Our Birth story (part 2)-6 amazing hours filled with love

Dougie was born at 5:54am and weighed 6lbs 9oz. He was perfect. I’m not sure what I expected, but once I found out that he was dead I was expecting something morbid, you know…a dead baby (whatever that may look like). But he didn’t look dead…he was perfection. Perfect nose, round little face and was long, like he would have been tall! They put Dougie on my chest and announced he was a boy. I remember not being very excited and thinking, “I knew he was a boy”. I immediately became upset. Angry at the world for Doug…all he wanted was his first-born to be a boy and here he was…so sweet and precious but dead. It was an eerie feeling. There was no sound…pure silence. No baby screams…NOTHING. I won’t forget that silence, it haunts me. Doug took Dougie off my chest and gave him his first bath. Something I am so grateful that he did. How brave is that?? Giving your dead son his first, last and only bath. The thought of it makes me fall even deeper in love with that man. He is the brave one!

In the midst of all of this, I had some placenta complications. (Enter second time I thought I was going to die.) I’ll spare you all the gory details. I am thankful for my doctor who was super patient and waited almost an hour to see if I would deliver the placenta on my own. I kept asking the doctor if he was worried and although he was telling me no, Doug told me after the fact that he saw the nervousness in his eyes. There were 2 options the doctor informed me, surgery or manual delivery, both of which were not really an option. The first, surgery, wasn’t really an option because they were afraid I would bleed out and the second, manual delivery wasn’t an option because of the pain it would cause me. I hadn’t had any pain meds at this point and the doctor said I wouldn’t be able to tolerate that pain, so he said we shall wait and see if I can do it on my own. But alas I didn’t. The doctor asked me several times to click my little pain button thingy but I refused. I was terrified to fall asleep and all the meds did was make me tired so that wasn’t going to happen. I told him to just go get it. He worked on me for about what seemed like forever but I’m sure it was only 10/15 minutes or so and finally, the placenta was delivered. AHHH relief, I saw the light at the end of the tunnel and for the first time wasn’t afraid for my life. Now I could enjoy my baby boy.

We kept Dougie for 6 amazing hours. We held him, loved on him and family came to meet him. Doug and I had a couple of hours alone with him and to be honest, I am not even sure what happened in those couple of hours. For a short period of time, we got a taste of what being a family of 3 would be like. And it was WONDERFUL! The nurses were amazing and helped us make a memory box, took pictures for us and even cut a lock of Dougie’s hair. I remember being so excited he actually had hair. I was convinced he would be bald because that’s how I was when I was born, but to my surprise, he had a head full of hair! I find myself daydreaming often about those 6 hours we got to spend with him and wishing I could do those 6 hours all over again. If I could have the time back I most certainly would have given him more kisses, held him a little longer,smelled him, savored every second, minute and hour with him. I constantly wonder if we gave him enough love while he was here.

So many questions running through my mind on a daily basis, sometimes I crave the blissful feeling of not knowing what it is like to lose a child. It’s truly all consuming…

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