Hi;
I am both happy and heartbroken to find this site. Happy to find other people who "get it", and heartbroken to find other people who are "living it". My son was stillborn almost seven months ago. That fact in itself is gut-wrenching. Add to it the details that I am 41 years old, had been told that it was very unlikely that I would get pregnant and should consider adoption or egg donation, had a perfectly healthy, uneventful pregnancy for forty weeks and four days, and was in the hospital waiting to be induced the next morning and you enter rip-out-your-heart-and-feed-it-to-yourself territory. My husband and I had lived through being told that IVF wouldn't work for us, accepted the (incorrect) diagnosis that I was in early menopause, and had moved forward with starting the adoption process. We chose an agency and filled out the application - a laborious process that involves writing autobiographies, professional photographs, letters of recommendation, criminal background checks - you name it. We even had written the check for the non-refundable $2,500 application fee and were going to send it in the next day via certified mail; that night I discovered I was pregnant. The adoption agency wouldn't allow us to go forward with the application while I was pregnant, so we put it on hold. Everybody held there breath to see if the pregnancy would survive. Everybody but me. I wasn't nervous at all; I just knew that my baby was ok. I passed every test, ultrasounds, glucose challenge, amniocentesis. Everything was fine. One Friday afternoon, I went in for my weekly appointment. I was four days past my due date and was given the option of going home and waiting for my water to break or staying overnight, trying to get some sleep, and being induced in the morning. We chose to stay. That night we talked to our families on the phone and giddily anticipated the arrival of our baby boy. Every time I got up to go to the bathroom, the nurse came in and attached the fetal monitor to check the baby's heart. 12:30 AM - ok; 2 AM - ok; 6:30 AM - dead. The autopsy showed no fetal anomalies, but there was meconium in his lungs; a beautiful 8 lb. 2 oz., 21 inch long baby boy. Our son Luke. We have a wonderful support system of family and friends, we have strong faiths; we don't have a child. A year and a half after we happily embraced adoption as our path to parenthood, we are no closer to what we believe to be our destiny. We have made progress in our grief journeys and have restarted the adoption process, but at least once a day I wonder if I will survive this. I am able to laugh and hope, but I am also filled with sadness, rage, guilt and shame. How does a mother sleep through her son's death? How did I, a nurse practitioner, not know he was in trouble? How do I continue to work at the hospital where he died? This is the first time I have shared my story with people outside my support system. Thank you for reading it and for offering me hope through your examples.

I'm not sure I can offer much insight here, but let me tell you something about what has happened with my family. My mother, an advanced practice nurse, worked at the hospital where I delivered both my living son and Aeryn, my daughter who died. Her office was right down the hall from the maternity ward, in fact when we would come in to have lunch with her or whatever you'd occasionally hear the little xylophone over the intercom play the first phrase of "Rockabye, Baby" to announce a new birth.

She doesn't work there anymore. Whether that's fully because of Aeryn's death, or a combination of things, I'm not sure. She started a job working from home instead, one of those call lines. Her work did try to support her, and being a Catholic hospital she even got visits from clergy from time to time, but I think it just got too hard to be there, to be right down the hall, to have to go into the NICU and treat the ones that might get to go home. She's older, of course, and there were the other considerations - bad knee, commute time, so on and so forth - but I think the proximity to that emotional pain had a great deal to do with it.

My reaction is the opposite, that I need to get in there and treat the ones who might get to go home, and if, well, when one isn't going to go home in the carseat, be there for those who'll have to go home without that little one as best I can, let them know that there is some kind of after, whether you want there to be one or not.

I think one universal thing about motherhood, whether the child lives or dies, is guilt. I feel incredibly guilty - my first child, I didn't know, I drank tons of caffeine, I thought I was just bloating and swelling, I increased my workouts, I ate less, I moved a piano - my son, well, let's just say the guilt is ongoing, last night for instance I failed to notice his fussiness was due to the start of an ear infection - and Aeryn, well, I did know something wasn't right, I tried to change physicians, I did everything I could think of, but I was trying to save money, I didn't take the psychotic careful steps, the more expensive prenatals, drink the specially prepared teas and measured carafes of water, and then I really almost feel like I didn't get to hold her as she died, although she was lying on my chest with my arm around her and finger in her hand while my mother sang to her and patted her cheek when she did finally leave us, I felt like the anaesthesia kept me from sitting up and cradling her properly, I never got to feed her, I had to make the decision to keep them from intubating and everything else. So the guilt, I'm not going to tell you not to feel it, that would be stupid. But, most of the time if someone else looks at what happened, they're going to say "But you didn't do anything to feel guilty about.." and that might eventually help a bit, or maybe not.

Katherine;

thank you for insight. It is very possible that I won't be working there for long. Four women in my office are either currently pregnant or have delivered babies within the last year. It's just too much. I'm so sorry to hear about Aeryn's death; what a beautiful name. It sounds to me as if you are a wonderful, caring mom to your son, and I will keep you in my prayers.

Katie

Katie,
My heart breaks for you and with you.
I am also a nurse practitioner who lost a daughter just over 5 weeks ago after 4 days of sublte signs of preterm labour, all of which I missed. I provide prenatal care as part of my job. I share your pain. I feel like I should have prevented the outcome given my experience and education level. I'm so sorry it hurts so much. I'm so sorry it happened. I don't have any wisdom to share, but you are not alone.
I will pray for you.
Diana