20 Weeks
I have a Facebook friend who, a few months ago, suffered a tragic loss. She was 20 weeks pregnant and her baby died in utero. The doctors induced her, and she suffered through labor and gave birth. The hospital let them hold him for a while, took pictures for them that they have now, and treated her and her husband very gently. A few days later, they had a funeral for the baby.
This was all recently brought to my mind as I read about Diana’s tragedy on Hormonal Imbalances. Part of the entire horrible experience involved some “20 week pregnancy standard” where she was treated differently when her water broke at 18.5 weeks versus 20 weeks. Her loss of babies just shy of 20 weeks is overwhelming her and she’s absolutely broken. As I read about her experiences, there’s no way not to think of my own.
I have suffered many losses. I talked about them in my post The Reversal. With these two recent 20-week losses on my radar, I am often thinking back over 16 years ago.
I was in my second pregnancy. The first one had ended in miscarriage at about 6 weeks. I discovered I was pregnant one day and lost it the next. This pregnancy, though, seemed perfectly normal. I felt good, I was in maternity clothes, we were talking about names. I went to my 20-week appointment and got to see the baby on the ultrasound machine. The doctor listened to the heartbeat, gave me a clean bill of health, and I scheduled an appointment for the following month.
The next day, I was at work training my replacement. Out of nowhere, I felt like something was wrong. I had no reason for it. No light headedness, no pain, nothing. I called the doctor’s office, and they said someone would call me back. The doctor did within a few minutes. I said, “Something is wrong. I don’t know how to explain it, but I know it.”
He suggested I come in just to ease my own mind. I left work with a sense of dread and drove to the doctor’s office. He was very nice and very upbeat. “I’m sure nothing’s wrong,” he said, and put the microphone on my stomach and started searching for the baby’s heartbeat.
After several minutes, he started acting worried. “Let me just get the ultrasound machine,” he said. He left the room and he and a nurse returned, wheeling the machine on a cart. The whole time he was reassuring me.
He pulled the baby up on the screen. It was perfect. It was small enough that I could see the whole baby on the screen, and it was perfect. Perfect head, perfect body. But, within seconds, he turned the screen so that I could not see.
“We need to send you to the hospital,” he said. “I can’t find the heartbeat, but they have a better machine.”
I immediately started crying. It was the only time during this entire experience that a rush of emotion overwhelmed me to the point that I cried. A nurse gave me a box of tissues, and while tears poured out of my eyes, I made arrangements to go to the hospital. This was pre-cell-phones as a standard extension of the human body, so there was no way for me to contact my (ex)husband.
I went to the hospital alone and they took me almost immediately into the big ultrasound room. The tech was a young man, who did not speak to me in any kind of conversational manner. He gave me directions, but made no small talk. He did not let me see the screen, either.
As soon as I got home, the doctor called me. “Your baby is dead,” he said. “I don’t know why. But we know it was alive yesterday and it’s rare that we catch a fetal demise this early. If we move quickly, the tissue won’t be as broken down by your body and we can probably have an autopsy to find out what happened.”
This is seriously the conversation I had with the doctor about four hours after my initial phone call to his office. And those tears in his office were the first and last tears I cried about the whole thing. I reported to the hospital at 7AM the next morning. I remember grabbing my (ex)husband’s hand in a panic as they were wheeling me to the operating room. “What if they’re wrong,” I said.
“They’re sure,” he said. “They’re not wrong.”
That was it. I was put to sleep. When I woke up, I wasn’t pregnant any more.
There was no labor. No delivery. No name. No concerned nurses giving me and my (ex)husband time with our baby. I don’t even know if it was a boy or a girl. No funeral. No flowers. No anything. I had a normal, healthy pregnancy one minute, and nothing the next.
My (ex) husband did not mention it again. Ever. I did not go through a grieving process. My normal stoicism set in and got me through it.
I wonder if I had been handled differently, if I would have handled it differently. I wonder if the doctor and hospital staff had treated me like a patient losing her baby instead of with the excitement of discovering a fetal demise so quickly after death that it allowed them an opportunity to run a science experiment if I would have felt differently.
I wonder, just recently in light of the two stories I shared with you in my introduction, what it would be like to have been able to labor through giving birth to this child, then been given the opportunity to hold that baby and say goodbye. I wonder if I would have actually grieved instead of just handling it in my typical unemotional fashion.
Diane said that at 20 weeks, they somehow consider the loss as “more”. That wasn’t my experience. It was all very clinical, very clean. Anesthesia, sleep, wake, go home in clothes that are somewhat looser than what you wore into the hospital and never speak of it again.
We never spoke of it again.
I don’t know if it’s just because 16 years have gone by and things were done differently then, or if it was me, or if it was my doctor.
I know that just a month later, I was pregnant with Kaylee. And, I wouldn’t trade her for the world. But these things have been on my radar lately, which has put my own experiences and how different they are on my mind.
Hallee
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I don’t think it has anything to do with the number of weeks, but the emotional attachment. I lost pregnancies at 6 weeks, 9 weeks and 12 weeks. I dealt with the first two OK (as OK as can be expected), the third nearly broke me in half. So when I look back on that time of my life, it feels like one long stretch of pain and hurt and feelings of loss and anger and sadness.
When I became pregnant with Jack, the specialized clinic we were with (they had concerns that there was something genetic between my husband and I that prevented me from having a viable pregnancy) had no expectation that I would carry him any longer than the previous pregnancies. The instructions were “when you start to lose the baby” not “IF you start to lose the baby.”
I had weekly ultrasounds until 10 weeks, with the first several including this dark shadow hovering over the baby — bleeding.
I feel so guilty about the fact that there was no joy for me those first 10 weeks. On the last ultrasound, that shadow was gone. He was this healthy little fetus and the clinic released me to a regular OBGYN.
And again, I had no attachment to the pregnancy at all. I didn’t care what the doctors said — I felt like if I loved this baby and planned nursery themes and named him, he would be gone. Every twinge and flutter scared me. I waited for the cramps and bleeding to start. In late June, when the third baby I lost was due, I cried all day. How silly was it that I was very pregnant with a healthy baby, yet I mourned for the one I’d lost? I was so mad at myself for not being happy about the baby I had and wanting the baby I’d lost.
I swear that I was probably about eight months pregnant before I came to grips with the fact that this baby was going to be in my arms in a matter of weeks. And then I finally felt a sense of peace and happiness. I understood that God gave me a little miracle — my little guy wasn’t meant to be.
My little miracle is 4 1/2 now. And every time I become frustrated with is stubbornness and his unwillingness to give in, I think maybe that it was that God-given spirit that made him hold on when the doctors and science said he wouldn’t.
Even 40 yrs. after I miscarried my first child, reading a story like yours pushes that raw pain to the surface … not for long for, but long enough to remember flashes of moments. Back then there was no ultrasound. It was all a surprise at birth! I do remember passing the baby. I was just a little over 3 months along. I later asked a nurse if they could tell if the baby was a boy or girl. She told me, no, they didn’t do that. I remember thinking “that” was my baby whose life I was already planning. She wasn’t cruel, but I’m real sure she never miscarried her babies.
The worst was leaving the hospital empty armed. How many times had I already played that beautiful moment of leaving the hospital with our baby and arriving home … a family. Dreams died that day or so I thought.
The following year we were blessed with a marvelous son. A few years later, tragedy again – only this time I would lose my husband in a terrible 1-vehicle accident. Dreams died that day too.
A few years later I was rescued by my knight in shining armor. I gained not only the man of dreams but another son as well. Soon, our baby girl came along making our family full circle.
Thirty years later and through a lot of living, between the 3 kids, we have 5 grandchildren. There have been sad times, trying times, begging God to intervene times, times of laughter and tears. times of joy when I thought my heart could not contain all the blessings.
At times the thought of “that” baby crosses my mind. It has no gender, no face, but a huge chunk of my heart … part of me is already in Heaven.
This is so heart wrenching, Hallee.
Very profound post Hallee. I, thankfully, have never suffered a loss. That being said, being a labor and delivery nurse I see it all the time. The hardest part is that the patient does not come to us until their over 16 weeks, so if they are earlier than that it is dealt with in the ER. They are often sent home to “pass the baby” on their own, or they have a D&C. Either way I’m sure it is very non-forgiving and clinical. After 16 weeks they come to us. We do have different paperwork for 20 wks. The biggest difference is whether it is considered a “miscarriage” or a “stillbirth”. Regardless of the gestation, we are very emotional towards these patients and very empathetic. Often the nurses cry with the families. I am surprised they put you to sleep and did a c/s…but then again maybe that’s how things were done back then. That is not the way of today’s standards.
I am so sorry for anyone who has had to suffer a loss and I find it deeply saddening that you never got to grieve for the loss of your child. I will never forget a statement from my great-grandma as she was getting older and knew that she didn’t have much time left to live. She had a stillbirth (this would have been in the late 30’s early 40’s) in the 3rd trimester. She let the doctor do whatever it is that they did back then with the babies. She pulled me aside one day and just cried saying that she regrets that she didn’t bury her baby. It still haunted her in her 80’s.
I’m so happy that you ended up with a beautiful daughter and 2 beautiful son’s.
I’m glad to have the perspective of an L&D nurse.
That doctor’s office was amazing with Kaylee’s birth, and the doctor even cried when she was born because he was certain she’d have the same extra chromosome as the 20-week pregnancy did.
Such touching stories, Hallee! Just my perspective – but am wondering if it would be a help to you, if you could, even now, acknowledge, before God, the feelings of pain, anger, loss, frustration, & confusion, of 16 years ago – & take advantage of your right to grieve? God already knows of those feeling, & is ready to give you the comfort you need.
We lost a daughter at 18 weeks. She was perfect, I had developed an infection from an amnio I had the previous day. We were treated with incredible kindness by the staff at our hospital. I couldn’t bear to take pictures so they did for me. We held her a few hours after we delivered, I wept the entire time. She was termed a non-viable stillbirth. Carol is right, while I have grieved and healed, stories like this make you remember those intense feelings for a moment. We did not have a funeral, but we do celebrate her birthday every year by decorating an angel Christmas tree as she was born in December. I am open about this, but many others feel very uncomfortable, it is still a huge taboo. I have always said this is a very exclusive club, a club no one wants to join and the dues are horrid.
I’d seen references to it on your social media, but never knew exactly what happened. How awful. :( I’m so sorry.