Dorothy's Story

What a beautiful morning, our living room is filled with sunlight. It is the first day of June, and as I sit on the couch eating my cereal, I think what a perfect day to have our baby. My contractions had started at about 7:30 AM, they were very mild so I did not think I needed to make a mad dash to the hospital. I recalled from our Birthing Class, the instructor telling us "if you are able to drive yourself, you are not ready to go to the hospital". I did however call my doctors office first thing, and here I sit on the couch anxiously awaiting a return phone call. Its 8:35 AM and the phone is ringing, it has to be the doctor's office, they open at 8:30. Trying to remain calm, and contain my excitement, I answer the phone and respond to the nurse's questions and listen to her instructions. She has told me to head up to the hospital within the next 2 hours to be put on the fetal heart monitor. Finally, this is it; our baby girl is on the way, what a perfect day, the first day of June, the sun shining. I call my husband at work to tell him to get home; baby Dorothy is just about ready to meet the world.

While I wait for Dan to get home, I know I have to keep myself busy, if I get to the hospital to soon, there is a chance they will send me home. I decided I better get in one last vacuum, I want our home clean and ready, I know that next time I set foot in this house I will be holding my newborn.

We arrive at the hospital and we can't get to the maternity floor fast enough, the contractions have picked up quickly, and this is our first baby. We are so overwhelmed with our excitement, we are practically knocking down other people to get to the elevator, I felt like I was actually running. After check in, they take us to room 6, have me use the restroom, and then get me set up on the bed. The fetal heart monitor is strapped to me, and her little heart beat is strong as ever. After about 45 minutes of monitoring, and the nurse speaking with my doctor over the phone, the decision we have been waiting for is made, they are admitting me, us! Dan leaves to go get the overnight bag and camera from the car. We are staying! Our baby is ready to be born! Upon Dan's return to the room, he found me and two other nurses with a look of terror on our faces. Our baby's heart beat had dropped from the heart monitor. There had been no signs of stress, or anything unusual on the screen, but the heart beat was gone. The nurses fiddled with the paddle, moving it all over my belly. A nurse grabbed the phone and called for an Operating Room to be opened immediately. The other nurse called for my doctor to get to our room 'STAT!'. Our small room quickly filled with other nurses, a doctor I did not know and a portable ultra sound machine. The nurse who checked us in has tears in her eyes as she is watching the ultra sound monitor, and I know now that she sees what I feared, there is no heart beat. My doctor bursts through the door and pushes everyone aside so that he can get to the ultra sound machine. The doctor asks the nurses how long it had been since they last heard the heartbeat, they replied 15 minutes. With great sadness, the doctor tells my husband and me, "I am sorry, but it has been to long". The doctor continued to explain that even if we were to get the baby out right now, she would have suffered extensive brain damage, leaving us with the decision of when to remove her from life support. It was best to just wait and continue with labor and vaginal delivery as planned.

That was it, our baby girl was dead. 39 weeks, and for 33 of those weeks that I knew I was pregnant, all the loving, bonding, dreaming, gone.

I had to put myself mentally somewhere else in order for my husband and me to get through the remaining labor and delivery. I had to put my mind anywhere else but in the harsh reality of the moment, so I pretended she was still alive. I pretended so hard that I actually convinced myself that the machines were all wrong and when she came out, she would still be alive. It could be possible, couldn't it? I did not tell anyone else in the room what I was thinking, not even my husband. I thought if I said it aloud, it wouldn't be true. At 5:46 PM baby Dorothy arrived, but she did not make a sound, we did not hear a cry, no move did she make. Her umbilical cord was wrapped around her calf 7 times, and pulled her ankle so closely to her belly, that we presume when she attempted to straighten out her legs, it pulled the cord flat. When the doctor un-wrapped the cord, we could see indentations on her calf from it being wrapped so tightly. It was so agonizing to see the marks on her tiny leg; I feared that she had endured pain from it during the pregnancy. When the doctor placed her on my chest, I let out a scream of horror and relief. I was wrong, the machines were right, my daughter was dead, but I was finally holding her in my arms. My husband says still to this day, he can hear the sound of my scream resonating in his head, and the sound haunts him. We kept her in the room with us for the next two days, Dan bathed her and dressed her, as I watched from the bed, crying, I never thought I could cry from pain and sorrow and at the same time feel so much love, for her. We took pictures, we told her how much we loved her, we snuggled her. Dorothy weighed 6 LBS, 10 OZ. and 19 inches long, she is beautiful.

After leaving the hospital, the next few days were filled with intense confusion, cremation arrangements, selecting an urn, and absolute loneliness. Over the days that followed, no matter how many people called, sent cards and care packages, it brought little comfort. We had lost our baby, we had lost our world, and this was not supposed to happen, not with all the medical technology there is. I felt emptiness and a pain in my heart that no words can describe. I went from living in a home and a world that was filled with hopes, dreams and laughter, to a world of anger, resentment, and jealousy. I was angry at every elderly person that was ill, and on the verge of death, yet continued to live and my baby died. I was resentful towards my first nurse for not detecting anything, for not knowing what was about to happen. I was jealous of all the other mothers whose babies lived. It was not fair and I did not understand why other babies were allowed to come into the world, but mine was not. I was consumed with bitterness. I was nothing but mad.

As the days and nights progressed, I was plagued with wonder; did she feel anything when she died? Does she know how much I love her? Does she know how sorry I was that his happened? Does she know that if I knew the cord was wrapped around her leg, I would have reached up and un-wrapped it if I could have? I was sickened. I felt like I was at the drive-in-theatre watching the same movie over, and over, my mind kept replaying the events of the hospital, I could not stop it. While I would give anything to wipe away the events of the hospital, I also had to embrace them, because at the hospital was the only time I got to hold and kiss my baby girl. Again I had the utter perplexity of pain, sorrow and love at the same time.

A few weeks later, my husband and I quickly became aware of how different our lives would be now, how we would continue in our thoughts to live in that hospital room, and live in our own personal revulsion and devastation. Family and friends, although sympathetic at the time, their lives continued on, seemingly unaffected. We feel that our lives have stopped. We needed someone to blame fo r this, but there was no one. No therapist or religious leader could give us an answer why this would happen. We would be given no answers, why a baby would die.

We continue on day to day, often silent to others in our grief, waiting for time to heal, not knowing if we want to speed up the clock or slow it down. And, even though she is absent from our arms, our love for her continues to grow stronger with every breath we take. I have never felt such a profound love as the love I have for my daughter.

Written By: Shannon Zelazek, mother of Dorothy Raine (6/1/07)