Just Keep Breathing

Once again, It’s been one week. One week today since the worst day of my life. We showed up at the hospital at 7 am. I was foolish. I knew it was going to be a hard day. I had no idea how hard. I guess I assumed when they induced labor it was an instant thing, and in my case would be quick and easy. Out pops out a tiny baby and then heartbreak. Well I was right about the heartbreak part.

They give you pills to induce labor and then its a waiting game to see how your body will react. It’s actually an absolutely horrible thing to put a mother through. “Hey we know your baby’s dead, but just wait for these drugs to do their thing, could be a couple hours or maybe a couple days we don’t know.” Then you get to go through labor (which I never even did with my first one) then you have to say goodbye to this tiny little human you created but don’t get to take home. Meanwhile, there are nurses and doctors and other hospital staff coming in and out and asking you a million questions. There are these ladies who come in from an excellent program at the hospital called “Forget-me-not” and they help you deal with everything, tell you what you need to know, give you gifts made by other parents who have been there, and they take care of you anyway they can which is really sweet. But all the while your sitting there knowing that you’re going to have to give birth to this child who isn’t alive. And all the sweet helpful nurses, and kind-hearted “I’m so sorrys” in the world can’t change that.

They put a pink rose on your room door to tell everyone that walks by, “Hey these people are sad and depressed don’t come in being cheerful or asking if their baby needs a bath” (which they did with my first who was born 9 weeks early, emergency c-section and immediately rushed to the NICU) Which I guess is a good thing because knowing me if that would have happened I probably would have used some very colorful words and started throwing things at whoever it was. But at the same time it makes us feel, as my husband said the other day, like a dark cloud in a clear sky. Everyone around you is bringing a new life into the world, while you’re just trying to figure out how to keep on living yours.

As if the day needed to get worse, at about 6:30 that evening, I felt something happen. I tell Ben. “Hey somethings happening” He calls the nurse. Nurse looks at me and calls the house OB, she looks at me and calls the doctor. Now I’m getting worried. It’s blood. A lot of blood. Dr looks at me and says we’re going to surgery now! All the sudden their handing my husband scrubs to put on, asking me to sign paperwork, and now there are 30 people running around doing things to you and in your room. He starts telling me all these things, worst possible scenario is my old surgery scar has torn and I could end up losing my uterus. Wait what? I’m 30 years old. I’m too young for something like that.

Long story short, I didn’t. As part of the severe preeclampsia that I was so lucky to get, your placenta can detach from the uteran wall, so that dirty bitch who had already failed and killed my son, was now trying to kill me too. It partially detached and was trying to deliver itself before the baby was out and before my body was ready. I’m sure there are others out there who have been through an emergency surgery like this, but for me the whole experience feels like a dream. Both times. The first time I kept praying “please just let my little girl be ok” over and over and over again. This time, I was scared for my own life. I was losing a lot of blood and feared what life would be like if I had to have a hysterectomy. That meant no more babies. But according to my doctors we’re already at that reality. I can have no more babies. It’s a hard sentence to swallow. I always thought that’s what I was meant to do. But now we know, I’m pretty much guaranteed to get this disease every time I get pregnant and instead of getting better with each one like we were told with the first, I have the severe version which means it will probably be worse each time. That’s almost as painful as losing our son. Not only did we lose our baby but we have lost the opportunity to ever have another one. But actually surgically losing the ability is a whole other scary reality. I guess I’m lucky that didn’t happen, though I don’t really feel very lucky.

This time I wanted to pray but couldn’t. I was and still am sooo angry with god. I couldn’t even ask him to help save me because I don’t even want to talk to him. I guess I should be thanking everyone else for their prayers because that’s probably what saved me. But I however am having trouble with that faith. I have so many questions that don’t have answers. I’m sooo angry with god for creating this baby out of so much love, giving us the little boy we wanted, and then taking him away before he even had a chance. It’s not fair. It’s not right. It doesn’t make any sense. I am a firm believer in everything happens for a reason, but right now I’m having a hard time even believing that. What possible reason could there be to take a baby away from his mother before she even got the chance to care for him? I don’t want to hear, he’s in a better place, because the best fucking place for him is right here in my arms.  I don’t want to hear that he’s with god and the angels and my grandma, etc.. Fuck that! He doesn’t belong with them. He’s mine! He belongs with me! With his amazing father who he didn’t even get to know. With is extraordinary sister, who would have loved him so much. So no, he’s not in a better place and I will simply never believe that is true!

Anyway, the surgery experience is one I might have to write about another time, but all went as well as it could I suppose. It’s very surreal and feels as if you are watching it happen to you. Once I was out of recovery and settled back into our room. They brought us our son.

They had put him in the tiniest cloth diaper I have ever seen, wrapped him in a tiny little blanket with ninjas on it and put a tiny little blue hat on him. I honestly wasn’t sure until that exact moment if I even wanted to see him. I was so scared of what he was going to look like, and that was going to be the only image I ever remembered of my son. But I am so glad I did. He was absolutely perfect. His color was a little different than I expected, but I guess I expected normal baby color and as the doctor told me during the surgery, I don’t do normal, at least not in pregnancy. His color was off because his skin hadn’t gotten to fully develop yet. But he was still perfect. He was a miniature version of his sister. (And I thought she was the smallest thing I’d ever seen) Both of them looked like old man versions of my husband but with my nose. He was beautiful. He was our son. Renix Benjamin Bruce Ohmann. At midnight on new years eve as the fireworks were going on outside our hospital window and everyone else was kissing and drinking, we were crying, and hugging and holding our little boy for the first and last time. That’s the worst feeling in the whole world. All I could do was hold him and cry and tell him how sorry I was and how much I loved him. Like I said before I feel as if I failed him. I just kept saying “I’m so sorry” They let us spend as much time with him as we wanted, they came and took pictures for us so we will always have those memories and then those sweet nurses came and took him to his own room, The Angel Room.

They made us molds and inks of his hands and feet prints. They gave us a heart inside a heart necklace, (there is a little heart inside a big heart and it’s two necklaces). The little heart will stay with him forever in his ashes. The big heart which the little heart fits inside of, will stay with us forever. It really is a very sweet gesture.

Now here I am. One week later. I don’t feel any better. Physically, I was finally able to sleep in our bed last night, oh how nice that was! I’m still sore and bruised all over, not just from the surgery, but from at least 6 different needle marks that I can see. I have tape burns, for lack of a better term, that actually removed pieces of my skin enough to bleed and cause road rash like wounds on my hips from when they peeled off the tape on the bandage over my incision, I’m tired all the time and it hurts to do just about everything, but I’m ok. I haven’t stopped moving and doing things, because I can’t. The day after we came home from the hospital I was cleaning the kitchen. That’s just who I am.Emotionally, I don’t have words to describe the pain. I wake up in tears every morning and tell myself.. Just keep breathing….

Same ring. Z 18 days old. R on the day he was born.