I wish I had listened to my gut

gakelley

New member
Always listen to your gut, mamas. I went to the ER at 18w2d because I KNEW my water was leaking (woke up in a huge wet spot, had been up an hour or two before and hadn’t had to pee). I told them I was concerned because I had just had a UTI the week before, and from my time in nursing school, I know that UTIs are a risk factor for complications. That ER did an ultrasound, but no pelvic exam or swab testing, just a urine culture and told me I “probably just peed on myself, because I still had some fluid,” then sent me home with antibiotics because the first round didn’t work on the UTI.

Well, I go about thinking everything must be fine and I’m overreacting, because that’s how they treated me. But, I still had the terrible feeling in my gut that something was wrong, because I would still leak and I’d have intermittent cramping, but all sporadic, no specific timing. About a week and a half later, at 19w6d, I went to the bathroom and wiped up blood. Went into a different ER that I know and trust better, and they sent me straight to L&D, where they told me that baby boy had almost no amniotic fluid around him at all.

They said that I had to have been right and had been leaking for the past week and a half. I was essentially put on bed rest in the hopes that I could stay pregnant until 23 weeks, when my hospital’s NICU could treat him. I ended up going in a few days later with cramping that had spread to my back, but because I had no fluid and was only 20w2d, it was hard for them to tell if I was truly in labor. They said my uterus was likely just irritated, and baby boy still looked good, so they weren’t too worried. They offered for me to stay overnight, but I declined because I thought I was just being over dramatic.

I stayed on bed rest for a few more days, still with that overall crampy feeling in my abdomen and lower back. I had a high-risk OB visit on that Wednesday where baby’s heartbeat still sounded good and we were laying out the plan. I was so optimistic, but I just had this nagging thought that it wouldn’t work out how I wanted. It especially hit hard when they had asked if I was “sure” I wanted to continue the pregnancy or induce labor now. I went home with the pain steadily worsening, but still managed to sleep that night. I woke up at about 1:20 in the morning feeling like I needed to use the bathroom, and had given birth at home at 1:23 in the morning on December 7th, at 20w6d. He lived for 2 hours and 8 minutes.

Now, instead of planning my baby shower, I had to plan his funeral. Instead of buying baby clothes, I had to buy a 12 inch casket. Instead of looking for pediatricians, I’m looking for and struggling to find a malpractice lawyer to take my case, since the first hospital could have diagnosed me, but overlooked diagnostic criteria and didn’t order any consults or the simple pH swab to diagnose me. If I had been diagnosed there in the first place, my baby could have made it. I wish I had listened to my gut and gotten a second opinion that day… maybe then my baby would still be safe with me…
 
@gakelley I’m so sorry your concerns were dismissed and it led to the loss of your sweet boy. It’s so horrendously unfair. These stories are all too common and it breaks my heart.

Please know that you did everything you knew to at the time for your little boy. This is not your fault.

I lost my first baby in Nov 22 so I completely understand what you mean about planning funerals and cremations/caskets instead of the glorious and exciting time that pregnancy and birth SHOULD be.

If you are comfortable sharing, I’d love to know your baby’s name or what you referred to him as. And when/if you ever feel ready, you can join us at r/babyloss for some extra support an resources from fellow loss parents who have been in your shoes.
 
@ferdi that’s the main thing i try to hold onto. i sang to him, my parents and i held him, and my parents and sister and i all talked to him and told him just how loved he was (and still is) all in his short little life.
 
@gakelley Idk if I should post this or if this will help, but I read this years ago and it helps me through losses I’ve had-

You want a physicist to speak
at your funeral...
You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the 1st law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets
created in the universe and none is destroyed.

You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every BTU of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.

And at one point you'd hope the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that thos photons created within her constellations of electro-magnetically charged neurons whos energy will go on forever.

You can hope that your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they'll be comforted to know your energy is still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone;
you're just less orderly.
 
@gakelley I am sorry. Just know there wouldn't have been a ton of stuff they could have done since you weren't at viability (hate that term). There is a PPROM regiment that some people follow after losing amniotic fluid but in my case it didn't work either. You may have been able to get some magnesium and steroids to help lung development but just not a lot of things they could have done.

Had my loss at 16w and gave birth (body wouldn't naturally miscarry so I was carrying around my baby for weeks while waiting to get back in to hospital) and haven't been able to get pregnant since. I dream about him and what could have been.
 
@devnull So sorry hun. It's the worst isn't it. Hubby is going for a second SA today as we think it might be on his end as all my tests have been okay. No reason for the Pprom either. It's almost been a year since. Just frustrated
 
@jung Yes he should and we learned it was on his end sperm count is low and my walls are week so I have to get a cerclage after 12 weeks. So it is a lotttttttt.
 
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