MISSing You Both to the Depths of My Soul
This is a cut 'n paste from my introductory post on the MISS grief support site.
I guess I'm coming up on the season when we were at our happiest back in 2003 when we expected Abigail to bless our home & family. It's hard to believe so much time has lapsed when I feel like it was yesterday. The autumn will always belong to Abigail. I guess my heart has been so crushed and I'm struggling to find happiness again.I could make our story very very long, but in a quickie nutshell, here's a beginning:
I was dx'd with pcos at the age of 13--a very long time ago. They told me I'd have no children at all, as my case is very severe. And mostly true to their predictions, PCOS infertility did in fact keep me barren most of my life. Our living son was a true miracle.
After 17 yrs of secondary infertility, we finally conceived Abigail after I'd been on metformin for my diabetes for nearly two years. We didn't know that we should watch for improved ovulation since I was taking the metformin to manage my glucose levels. Of course we were thrilled to find out we were pg again!
I was 41 and diabetic, so Abigail was monitored closely, otherwise my pgcy was routine & uneventful. But sadly, she died in utero after failing a routine NST (nonstress test) just before her due date. The dr was indifferent to her obvious struggles, and sent me home rather than delivering her immediately. She was delivered dead after three days of induced labor. We left without her that cold chill day in December, but we left with a hope that if we could get pg with her, we could try again. And try we did. And then we learned FAM and tried with more efficiency.
Miraculously, we conceived again nine months later and guarded my pgcy like soldiers. We took our care to the university teaching hospital where they specialize in diabetic, high risk pgcies, and we had enough ultrasound monitoring to put anyone's broken heart at ease. We went in for our scheduled induction on the evening of April 27, 2005--cluelessly thrilled about the arrival of our new baby girl.
Fortunately, Anne was born by c-section after experiencing some dangerous cardiac decellerations during early labor. We discovered upon her birth that she had VSD--a heart murmur that ultimately took her life--that would have taken her life during labor if we'd continued along that plan. But after careful review, they suspected trisomy 18 had caused the VSD. A week later, her tests came back positive for trisomy 18. After that, she was deemed a non-candidate for any cardiac care thanks to her trisomy dx--political incorrectness in how they allocate medical spending & attention brushed her off as insignificant. We would have had to leave the state to find a pediatric cardiologist who would work with us. Her life, while spunky and strong, was too frail to be traipsing across the country trying to find a trisomy 18 expert--heck, we don't even have a MISS support group in our state!!!
So they sent us home with hospice with the expectations that she would die--and quite frankly, they didn't care one way or the other. And yet she thrived and grew in spite of their medical indifference and poor medical attention. She grew and enjoyed life without issue until her VSD couldn't maintain her life any longer. Actually, it was the hospice nurse who took her off the cardiac medication the pediatrician had rx'd that was to her demise. Anne ultimately died of congestive heart failure at 11:03pm on June 28th. She went peacefully as she slept in my arms--I'll never forget the look in her eyes as she was being taken away. She wasn't quite ready to go and her face said, "wait, not yet mama; don't go..." But I know she is happy in Heaven even though she misses me--tho not nearly as much as I miss her.
She was our Rainbow Baby and is missed with a grief beyond telling. She plays with her sister in the butterfly meadows of Heaven where we will all be reunited in the not so distant future.
I wish I'd learned about charting and FAM in all my years of barrenness because we could have caught a few more eggs along the way had we known how to catch them. Depending on drs in my life of pcos obesity has not been fun, so seeking help with my barrenness hasn't been something I've felt comfortable doing. It's bad enough the lectures I get about my pcos problems somehow being all about my failures in diet & exercise. Drs have been mistreating me for years, and then they out-right robbed me of my Abigail by not helping her in her time of need. And they may have well taken Anne too for as little as they cared whether she lived or died. Any other baby with the same VSD would have had an appointment with the cardiologist the day after she was released from the hospital. Life's not fair in about a gazillion different ways.
They say that time heals a broken heart ...... ________________________________________
.... problem is: time has stood still since you went away ~~Van Morrison
I guess I'm coming up on the season when we were at our happiest back in 2003 when we expected Abigail to bless our home & family. It's hard to believe so much time has lapsed when I feel like it was yesterday. The autumn will always belong to Abigail. I guess my heart has been so crushed and I'm struggling to find happiness again.I could make our story very very long, but in a quickie nutshell, here's a beginning:
I was dx'd with pcos at the age of 13--a very long time ago. They told me I'd have no children at all, as my case is very severe. And mostly true to their predictions, PCOS infertility did in fact keep me barren most of my life. Our living son was a true miracle.
After 17 yrs of secondary infertility, we finally conceived Abigail after I'd been on metformin for my diabetes for nearly two years. We didn't know that we should watch for improved ovulation since I was taking the metformin to manage my glucose levels. Of course we were thrilled to find out we were pg again!
I was 41 and diabetic, so Abigail was monitored closely, otherwise my pgcy was routine & uneventful. But sadly, she died in utero after failing a routine NST (nonstress test) just before her due date. The dr was indifferent to her obvious struggles, and sent me home rather than delivering her immediately. She was delivered dead after three days of induced labor. We left without her that cold chill day in December, but we left with a hope that if we could get pg with her, we could try again. And try we did. And then we learned FAM and tried with more efficiency.
Miraculously, we conceived again nine months later and guarded my pgcy like soldiers. We took our care to the university teaching hospital where they specialize in diabetic, high risk pgcies, and we had enough ultrasound monitoring to put anyone's broken heart at ease. We went in for our scheduled induction on the evening of April 27, 2005--cluelessly thrilled about the arrival of our new baby girl.
Fortunately, Anne was born by c-section after experiencing some dangerous cardiac decellerations during early labor. We discovered upon her birth that she had VSD--a heart murmur that ultimately took her life--that would have taken her life during labor if we'd continued along that plan. But after careful review, they suspected trisomy 18 had caused the VSD. A week later, her tests came back positive for trisomy 18. After that, she was deemed a non-candidate for any cardiac care thanks to her trisomy dx--political incorrectness in how they allocate medical spending & attention brushed her off as insignificant. We would have had to leave the state to find a pediatric cardiologist who would work with us. Her life, while spunky and strong, was too frail to be traipsing across the country trying to find a trisomy 18 expert--heck, we don't even have a MISS support group in our state!!!
So they sent us home with hospice with the expectations that she would die--and quite frankly, they didn't care one way or the other. And yet she thrived and grew in spite of their medical indifference and poor medical attention. She grew and enjoyed life without issue until her VSD couldn't maintain her life any longer. Actually, it was the hospice nurse who took her off the cardiac medication the pediatrician had rx'd that was to her demise. Anne ultimately died of congestive heart failure at 11:03pm on June 28th. She went peacefully as she slept in my arms--I'll never forget the look in her eyes as she was being taken away. She wasn't quite ready to go and her face said, "wait, not yet mama; don't go..." But I know she is happy in Heaven even though she misses me--tho not nearly as much as I miss her.
She was our Rainbow Baby and is missed with a grief beyond telling. She plays with her sister in the butterfly meadows of Heaven where we will all be reunited in the not so distant future.
I wish I'd learned about charting and FAM in all my years of barrenness because we could have caught a few more eggs along the way had we known how to catch them. Depending on drs in my life of pcos obesity has not been fun, so seeking help with my barrenness hasn't been something I've felt comfortable doing. It's bad enough the lectures I get about my pcos problems somehow being all about my failures in diet & exercise. Drs have been mistreating me for years, and then they out-right robbed me of my Abigail by not helping her in her time of need. And they may have well taken Anne too for as little as they cared whether she lived or died. Any other baby with the same VSD would have had an appointment with the cardiologist the day after she was released from the hospital. Life's not fair in about a gazillion different ways.
They say that time heals a broken heart ...... ________________________________________
.... problem is: time has stood still since you went away ~~Van Morrison
posted by 2QTsInHeaven @ 12:09 AM
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