Special Delivery
On the patient care board on the wall they wrote pain management and support under the heading Today’s Goals. Showing their adherence to those goals they offered me Motrin and Morphine which I refused. Each of my nurses offered me genuine care. Nilsa assured me that I had done nothing to cause my baby to die. Abby and I spent the most time together. She started the induction process. Dixie was there to take over the process and she was the one who caught the baby when I delivered him. She cut open the embryonic sac, swaddled my 6 inch baby, and took pictures of me and Darrell as we held him. Chaplain Phil relayed stories of his own stillborn brother, emphasizing the importance of replacing the dreams we had for Noah with memories of him. He told us of the impact a memorial service and burial would have on our children who, without it, might wonder where there brother is.
The theme of support was set by the registrant who hugged me and whispered Christ-honoring blessings in my ear when I started to cry. Others were equally personable. The nurse assistant who led us to our room talked about pampering her dog and keeping nice and warm in the winter. When I commented on her pretty, big, red watch, the IV tech mentioned that the staff had been told not to wear Christmas scrubs and the watch was the best she could do to celebrate the season. Trying to make conversation, my husband said that he figured the rule was made because not everybody celebrated Christmas. Then in a pleasantly defiant way, IV tech remarked that a lot of people don’t celebrate a lot of things. I said I guess you’re right but you never hear of a place banning hearts or the color pink on Valentine’s Day. We all had a laugh then. After one more quip about how we all wear green on March 17th even though we’re not Irish, she left.
My friend Kia had come to visit at about 10am and stayed until just after the induction suppositories were in place. We talked about the blessing of being women and having other women to relate to. She had never had a miscarriage, but she experienced a close friend lose her two children as they progressively got sicker in the womb due to a medical condition. In both cases, the mother had to deliver a thirty-nine week old dead child. My baby was only sixteen weeks. Before she left, after we had laughed and cried together, she prayed for my husband and me; it was an earnest prayer, powerful and heartfelt. She assured me that God would somehow use this experience to minister to other women.
They began the contraction inducing medication at about 11:30. By then I had been there for two and a half hours. I would have a dose—six pills inserted near my cervix—every six hours until I delivered the baby. By 4pm I was contracting steadily. It was noticeable but not too uncomfortable. Twenty minutes after the next dose the contractions became stronger. At 6:49 and they were coming one minute apart. I know the time because I was texting my mother who was at work in Arizona hanging on my every word. She wished she could have been there. When I couldn’t text her anymore, I asked my husband to do it. By seven thirty-five I knew I would deliver soon. The contractions were lasting from thirty-five to thirty-nine seconds and I began to feel the pressure that signaled it was time to push. I also felt the baby drop lower in my body in reaction to my cervix dilating. At seven forty-four I was ready to push. I delivered the baby, who was still in the protection of the embryonic sac, at seven fifty.
I was happy that Noah had come out still in the embryonic sac. I had been warned by the doctor that one of the complications that could occur in this type of induction was that after the baby was delivered, it could take a long time and the assistance of D and C (dilatation and curettage) to get out the placenta. I was amazed to see the sac intact, wobbling like jello, about the size of a partially inflated whoopi cushion. Noah was inside. We could see his pale legs inside the magenta tinted sac. We waited a while. Then Dixie cut open the sac to allow the moment we had waited for. We got to hold and inspect our baby. He, like all babies, was precious. His hands and feet were tiny, a little bigger than the size of a pencil eraser, but his head and torso were bigger, making his whole body be about the length of our hands. I thought it was funny that his penis was already pronounced. He was definitely a boy, our precious Noah who I wished I could nurse back to life and who would live in our hearts forever.
My husband had been with me emotionally since he found out I was pregnant. It was he who had come up with the name Noah after the first ultrasound. The baby was resting and wouldn’t move the way we wanted him to. So he thought of the name Noah, which means rest, comfort. When he was called to the doctor’s office upon the news that the baby’s heart had stopped beating, he had wanted to see the ultrasound for himself. After confirming that our son was no longer alive, his priority became to assure that Noah was treated respectfully through the process of delivery and afterward. We hadn’t decided whether that meant a burial or cremation, but we knew we couldn’t allow Noah to be treated as routine hospital bio-hazardous waste. We didn’t know then that Kennestone Hospital wouldn’t treat any baby that way. They had a hospital sponsored plot of land at a nearby cemetery where they would bury the ashes of all little ones who were lost in the hospital. My husband researched funeral homes and talked to the doctor and chaplain about our options. When the baby was delivered though, he was just as amazed and entranced as I was and we sat there praising God and admiring our child who was made in the image of God.
