Time flies...and stands still

It is fitting that I am writing this part of the story today, because it is officially one month ago today it happened. Time flies. I cannot believe it has been a whole month since I have lost my baby Rosie. However, it feels like just yesterday.

At about midnight on April 20th, the nurse helped me and Foster gather our things and move to the labor and delivery room. As I shuffled my socked feet down the hall, I felt like a prisoner walking to the lethal injection room. In a sense, I was a prisoner of my own body.. My body had failed me for some reason. Millions of healthy babies are born a year. A woman's body is supposed to be able to carry a baby and deliver a baby, but for some reason, my body did not want to follow through. I turned the corner and examined my new room. Immediately, I started to cry. As my family filed in quietly behind me, I realized this scene was supposed to be playing out differently. The calls should have been ones of happiness for me going into labor, but they were calls of sadness of loss. The monitors next to the bed were supposed to be turned on in order to monitor contractions and the baby, but instead they were dark and silent, just like my womb. The baby warmer bed was supposed to be lit up and warm, ready to accept a newborn, but instead it was dark and filled with random equipment that we would not need for this delivery. The room seemed so cold and quiet, because instead of a healthy crying baby, my family was waiting around to say hello to a little girl we would have to say goodbye to at the same time.

I got comfortable in bed, and waited. We had decided that a C-section would be the best option for the circumstances, and we had to wait until 5:30 AM before they could preform the surgery. A nurse wanted to know if I wanted anything to relax. I did not. I don't know why, but I felt like if I fell asleep, I would be abandoning Rosie and I did not want to miss a moment of her inside of me. I could still feel her little head popping in and out below my rib, and I think a part of me was still hoping, still praying that they were wrong. Most of all, I did not want to fall asleep, wake up, and have that moment of realization that this was NOT a nightmare, but it was really happening.

After much encouragement from my husband and family, I agreed to take some medicine. They all felt like I needed to rest before the surgery. I fought it. I fought the effects of the medication for as long as I could before I finally drifted off. The last thing I saw was my darling husband drifting off in the chair beside me. In my medicated haze, I slightly remember doctors and nurses coming in to explain the procedure, the medications, and options with me. However, I was getting annoyed, because when I was asleep, I was back in my perfect life, dreaming of a time before my world came crashing down.

At 7:30 AM the doctor came in and told me we were ready. Apparently my surgery got pushed back because another woman had come in preterm labor, and they had to deliver her baby. I said a little prayer for her, hoping that her baby made it through okay. The nurses prepped me and rolled me into the OR. The anesthesiologist administered my spinal, and I slowly faded into a twilight zone. I had asked the doctors to give me as much medication without putting me completely under. I did not want to remember the surgery, or them taking Rosie out of me. They did a good job, but I woke up twice during the surgery.

The first time I woke up was because my eye itched. When I woke up I tried to scratch it, but realized my arms were tied down, and I couldn't reach. I asked the nurse sitting by my head to scratch my eye for me, and i drifted back into my haze.

The second time I was roused from my drugged stupor by crying. At first I thought I was hearing myself cry, but then I realized the cry was coming from the other side of the drape, "Is that you crying Dr. T?" I asked.

"Yes, Erin, it is me," she responded through sobs.

"It is okay, Dr. T, it will be okay," I said. She sounded so sad, and I wanted to console her.

"No," Dr. T cried, "she is too beautiful, and too perfect. This should not have happened."