May 10th started like any other. Only today was Mother’s Days and I had just hit 16 weeks pregnant with our little bean. As the day went on, I started to feel off. I had gone to the bathroom, and something was wrong. So we rushed to the hospital because I could feel my little bean coming, and it definitely shouldn’t have been happening. *Trigger, I do talk about being in the hospital, our miscarriage and the loss of our son at 16 weeks gestation*
As the day went on, I started to feel off. And he was great! Strong heartbeat and moving like crazy, away from the ultrasound of course! Both my babies did. Something about being camera shy I guess. Mal isn’t like that anymore, thank goodness.
When the OB came in to check, she looked up at me and said she had bad news. I figured it couldn’t have been that bad. I just saw him. He was fine. She started talking, and I disappeared into my head. Nodding and smiling. I mean what else do you do when someone tells you there is a good chance you’ll be leaving the hospital without your baby. She went on to say I was 3 cm dilated and my membranes were bulging. Basically everything keeping him safe and warm was starting to come out.We got to the hospital, and they checked with an ultrasound right away. I had problems with my cervix with Mal, but things worked out just fine with him. You can read a little of his story here. We went for it. I figured it was great! Everything will be fine. Baby will stay inside and I’ll just have to be on bed rest for 24 weeks! I did it once. I could do it again.
Everything was not fine. Baby and I laid in bed at an angle hoping gravity would do some of the work. Constantly checking and hearing that precious heartbeat. I was so uncomfortable, I couldn’t leave the bed, which means a catheter. We were waiting for surgery, so I couldn’t eat. But I would have done it all over again just for my sweet baby. May 11th at, 1 pm I heard his heart for the last time. He died while we were in surgery. I was given an epidural for the surgery, she wanted to be able to ask me questions if something happened and I had to make a decision.
Basically, if my water broke, they would help me deliver him. The anesthesiologist asked if I’d like to be sedated slightly just so I could maybe not see, hear or remember too much. I said yes, I needed just a few minutes of rest, of peace. I didn’t want to be thinking of the worst. After what felt like seconds, they woke me up out of the little sedated sleep I was in. My doctor told me that the baby had passed away and that she could deliver him for me. I could feel the tears, but I don’t remember crying. I said yes because I didn’t want to experience hours of labor, I just don’t think I would have been strong enough. Everything was prepped for the procedure, and she said she could just do a D&C.
Now that I think back on it, I wonder if it would have been different to deliver him. To hold him and tell him I loved him. But at the same time thinking of what he would have looked like happy and healthy seems better than holding him at that 16-week size. My anesthesiologist said I could stay awake for the D&C or she could sedate me more. I just wanted to forget it. This. This whole in my heart, in my stomach. I didn’t want to remember it or relive it. The funny thing is, I remember it all (funny now, definitely not at the time). The words the doctor said, the movement around the OR as they switched procedures. All of it.
Those things that could happen, the stuff the OB said in the emergency room the day before, they happened. My perfect, sweet boy went to be with Jesus.
The rest of the day was a blur. One of the hardest parts for me was leaving him at the hospital. Going home without my baby. Picturing him in some lab, alone. I know now that a lot of that was grief and that he was happy, dancing, and partying it up in Heaven.
You grow so attached to the life inside of you from the minute you find out. I felt like I was empty, that a vital part of me was missing as I walked out of the hospital.
I felt so alone. Unsure how to grieve a miscarriage, a birth, my baby boy. How to handle the guilt, anger, and pain. God has carried me through and still does as we get closer to his due date every day! I know there are more painful days and healing to come. But as I look back the one thing, I realize was that in the midst of feeling alone and unsure, I was never truly alone. My family was always there. My friends broke through that barrier of wanting to grieve alone and showed up for me.
Ezra Simon Paterson
We named him Ezra Simon Paterson. Ezra in the bible means help. Probably a week before all this happened, I had been playing with the name Ezra. I loved it, my husband not so much. He looked up the name. He said, “help”, that’s it that is all it means. We tabled it. I was determined to make him love it. I said we can call him Ezzie. He didn’t like that any better. When I saw him after surgery, I just broke down. It was the first time I had ever seen him cry and the first thing he said to me afterward was, Ezra is the perfect name honey. “Help”, that’s all his name means, and boy has he been my biggest help. He has helped me find a deeper relationship with God, with my husband. Even with my parents, who went through this more times than I think is fair. He has been helping his mama through since the day he was born. May 11th, 2020, at 2:30 pm, weighing 80 whole grams of pure love!
I didn’t get to design his nursery. I got to pick out an urn and decorate a shelf where he sits and watches over us every day. And I miss him with my whole being.
I am 1 in 4 women who go through this. There are 1 in 4 women who have been where you might be. Or you may know one of those women. They are unsure, alone, and in pain.
If you’ve been there, I’m so sorry mama. Just know though, that while you feel alone you never are. There are so many other moms who have been where you are, lived through what you feel is impossible. Who can help you. Reach out, there are so many others just wanting to love on you. I’m one of them. I’d love to walk with you through this valley. Pray with you and just love on you mama.
