The story of Nina-Lou

I got pregnant with Nina-Louise in April of 2013 after having 3 early miscarriages in the year prior.  My pregnancy with her immediately felt different from my previous pregnancies.  It felt... secure.  When I was 8 weeks pregnant, we went in for a viability scan.  That morning, before the appointment, when I was walking Riggs in the park, I looked down to see a single butterfly wing sitting on the ground at my feet.  I thought it might be a good omen.  I knew it was silly; I don't believe in omens or fate or any of that shit.  But I wanted this one to work, and I thought it would, and I wanted something out there to tell me that it was ok to have faith in this little nug, burrowing its way into me.  Hours later, I saw her little heart beating away on a fuzzy computer screen.  She was alive.  Turner and I looked at each other with raised eyebrows: holy shit, we might actually have a baby.

We held our breath for the next 4 weeks, just waiting for the bleeding to start, or for my symptoms to go away (they did come and go a lot, and I was convinced on more than one occasion that we had lost her), or for the bad news at the next ultrasound.  I went in again at 10 weeks, and to our amazement she was still in there, and even waving her tiny arms and legs around.  At 12 weeks we had an NT scan, and she was so active that they could barely get the measurements.  We were so proud.  She was given an astronomically low chance of Downs and some other genetic issues.

At 15 weeks, on a camping trip with friends, I felt her kick for the first time.  Two little flutters on one side of my belly, then two little flutters on the other side.  It was real.  There was really a person growing in there.

When I was 16 weeks they wanted me to come in to check my cervix, and they did a pretty thorough check of the baby, as well.  They said she was a girl.  We had already felt it.  We knew.  She was our baby girl and she was alive and it was really happening for us.  My heart felt like it would burst!  I had everything I had been wanting and dreaming about for so long.

We did the 20 week anatomy scan, and everything looked amazing.  She had all of her little fingers and toes.  Her umbilical cord was functioning well.  Her organs were all there and doing their jobs.  I stared at her beautiful profile and imagined what her face would look like.  I imagined she would have my small nose and chubby cheeks, Turner's dark hair and perfect mouth.  I asked the tech at the end of the scan, "Is there anything, any little, seemingly insignificant thing, that I need to worry about or follow up on?"  She said, no, the baby looked perfect.  I agreed.  She was my daughter, and she was perfect.

At that point, I let myself go completely from worry.  I still had nagging doubts, I knew that babies sometimes died later in pregnancy, but I knew that wouldn't happen to us.  We had paid our dues.  We had suffered 3 losses already.  We had waited long enough.  Anytime I heard about or read about a stillbirth, I shut my ears to it completely; don't tell me that, I don't want to see that, I don't need to freak myself out worrying about that kind of thing.  That is a horrible tragedy and I am so sorry it happens to other people, but you have to understand that it won't happen to us because this baby is meant to be.  It's our turn.

I got big.  I felt her do somersaults.  I got terrible acid reflux and back pain.  I was the lady people held doors for, and the one that old ladies smiled at knowingly.  I ate whatever I wanted.  I rubbed my belly and fantasized about everything we would do together.  I thought of her every waking moment.  When I ate lunch by myself, I wasn't by myself, because she was in there.  I sang to her in the car.  I told her sweet things under my breath.  I apologized to her if I used particularly graphic language to curse out another driver on the road.  If I woke in the night, I could not go back to sleep unless I felt her kick.  I woke every morning and sipped my coffee and felt her stir awake with me.  I loved her.  I just loved her with every cell in my body.

After awhile, as she got bigger, I was confused about the fact that she seemed to be moving less.  I asked my midwife, my friends, and the internet if this was normal, and I was assured that it was.  The baby runs out of room, so the baby doesn't move as much.  I was sure everyone was right, and that other moms were just being dramatic when they talked about how much their babies kicked around and made their lives miserable.  I never got sick of feeling movement.  I lived for it.  I joked now and again if she punched me in the cervix or something particularly uncomfortable ("settle down in there, ya crazy bitch!"), but I still loved it.  My due date got closer.  I started measuring small, but it was within the normal limits, and the baby seemed fine, so no growth scan or NST was ordered.  I would have rolled my eyes if they were; people just needed to chill the fuck out and let my perfect baby be born the natural, beautiful way that she was meant to be.

At 37 weeks, on Christmas night, while watching Die Hard with Turner, I felt some crampy contractions.  They were pretty consistent (about every 10 - 15 minutes) but they were not super painful.  Easy to talk through.  But, I knew it was prelabor.  I knew that it could last for days, even weeks, but it was starting.  My baby was going to come soon.  I looked around at our cozy apartment, at our tiny xmas tree, our sleepy dog, and I felt so thankful and excited and peaceful.  Everything was the way it was supposed to be.

The prelabor contractions lasted a few days, and by the night of the 28th, they were painful enough that I felt compelled to breath through them.  I slept that night, but I woke up several times to breath and moan through the pain.  By the morning of the 29th, we were pretty sure this shit was HAPPENING.  I decided to fold laundry and watch football, stopping now and again to lean against a wall and get through a contraction.  Turner was a flurry of activity.  He packed an overnight bag bursting full of everything we could possibly need.  He walked the dog.  He made phone calls.  He stressed me out, honestly, but I loved him for it.  He is such a planner, like me.  He just wanted shit in order.  I was so grateful to be going through it with a partner.  It made so much sense; I could focus on having the baby and he could take care of the details.  I stopped worrying about what he was doing and focused on myself.

Eventually, the contractions got close enough together that we decided it was time to go to the hospital. It was early evening and the sun was setting and there were lots of folks out walking dogs, going to dinner, coming back from the park.  Every bump was excruciating, and sitting in the passenger seat while in labor was pretty awful, but it was ok because we were on our way.  Turner was doing his best to stay calm, drive safely.  He smiled to himself and said, "It's our turn, A-Bone!  It's finally our turn!"  I managed to say, "Yup!" as I leaned forward and grimaced through the pain.  We got to the hospital, and I couldn't help but think it was funny how much like a movie it wall was.  Big old pregnant lady and her husband walking in to Labor and Delivery, me panting and groaning and Turner trying to wrestle an overflowing overnight bag, along with whatever else he had thought we might need to get us through the labor.  We were hilarious, and excited, and scared, and happy.

They put us in a small room with a bed and a heart monitor for the baby, and the nurse explained that they would hook me up to the monitor for about 30 minutes, during which time they would see how far along I was, and then they would determine whether or not to admit me.  I really don't like the moment of having the doppler placed on my belly, because after 3 miscarriages, it can be a pretty upsetting experience when you don't hear anything.  However, from about 12 weeks on, every time it had happened in this pregnancy, that beautiful chugging train of a heartbeat would immediately fill the room.  It didn't happen this time.  She moved the monitor to different spots on my belly.  I started to panic, and she said not to worry.  Turner sat in a chair to my side, frozen, with his hand over his mouth.  This was our nightmare scenario.

They hooked me up to an ultrasound machine and brought in a more experienced midwife to check the baby.  She looked.  And looked.  She jostled Nina with the ultrasound wand to see if she could get a response.  She calmly turned to the nurse and said, "Jen, can you please call Dr. Norell and have her come in here? Now?"

I knew.  She didn't need to tell me.  But she did, she looked at me with kind eyes that were filling with tears and said, "What is happening right now is that I'm looking at your baby's aorta, and I cannot see a heartbeat.  We are bringing in the OB and the Pediatrician to double check, but I have to tell you that I think that your nightmare is coming true and your baby is gone."

The walls receded away.  I looked around me, trying to make sense of what was happening.  For a little while I was certain that I was having a dream, because it felt so strange.  I thought back to the day and the moments leading up to the present, and I realized that it couldn't be a dream.  It was real, it was happening.  I couldn't cry, I just nodded my head.  I wanted them to see that I knew, I understood what was happening, and that I wasn't going to freak out.  I heard Turner sob.  I started having another contraction and turned to my side.  I heard the nurses tell him to go to me, and he collapsed next to me, holding my hand, apologizing for everything he has ever felt guilty about in his entire life.  The room filled with people, and the nurse started to hurriedly run an IV on me, and I heard things like, "we just want to make sure mom is ok."  Oh yeah, I thought, I guess there's a chance I might die now, too.

I honestly didn't give a shit.

I was about 5 centimeters dilated, so they moved me into a delivery room.  I had planned on a natural birth, but I wanted to be mentally and physically numb.  I told them to get me high as fuck and stick an epidural in my spine, ASAP.  My two best girlfriends showed up, sobbing.  They each went to one of us and held us while we all cried.  The anesthesiologist came in and discussed with me the risks of an epidural.  She told me that I might not need one and I said, fuck it, ok, let's do this thing.  I did get narcotics, and while they got me good and high, I still felt all the pain.  I am glad I did it that way.  I am so grateful to that anesthesiologist for talking me out of the epidural.  Childbirth was painful, but I would do it 100 times over if Nina-Louise could be here with me now.  I'm glad I felt the experience.  I am proud of myself for doing it.

At 9:45, about 3 or 4 hours after arriving at the hospital, I pushed her body out of me.  She was 19.5 inches long and weighed 4 lbs 9 oz.  She was small and her placenta was small.  Intra Uterine Growth Restriction.  We never found out why.  She just had a small placenta; no blood clots, no cord issues; just not quite enough of a placenta to get her the nutrients she needed to last til the very end.  At some point she stopped growing, and wasted away.  My poor baby.  I can't believe she starved in there.  She had a head full of dark hair, a small button nose, a tiny little chin, and the most perfect, heart shaped mouth I have ever seen.  She had beautiful hands.  Her jaw was slack and she was dead weight in my arms.  She was unbelievably, tragically, undeniably dead.

As I held her I really didn't know what I was supposed to do.  I couldn't cry.  I just stared.  My OB was really wonderful.  She narrated the experience for me, showing me each part of her body and saying it out loud: "here are her hands", and "see, she has dark hair", and so on.  It helps me remember it, her doing that.  I am so, so grateful that I remember it.  We didn't want pictures.  I heard everyone around me crying.  I handed her back.  This was so fucked up.

I ended up not needing any stitches.  We went home before midnight.  Turner and I held each other in bed, and calmly talked about how grateful we were to have had her, how much we loved her, and how this experience would change our lives forever.  We talked about adopting a puppy.  We said we might not be meant to be parents.  We said all kinds of crazy shit.  We drifted off to sleep, while the shock and weight of what had happened hovered all around us.  I woke up hours later, while it was still dark, and burst into tears.  My baby.  My meant-to-be, rainbow after the storm, gentle, tiny, innocent, perfect baby was GONE.  She wasn't in my belly.  I never got to hold her in my arms alive.  Everything I had dreamed about, it was all over.  I felt like I should combust.  But I didn't.  The pain of it ran through me like a drug and it was the worst thing I have ever felt.

She's gone.  We're here.  And none of it makes any fucking sense.