal the day before, but with being
sick myself and taking care of my daughter I hadn't realized until that
moment that the baby that I had always commented on was so active, had
not been moving as usual. After a couple of minutes of trying
unsuccessfully to find the heartbeat, I was hysterical because I knew
that my baby had died. I called my husband and all I remember saying to
him was get up here they can't find the baby's heartbeat.
Several of my coworkers tried for the next 15 or 20 minutes to find his
heartbeat with no success. They called my physician who was there in an
instant. He then performed an ultrasound that comfirmed that the child
that we had planned for for over a year, was dead. As an OB nurse I
knew that I was in for a tough time over the next couple of days.
Luckily I think I have the most wonderful physician in the world.
He was so caring and supportive and spent alot of time with my husband
and I that night. Of course the usual IV and blood work was done and he
gave me a sleeping pill and told me to get some rest and that in the
morning we would do another sonogram just to be sure and then we would
begin the long process of inducing my labor. Neither of us slept that
night, we were to upset and I like most women I had cared for in the
past was blaming myself for his death.
Early the next morning another sonogram was done, which of course
confirmed that my precious son had died. A couple of hours later I was
taken to labor and delivery to begin the process of inducing my labor.
About noon my physician came over and inserted the suppository that would
be used to induce my labor. That was the hardest part for my husband,
was that I would have to go through the pain of labor and not have a
baby to take home. Two hours later my contractions began and so did the
nausea and vomiting that the medication used to induce labor often
causes. My contraction immediately became very painful and very close
together. I was given something for pain and then I slept for the next
two hours, but when I woke up the contractions were stronger than ever.
I was given someting else for pain, but this time it didn't work.
A few minutes later my doctor came over and broke my water and we
decided that I would get an epidural, which I had never had before. The
epidural was nice. It took away the pain of the contractions but I
wasn't all doped up.
At 9:14pm on January 23,1996, I told the nurse in the room with me that
I felt something coming out and the delivery room was silent as my son
quietly came into the world. He was absolutely beautiful and looked
just like my other little boy did when he was born, only smaller. We
were very lucky in that the cause of his death was obvious at birth.
Somehow he had gotten tangled up in the umbilical cord and it was around
his neck 4 times very tightly. Many couples never find out the cause of
their baby's death but I thank God that we did. We held him and cried.
He was perfect in every way.
We had decided that we would have Nathaniel buried in our family
cemetery. So the next morning, with no time to even adjust to what had
just happened, I was discharged so that I could attend the graveside
funeral service that we had decided to have for our son. It's a state
law where we live that if a person can't be embalmed that they have to
be buried within 24 hours. So we quickly made arangements and just
barely 12 hours after his birth, Nahaniel Adam was buried.
Although I was not sure if we did the right thing, we did not tell our
5 and 3 year old about Nathaniel's death until after the funeral was
over. My daughter, who was 5, was so excited about having the baby and
was very upset when we told her. We had pictures that were taken of
Nathaniel when he was born and our children have seen these. We talk
about him frequently and they have not forgotten about the brother that
they never knew.
The recovery after losing a child can be long and difficult. It
doesn't matter if you are 6 weeks, 6 months, or full term. When you
loose a baby it can be very devastating, especially for the mother and
the father who begin to bond with the baby and imagine what he will be
like from the moment the pregnancy is discovered. So don't let anyone
tell you that your grief is unfounded because it is very real. For me
talking about the whole experience greatly helped me as did the love,
support, and understanding of my family and friends. But I guess what
helped the most was putting my faith and trust in the Lord and knowing
that Nathaniel is in heaven and that I will see him again one day.
As I write this letter just barely a year after his birth, I have since
had another son, Gene Andrew. Not as a replacement to Nathaniel,
because he can never be replaced but as a natural extension of our
family. Perhaps I will write in again about his pregnancy and birth and
about how I dealt with my fear of losing another baby. I hope that ther
is someone out there that may read this and that it will touch their
heart as some of the other letters that I have read have touched mine.
Kim