Missing Maddy part one in Madelyn Olivia

I am a different person than I was at this time last week. Last week I had an active 36 week old baby girl squirming all around my belly as I tried to sleep. I was oblivious to the fact that in less than 24 hours I would learn that my daughter had died. I still can’t believe it. My baby is dead. I’ve joined the club that nobody ever wants to be a part of, and nothing can reverse what has happened.
We were surprised when we found out we were pregnant with Madelyn. We shouldn’t have been, given our baby making track record, but she was conceived the day after my period ended in April. There was something different about this pregnancy. It’s not as if we expected her to die, but throughout the entire pregnancy both Will and I had a hard time envisioning another child in our family. We already have two boys and one girl, and before discovering I was pregnant, I was mostly at peace with our family being complete. That changed at my 20 week u/s where I learned that Abby was going to have a sister. I am so close to my sisters and I spent the rest of my pregnancy imaging the life Abby and her sister would have together. Although life was busy, and I didn’t have much time to think about the pregnancy, I became more and more excited to meet our baby girl.
Early on in the pregnancy an u/s revealed that my placenta was blocking my cervix. I was told not to worry, and that if it didn’t move, we would schedule a c-section. An ultrasound was scheduled for Monday, December 29th, 2014. I really didn’t give my thought to the ultra sound and was just praying I would be able to deliver vaginally. I was also excited to see my baby girl up on the screen.
The ultra sound tech was by no means warm and fuzzy. I told her as we walked into the room that I am a hypochondriac and would get nervous if she didn’t fill me in on what she was doing as we checked out the baby. Her response was “Yeah, I scanned my babies everyday when I was pregnant because I know all of the things that can go wrong. Just be thankful you don’t know about all of those things”. Ah, so comforting. She took measurements of the babies head and bones for maybe five minutes. She chatted generically with me about things that I don’t even remember now, but I didn’t really detect concern from her. I now wonder why she took all of those measurements when it seems like she had to have known the heart was not beating as she scanned over it several times? I knew I was in trouble when she left the room to “check the growth of the baby”, but she assurred me what she was doing was normal. Several minutes later (seemed like an eternity) she came back with another tech (maybe a doctor, I don’t know) and told me they were having trouble getting pictures of the heart. I asked them if they were having trouble getting pictures, or if they were having trouble finding the heartbeat. They confirmed the second, and my world dropped out from under me. We all looked at the heart together, and it was so.so still. All I remember saying is “okay, okay....okay......okay…I’ve got to call my husband”. The two ladies sat with me as I called Will and told him our baby had died and I needed him to come be with me while I delivered her. I think telling him was even harder than hearing it for myself. I could hear the disbelief and overwhelming sadness in his voice as I kept making him promise that he would be strong for me. I have never been more in love with him than I was as he walked through this journey with me. Although we are early in the grieving stages, we have become so close during this time.
I waited in the ultrasound room as they prepared a room for me in labor and delivery. It took about 20 minutes. The u/s tech sat with me, rubbing my leg as I called all of the people who I thought needed to know right away. Truthfully I wanted her to leave me alone, but I’m pretty sure they were worried I would completely lose it.
Thankfully they put me in a room far away from where all of the happy births were taking place. It took for.ev.er for my doctor to get there to start the induction. They said I could have an epidural right away since we knew Maddy was already gone. I was at 3 cm and 80% effaced before starting pitocin. They also gave me xanax which made delivery easier from the mental standpoint. Apparently I told every nurse and person who came in that stress sweat smells much worse than regular sweat and I was very stressed so they were not allowed to judge the smell of my vagina. I also made my sister wash it for me before delivery. Have I mentioned how awesome my sister is? ;)
We had several visitors during the early stages of labor....two couple from church, three pastors, my aunt and cousin, our best friends, my mom, brother and brother in law. Will’s parents drove down from Kansas City. It was all so surreal. The doctor allowed anybody I wanted to be in the room during delivery, so my mother in law and sister held my hands while my mom (I think) and the nurses held up my legs. My dad and father in law were there too (in the corner of the room, terrified of all of the vagina hanging out) and of course Will. I think he was up near my head, but I had my hands covering my eyes as I cried, not wanting to see anything. I just remember crying so hard and saying “my baby, my baby” while trying to push her out. I felt her delivery more than any of the others. I think they limited my epidural because they needed me to push harder, and everything in my body didn’t want to let her go. I remember feeling a little more sad each time my body dilated more because I knew that even though she was dead, she was still a part of my as long as she was in my stomach. I was terrified of letting her go. I didn’t think I wanted to see her because I was afraid I would love her too much to leave her behind as we left the hospital. I held out a small amount of hope to the very end (since her heartbeat was not checked again after that intial u/s) that they had been wrong, but I also knew deep down they were right as I hadn’t felt her move at all that day.
To be continued......