As this journey of grief unfolds before my husband and me, I search for ways to ease the pain of losing our beautiful, full-term baby girl unexpectedly at birth. One thing that eases the pain a bit is writing, and the other is knowing that we are not completely alone in our agonizing experience. Reading about others’ stories that are much like ours makes me feel less alone, and if sharing our story can do that for someone else, then that’s what I want to do. I’ve read somewhere recently that losing a child is “an assault on the soul”, and nothing could be more true. I am reeling from the shock of our situation, and I still want to believe that it is all simply a nightmare that we’ll soon wake up from. But, unfortunately, it’s all true, and we are living the nightmare. I keep reminding myself that in spite of the pain, anger, sorrow, and darkness that we feel, there is still more LOVE. We will choose love above all else, and we will do that for our sweet daughter Lucille Rose.

Our sweet, beautiful Lucille Rose was born on Wednesday, August 10, 2016 at 3:59am. She was 8 lbs, 12 oz, and nearly 22 inches long. She had the face of a little angel and tiny little dark curls; she is the most beautiful thing my husband and I have ever seen. In spite of our perfect pregnancy and her full-term perfect health, a sudden, complete placental abruption occurred when my water was broken, and we were rushed to an emergency C-section. Her little body and organs simply could not come back from the shock of the blood and oxygen loss due to the abruption, and we lost our little girl. My husband Chris and I both were able to hold her swaddled in our arms, surrounding her with our love as she peacefully passed just after 4am on Thursday the 11th. We are left trying to understand the WHY of it all. She was full term, totally healthy, everything was perfect… it took seconds to completely undo all of that. There was never any reason to think we wouldn’t be bringing her home with us to shower her with all of the love we have in our hearts. We’ve been able to take some comfort in the idea that she felt no pain or anxiety and that all our little Lucy ever knew was the warmth and comfort of her Mommy’s belly.
We really did have a “textbook” pregnancy; everything seemed perfect the whole way through. The day before Lucy’s due date, I experienced some of the early signs that she was coming soon. I woke up about an hour after we’d gone to bed that night to some bleeding. I wasn’t feeling any contractions, but I did have some cramping. I called labor and delivery immediately, and woke my husband to come check things out. Labor and delivery told us to go ahead and come in, and we’d see what the story was. We left the house at about 1:30am, with our already packed bags in the car. We chattered excitedly the whole way to the hospital thinking that we were finally going to meet our baby girl. We got there and they checked baby’s heart rate, and checked to see if I was dilated… I was only at a 1. There was never a steady gush of fluid and blood, but the nurse thought that my water may have broken, just not completely. Lucy’s heartrate was a bit lower than it usually was, but still in the normal range. The doc came in and decided that we should be admitted and moved to a room upstairs. Once there, the doc looked at everything while the nurses got me hooked up to an IV and asked my husband and I the standard questions about our birth plan and pain management. The doctor was going to put one of those tiny little scalp monitors on the baby to make sure we were getting a good read on vitals and such, and at that point decided a C-section was likely. I was disappointed, but Chris reassured me that it was all going to be okay, and I accepted that we just weren’t going to be able to stick to a plan. The doctor then broke my water, and that is when all hell broke loose. I saw my husband’s face when it happened and he just went pale. Later he told me that it was all blood, and so much of it, it was like something straight out of a horror film. Then I saw the doctor’s face, his eyes went to the heart rate monitor, and he started shouting “O.R. for C-Section NOW, NOW!” Lucy’s heart rate had suddenly dropped significantly. The nurse had to put a catheter in me right there, another one told my husband to change into the scrubs they tossed to him, and they wheeled me out. I was shaking uncontrollably. There were people running in from everywhere, they told my hubby to stay put for a minute, and next thing I knew, they’d wheeled me into the operating room, and they were giving me oxygen through a mask. I couldn’t see my husband anywhere… a nurse was right there holding my hand, telling me that it was going to be okay, the anesthesiologist was suddenly there, explaining that he was getting ready to do an injection into my arm, and that I would feel it burning for a few seconds, and then I’d be out and when I woke up, it’d all be done not to worry. The nurse told me to take deep breaths, I got the injection, felt the burning, and then I was out. It all happened so very fast. My husband was terrified, because not only did the baby’s heart rate drop to nearly zero when my water broke, it was unclear for a few minutes whether or not I was going to be okay too, as blood loss was a big worry. The placental abruption happened completely when my water broke. It likely had partially happened just before that, and when my water broke, it finished the deal. Lucy just eased right into a sleep, one she’d never wake up from. The abruption was probably going to happen either way, but at least we were in the hospital when it happened in order to give us the best chance to have a good outcome. Had we not been there when the abruption had occurred, and my water broke on its own, there would have been nothing my husband could have done, and he probably would have lost both of us. When they pulled our little girl out of me, she was without color, unresponsive, and had no pulse. There was no first cry, and they had to do CPR on her, and my husband isn’t sure, but they may have had to shock her. Basically, we lost her at the moment my water broke. They were able to revive her only with machines, but with no blood supply for a few minutes, all of her little organs and her brain just took too big of a shock, and she couldn’t recover. Our baby girl never truly woke up. The toughest part about this is that she was full term… this literally happened the day before her due date, and she was so healthy and strong, all through the pregnancy. There was nothing we did wrong, nothing the doctor did wrong, and there’s nothing and no one to blame. After I was out of recovery, the first thing I asked was, “How is the baby? Is she okay?” Chris hesitated and said that there were some complications; the doctor came in to check on me, and talked about transferring Lucy to another hospital. The reality that something was desperately wrong began to sink in. Chris asked if there was time for me to see her before they took her away, and I was able to see our beautiful baby for just a few minutes. We were unable to even hold her because she was hooked up to so many monitors and tubes. We didn’t get to look into her eyes, we didn’t get to smell her scent… we barely got to meet her, as there just wasn’t time. They transferred her to the U of M children’s hospital (we live in Michigan), because they thought she might have the best chance there with potentially coming through it. They put her on a cooling bed and a team of doctors devoted to our Lucy did everything they could all day to try to save her. All day, we were hanging on to hope, and I was just sure in the back of my mind that she would be okay. Now I feel a bit foolish for that, but the staff that I saw throughout the day seemed optimistic, and I really didn’t realize just how bleak the outlook was, as I was in recovery and at a separate hospital from Lucy. My husband followed Lucy to U of M and talked to the team of doctors working on our Lucy, and the outlook just wasn’t good. Chris was driving back to talk to me, and on the way, called. The doctors at U of M were encouraging us to start on our end a request to transfer me to U of M so that we could both be with Lucy. I could hear it in his voice and knew we had a tough decision to make. I was able to transfer via ambulance, and we were able to at least be together as a family for a brief time. The medical staff there was phenomenal and took such good care of Lucy and of us. However, it was clear that there was nothing we could really do… Lucy had so little brain function as a result of the trauma that she wouldn’t even be able to nurse, and all of her systems just took too much of a hit. She could not survive on her own. They let us give her a bath, brush her hair, put lotion on her, and dress her. She was so precious, so angelic. Then we were finally able to hold her… I’ve never known such happiness and such heartache all in the same moment. It was beautiful… SHE was beautiful, like a little angel. They told us to let them know when we were ready to hold her without all of the tubes and wires; we knew we had to at some point. After holding her for a little while, we gave them the go ahead. We had to let our sweet daughter go. They swaddled her in the blankie I’d so excited packed for her weeks before, brought her to us, and Chris and I sat together on the sofa with our arms wrapped around her. We talked to her, told her over and over again how much we love her, gave her kisses, and simply appreciated that we had those precious moments together. Somewhere in that, she gently passed away, surrounded by her mommy and daddy’s love. I cannot adequately express the love, joy, and immense pride I felt just looking at her… she was our daughter, the light of our lives. It’s excruciating that such beauty was overshadowed by such sadness and tragedy. I am still so proud of our little daughter… she was made of the purest love. Leaving that room later was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. Our Lucy is gone, and we can’t fix it. There’s nothing we could have done, we did everything right. In the middle of all of this sorrow and anger, I will always feel so much love for our baby… I’d go through it all again… it was worth it even for just those beautiful moments we were able to spend with her. We will never be the same.
Our Lucille Rose will always be part of us… I still feel her presence with me every moment of the day.