A Very Different Experience

It’s only now that I see how incredibly blessed I was to have brought my two oldest boys into this world without a single obstacle. My biggest complaint was how I pushed for three hours with Angelo and was denied any fluids during the process; oh how thirsty I was! I think about that now and how silly it sounds. Matteo was even less of a trouble. Both boys were textbook vaginal births. Labored on my own in the late evening hours and had them by early the next morning. Both were delivered perfectly, zero issues, handed right over to me. This was all I knew. This is how it should be. Isn’t it how it’s supposed to be? But sadly, it’s not everyone’s story.

I knew ahead of time I wasn’t going to be able to hold Julian after birth, but to my surprise they put him on me for 10 seconds before they whisked him away to do an immediate drainage on his lungs. I wish I took more of that moment in. I wish I touched his face, ran my fingers through his hair, kissed him. It all happened so fast and there I was, lying there without my baby. It felt cruel.

Is he okay? Has anyone heard him cry? Is he breathing?

Thoughts scurried through my head. I can’t begin to tell you how extremely difficult it is to give birth to your child and then be left to wonder if they are even still alive because you aren’t with them. I’ll never take that moment for granted again. Ever.

Doctors were working on Julian, and my husband was able to get a quick picture of him. He came back to tell me they stated they were x-raying him and going to be placing shunts in to help drain the fluid out and he would be off to the NICU Intensive Care Unit. They told us they would bring us right over once we left the delivery room.

That was it. My husband and I were left there, without our baby. I just remember crying and simply hoping and thinking he was going to be okay. He had to be. There were no talks about how much he weighed or his length. No skin to skin interaction. No crying. No baby.

Just me with a pump.

I produced a heck of a lot of colostrum that the nurse chuckled and told me she never saw so much made after birth in her life. I remember thinking how I couldn’t wait to give it to him. Devastatingly, we never got the chance.

My nurse was so very sweet and attentive. Always giving me hope, and for that I won’t ever forget her. She told us we’ll go up to our room, put our things down and get settled and head up to the NICU. As I was about to be wheeled out the door, her phone rang.

“Hello? Yes, they’re with me, we’re going to get settled in their room first and then I’ll bring them on up. ….SILENCE….. Oh, okay.”

I asked her if everything was alright.

“They want us to come up there now,” she said with some worry in her voice. My heart sank. I knew something was wrong.

Very wrong.

Out the door we went.

In the past, this was where I got to show off my boys as I held onto them all swaddled up with their blue little hats on. This was where everyone waved and congratulated us as we wheeled on by. You feel like you’re on some type of float at a parade just being pushed on as everyone is OOOOing and AHHHHing over your new bundle of joy. I remember beaming and smiling from ear to ear.

Not this time. This time I cried and sobbed as the nurses and staff looked up at me. I remember thinking just get me the hell out of here. I almost wanted to yell, “WHEEL ME FASTER!” I felt like I was some type of caged animal and they just stared at me, with sorrow.

It literally seemed like HOURS going through the hallway, seeing nurses sitting at their computers, pressing the handicapped sign awaiting the doors to fly open, noticing workers taking the garbage out, then waiting for the elevator sign to light up, then clicking on the floor number, waiting for the elevator to open back up.

Funny how you notice all these miniscule things when tragedy is happening. It’s like your body already knows you’re on super high alert. You want time to go by faster so you can get to where you’re going, but instead it’s like dead weight. It’s as if time is standing still and you notice EVERYTHING.

Once finally arriving on the intensive care unit, there was NOTHING that could have prepared us for what we saw.

Our Little Rockstar, the one who kept moving non-stop in utero, the one who gave me the hardest kicks and punches out of all my boys, the one who kept growing right on target and showed no other signs or markers other than the pleural effusion, the one who was scanned hours before delivery and was kicking and moving as he always had been, lay there.

Lifeless.