This is My Story, This is My Son

Three years ago today I lost my son. Sometimes it seems so far away, and sometimes it seems like it just happened. There are times when I replay the "video" of that day and cry myself to sleep. There are times when I smile at the happy memories of the pregnancy. And there are times, like last night, when snapshots of the day pop into my head - the horror of my water breaking, my husband's quiet vigil at my side, my mother's tears as she held our tiny son, sitting in my silent, gray hospital room the next day, no longer able to cry, and saying a final goodbye to Eroll, whispering to him, "I'm sorry... I'm sorry..."

3 days after losing Eroll, I wrote this to a friend, so that I could tell her what had happened at a time when I couldn't talk on the phone.

Dear Friend,
I want you to know how much your thoughts and prayers mean to me right now. I felt your thoughts and prayers with me at all times and know how that helps us get through this. There are things I want to say, but right now I have a hard time talking without crying and just don't always know what to say, either. Know that I know and truly appreciate that you are there to listen when I need it - and I may need it someday soon - but right now it's just too hard. The only thing I want to hear right now is why this happened, and I know no one can tell me that.

We are just devastated and heartbroken in a way we've never felt before. It's amazing how much of your hopes and dreams and love you can have wrapped up in someone yet to be. We're saddened by all the things we will never get the chance to do with little Eroll, and reminded of that every day. There are times we feel so empty and alone.

At the same time, we aren't angry. We are both so glad and actually joyful (as strange as that may sound) that we had him. We would rather have gone through this then to never have had Eroll at all. Just having him inside me, sharing and dreaming with my husband, and seeing and holding him, small and yet perfect, was and is worth every pain we are going through.

My physical self is healing well. I'm still sore and have pains at times, but haven't had to take anything for the pain since Saturday. My husband went back to work today - I know he needed to. I know there are no demands for when I return, so when I go back, it will be for me, because it's what I need to do. It's difficult staying at home or being alone, and I know having work to do will help me heal. I'm planning to go back for 1/2 days this week.

I know everyone wants to help. People keep telling me things like, "You can try again..." or "When you have another one..." I know they are trying to give me hope, but right now I can't think about another - I don't want another baby right now, I just want Eroll. So, right now I need to mourn for him. Furthermore, another baby will not replace the child we lost.

I keep wondering if there will ever be a day when I won't wake up every morning and go to sleep each night crying. I am grateful every second for my husband, who has been a better husband to me than I deserve, who has shared every ounce of my fear and pain and heartbreak. He lets me cry - and cries with me. We question together and we mourn our lost dreams together. He has put it best - that we are both "thankful for the joy, energy, and love that Eroll brought to our lives."

I know you understand that there will be times when I need to talk, and times when I can't. In one second I can feel like things will be OK, that things will get back to normal, and in the next second I just want to curl up in a hole.

We did get out yesterday - we walked around the mall and he bought me a heart-shaped baby blue topaz necklace to remind me of Eroll. I just wanted something I could carry with me to be a symbol of him, I guess. It was good to walk around. Today, my Dad spent the day with me (I've had someone with me pretty much always) and took me to the doctor (where I cried) and to Denny's (where I cried). I was so proud of myself that today, for the first time since I went into the hospital, I was able to wear pants all day and even put on some makeup (which I cried off).

We had Eroll cremated (the hospital will take care of it for you, but they bury the babies in a mass grave, and I couldn't do that so we had it done through a funeral home). Sean picked out a beautiful urn and we will hopefully pick him up Wednesday or Thursday. Sean wants to scatter his ashes someplace quiet and beautiful on his due date.

Things will get easier with every passing day, and although I know we'll never get over this, we will get through it together, with our friends and family, and with love, strength, grace and guidance.

This part was written 10 days later, and sent together with the above...

Dear Friend,
Today I am back to work - put in full workdays this week (Monday-Wednesday) and tomorrow is Thanksgiving. It’s good that it’s a short week; I didn’t want to come today and would have stayed home if I didn’t know I had the rest of the week off. I had to come back to work - I couldn’t stand being at home alone all day. The TV seems so trivial, I don’t have the energy to do a lot of housework, I just read and think and cry. At least at work I have something to do to keep me busy.

Thanksgiving is hard. I kind of want to scream, “What do I have to be thankful for?” But I know I do have so many blessings, so I shouldn’t be so selfish. The hardest part is that I was SO looking forward to this holiday season and I imagined how much fun next year would be getting to share Eroll’s first Thanksgiving and Christmas. I just want to cancel the holidays. I want to run away.

I know you probably don’t know everything that happened, so I will summarize what happened. I hope I’m not saying too much - it’s hard to know what to say without scaring people or appearing morbid.

I started having some dull, lower back pain Tuesday night. I thought it was weird because it seemed to tense up for about 30 seconds and then stop - but it only happened like a few times all evening. It was still happening on Wednesday, and I checked the internet and got concerned that it was a sign of early labor. The sites said to watch for increased mucus and a gush of clear fluid. I called the doctor and the nurse said she thought it was possibly a bladder infection and to come in the next morning and have a test done. I was relieved. But, after lunch, the mucus did seem to really increase. Around 3:00pm, I felt some pressure and thought I needed to go to the bathroom - I thought this was maybe what was wrong with me all along. I went to the bathroom and felt like I needed to push - but then I felt something coming out of my vagina. I felt with my fingers and it felt like a membrane. Then it burst, and a gush of fluid came out. I was mortified - I ran down the hall and called the doctor. They said come in right away. I called a friend who works downtown to see if she could take me (my husband had the car and my friend was going to give me a ride home from downtown) and then I called my husband. The fluid was everywhere, I was soaked. I decided to go right to the hospital (it’s closer than my doctor). I called the doctor, my husband, and friend downtown to let them know.

At the hospital, everyone thought it was my friend going into labor (she was 8 months pregnant at the time). They put me in the “triage” of the Labor & Delivery section. My husband arrived right after I changed into the hospital gown. They had me take a urine test and listened for the heartbeat. By now, the fluid had started to become bloody. Eroll’s heartbeat was there, loud and clear. On the ultrasound, he was there, but not moving much because he had no fluid left. The doctor had a hard time seeing anything when she checked my cervix, but she did see that the membrane was completely ruptured.

They said they were admitting me to Labor & Delivery. They took me to a private birthing room and told me that, since I wasn’t having any pain or contractions, they would need to induce labor. They never really said what that would mean for the baby, but I knew. He couldn’t survive inside of me without any fluid, and at 21 weeks, he was too small to survive outside of me.

I was crying and telling my husband, “I don’t want to see or feel anything...” The doctor said they would make me as comfortable as possible and make it as easy as they could for me. They would give me an epidural and then start me with a suppository that they would put in near the cervix that would induce labor. They said it could be 6 hours, it could be 2 days.

My Mom arrived just before they did the epidural - around 5:30 or 6:00pm. They did a test dose of the epidural and it seemed to be working. The nurse said we would need to make some decisions. Did we want to see the baby? Did we want to name him? Have him baptized? Anyone who we should call? All I did was cry - I couldn’t make these decisions. She told us that she recommended we see the baby because it helps the grieving and healing process. My husband wanted to see him. But we never really decided anything right then.

They started the epidural drip, I was already on fluids. They gave me a button I could press to increase the drugs if I was uncomfortable and needed more. At 7:30pm, they inserted the first Prostin (the suppository for labor). At that time, I was 1 cm. dilated and 50% effaced. The contractions started coming, but nothing very steady or intense. We told Mom to go home and sleep and we would call her if anything happened. She gave us a yellow blanket she had made for our baby. It was an incredibly meaningful gift. I just cried and cried and held the blanket.

They came in around midnight. I was fully dilated and 100% effaced. They had me push. But the contractions had really subsided by then and it was hard to push with the numbness of the epidural and no contractions to work with. They put in another Prostin and waited. My husband and I drifted between sleep and crying and just looking at each other. They would come in periodically and make me push, but nothing was happening.

Sometime in the middle of the night they set up an IV of Petocin to see if that would get the labor going more intensely. I didn’t have any contractions with the Petocin, so they took me off of it. Around 6:00am they gave me another Prostin. There was a shift change and the nurse again told us we needed to decide what we wanted to do after the baby was delivered. She suggested that she take the baby, clean him up, and take a photo of him. We could see the photo and decide then what to do. By this time, we decided we did want to have him baptized in the hospital. We also thought the photo idea was a good one. My Mom came back to the hospital at around 8:00am.

Finally, around 9:30am, a new doctor came in and it was time to push again. This time he had my husband hold one leg and the nurse hold the other to give me something to push against. In three pushes, Eroll was delivered at 9:32am on Thursday, November 13, 2003. I hardly felt him at all and I thought how small he must be. I told my husband not to look (my Mom was in the hall) and the nurse took him away. All I saw was the receiving blanket. As soon as Eroll was delivered, I started crying and crying. Then they needed me to try and push out the placenta. They said if the placenta didn’t come out whole they would need to do a D&C. The placenta was difficult - I was sobbing and couldn’t catch my breath - I pushed and pushed and finally it came out - all in one piece. They said I did well and wouldn’t need a D&C. I asked to see the placenta. It was in a white bucket, and she showed me where the membrane had ruptured, where it was attached to me, etc.

As soon as Eroll was delivered, they turned off the epidural IV. They said if I had pain or discomfort they would give me medication. The nurse came back to make sure we wanted to see him. We still didn’t know if we had a boy or a girl and we asked - she said she actually didn’t know yet. She went and took a picture of him and brought it back to us. She said that we had a boy (just like I knew throughout the pregnancy) and she warned us that because he was so early, he was small and not as chubby as a full-term baby. She also said his skin was very thin, so he would look very red. I didn’t really need to see the picture to know I wanted to see him. But when I saw the picture, I thought he was just perfect.

We hadn’t decided on a name for him, but my husband had mentioned a few weeks ago that he liked “Eroll” from the list of names I liked. So I asked him if that was OK, and he liked it. We had such a hard time deciding, so we didn’t give him a middle name because it was just too hard.

She brought our baby to us, I was crying all this time. My husband held him first. He just cried and cried. He was so gentle with him. Then I held him. The first thing I noticed was that he had my husband's lips. His eyes were still fused shut, but other than that, he was perfect. He just looked smaller than a full-term baby. He was actually bigger than I thought he would be. My Mom held him, and then I held him again. My husband and I opened the blanket and looked at his body. He had long fingers and toes, and we both wondered where those came from (My husband and I with our short fingers and toes). He had my husband's brow-bone, too - he looked so much like him. We wrapped him in the blanket from Mom. He had a little knitted hat on from the hospital - he looked like a little elf. After about an hour of holding him and crying, we said goodbye.

The nurse said that Eroll would go with me to the 6th floor when I left Labor & Delivery to go to recovery. My husband and I decided we wouldn’t see him again, so we said goodbye.

When the epidural had pretty much worn off, they came and removed it, had me sit up, walk to the bathroom, put on a pad for the bleeding. I luckily didn’t need stitches or anything. We stayed in the Labor & Delivery room until they had a room available for me on the 6th floor. They gave me tylenol with codeine for the pain. And they brought us a “memory book” - it had his name, weight (12.2 oz.) and length (8 3/4") pictures of him, a shell they used to baptize him, his arm-band, and his hand and footprints. They also gave us lots of reading material - for me, for my husband, for the grandparents.

Around 3:00pm, they had a room ready for me and they wheeled me down there in a wheelchair. I had a private room. My Mom asked what the floor was that I was on, and the nurse told her the whole wing I was in was all women who had lost babies. That made me so sad.
I had dinner that night, Mom went home. I didn’t want to see anyone, but they came anyway. My step-mother came on her way home from a trip. My brother and sister-in-law came. Our pastor came. A friend came. I just cried and they all just kind of hovered. My husband went home that night - I wanted him with me but knew he needed to go home and get some rest (and feed the cats). He called me around 10:00pm, crying on the phone and we talked. I was finally alone around 11:30pm and I somehow managed to fall asleep. Around that time, the nurse came in (they had been checking my vital signs every hour) and said that she wouldn’t come back and disturb me anymore that night, but if I needed anything to just buzz. I did wake up around 5am and asked for more pain medication.

Then I was awake at 6:30am. I got up and sat in a chair and just looked out the window. I never thought it was possible to cry so much as I did during those few days. It seems like if I was awake, I was crying. My husband came back in the morning around 7:00am. After I had breakfast, the doctor came and said I could go home today if I wanted to. My temperature and blood pressure never fluctuated during and after I had the baby. I said I was ready. He wrote up a discharge, told me to see my doctor in 2 weeks, told me what to watch for if I had problems, and gave me a prescription for the tylenol with codeine. He also said it would be best to start back on my depression medication right away - he was concerned about my history combined with the post-partum depression and the fact that we lost our baby. My Mom was pushing for me to talk to a psychologist. I told her, “I am talking about this with you and my husband - I don’t need anyone else to listen. What I need is someone to tell me why this happened, and I don’t think a psychologist will have those answers.”

I couldn’t leave until we saw the mortician. He was an older doctor, and he told us our options for Eroll. He asked if we wanted to have an autopsy done. We agreed, even though I was sure it was my body and not Eroll’s. But I wanted answers and was willing to do any test to understand why this happened and make sure it didn’t happen again. He said if we wanted, the hospital would take care of the baby’s body. They cremate them and have a ceremony once a year at a cemetery. The babies are buried in a mass grave. I was OK with every part except the “mass grave” thing. We decided we would take care of it ourselves and Mom called the funeral home for us.

Finally, I got a shower, got dressed, and we packed up our things and got ready to go. My hair was coming out in clumps in the shower. I was so upset - I never imagined I would have to go through labor and delivery, only to leave the hospital without my baby. I decided I had to see Eroll one more time, so we asked the nurse to bring him. They had him all wrapped up in a cute little basket with his yellow blanket. We held him and said goodbye one last time, thanked him for letting us be his Mom and Dad, and told him we love him. Then we went home.

My husband and Mom went to the funeral home that day. My husband picked out a beautiful mahogany urn for Eroll’s ashes. We decided that we wouldn’t do a burial - they charge you a bundle just to open a grave for an urn - and my husband said he wanted us to scatter his ashes someplace pretty on his due date. We also decided not to do a funeral - I know some people do, but I wasn't in a place where I could do it.

We had visitors most of that weekend - people came to help and cook and stuff. I was in bed or crying most of the time that weekend - not really talking to anyone except my husband and my Mom. It was nice that I was never alone in the house. I didn’t really want people around other than my husband, but he needed it - he needed people around. I was comforted to know that someone was downstairs all the time when I woke up or needed something. We got some beautiful flowers from friends and relatives and cards arrived every day. I joked that my husband had the house like a funeral home - there was always soft, quiet music playing and there were lots of flowers. He did everything he could to make things easier for me.

We picked up Eroll’s ashes on Wednesday. I thought I would be OK, but I cried the whole time. My husband said, “I finally get to bring my boy home.” That made me sad for him. He’s so proud of Eroll - he wants to show everyone pictures of him and I have to remind him that, even though I know how proud he is of him, it doesn't feel appropriate to me to share photos of our dead baby - while it’s healing for us, it can be scary and morbid for others. The only people we’ve allowed to see them are our parents - and only if they wanted to. We won’t share them with anyone else.

The sun came out as we left the funeral home - it was the first time I’d seen the sun since I went to the hospital a week before (we had a terrible wind storm and tornadoes the night before Eroll was born). I felt that it was a sign - that maybe Eroll was at peace and telling us it would be OK. We put Eroll’s urn on the mantle - I guess that’s where they are supposed to go. Sean was worried the cats would knock over the urn, but I told him it’s not like in the movies - the urns are sealed tightly and won’t just open if knocked over. Eroll’s urn is very small, and sealed closed on the bottom.

I’m still having a hard time talking to people or talking on the phone. I came back to work for ½ day last week on Friday, and this week worked full days Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. There weren’t too many people there, so that was a good thing. I keep myself pretty detached when I’m at work or around people. Kind of like I am having an emotional out-of-body experience. If I bring myself to be here totally, I end up sobbing and can’t talk. So, I just smile and say “Thank you” when people come by and say they’re sorry. I still cry sometimes at my desk, or when someone gives me a hug.

I’m finding that the hardest people to talk to are the ones who I care about the most. I don’t know if that makes sense or not. I guess I know that a short “Thank you...” isn’t going to cut it with those closest to me, that they know me better than that. And I know they care and are hurting, too. And that makes it hard for me to talk without sobbing. It’s hard for me to see how others are hurting, too - like my Mom, my mother-in-law - and I don’t know how to help them. I don’t know how to make them feel better except to pretend I’m OK. But I’m not.

There have been some days when I can get up without crying - but I cry in the shower or in the car. I find that the longer I “keep it together” like at work or when people are around, the more I fall apart as soon as I have the chance.

My husband has taken it very hard. He is doing OK, but sometimes says things like, “I’ll never get to teach Eroll to...” I know he hurts and feels the same way I do. A lot of times we sit together and just hold each other’s hands - I just want to be near him all the time. It’s been 13 days since Eroll was born, and already I feel like my husband and I are the only ones still sad. I’m so worried people will forget him.

A co-worker came by my desk and asked how I was doing yesterday. I said, “I’m OK.” And she said, “So, you’re just about over it, then?” It made me kind of mad - I said, “I’ll never be over it.” I just want to tell people that I’ve held my dead baby in my arms, how can I ever be over it? I know we’ll get through it, and we’ll come to a point when it doesn’t hurt every second of every day, or there will be days we won’t think about the pain of the experience, but any parent knows they won’t ever forget their child.

I’ve been reading a lot of books on coping with the death of a child, or the death of a baby (however it happens after conception). The stories and validation of what I’m feeling really help. I read that it’s important for people to understand that we are still parents, we had a child - that it wasn’t just a “fetus” or a “pregnancy” to us - he was our child. I know that’s true. I’m also finding I’m only angry at myself - at the failure of my body. Every day, as my breasts stop leaking and go back to normal, my belly gets flatter, and even the continued bleeding are reminders of what a failure I am - the guilt I feel that my body may have caused my baby to die is unbearable. It seems so unfair that my breasts were engorged, even leaking some milk, and I had no baby to feed. I sometimes would catch myself thinking, “I just need to hold him and make sure he’s OK” as if he were fine and this was some sort of horrible nightmare. The post-partum emotions are even harder to take knowing I don’t have the joy of my little baby as comfort. I’ve never felt so empty or alone.

I know there will never be a day that I won’t think of Eroll. I’ll think of him during holidays, I’ll think of him when I see babies, I’ll think of him when I see pregnant women. I go to the bathroom at work and my heart hurts remembering where my water broke. I think of the doctor and wonder, “Didn’t they know?” I had my ultrasound just one week before my water broke. We were so excited - everything looked fine, all my tests came back normal. How could this happen just one week later?

For the first time in my life, I have an understanding of what a parent feels, that joy and energy that comes from having a child. I now understand why people do it over and over again. I can’t explain it, but even in this pain, I am utterly elated that we had him. There is no other word to describe it but JOY. At the hospital, before he was born, I said, “I never want to go through this again.” But now, even in this pain, I’d do it again. I’d go through it all again to hold him and love him for that short time. I’d do it again to feel the joy of sharing my child with my husband.

I hope I didn’t say too much. I hope you know how much I love and appreciate you and your friendship, support, and understanding. I don’t want you to feel shut-out, and I worry that is how people feel. But I just can’t say these things out loud. At least writing them, I can cry while I do it and keep going. It’s just the only way I have right now. Even last night, my Mom called and I was crying on the phone with her and I just was quiet and sobbing and she asked, “Are you OK?” I couldn’t even get out a “yes” or “no.”

Thank you, my friend - for caring and understanding and just being there. I’m so blessed to have a friend like you, and I know you’re there when I need you.

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My son was tiny, yet perfect. The autopsy and genetic testing we had done confirmed this. Since then, I've learned that I have incompetent cervix, that my uterus is misshapen at the base, and that any future pregnancies would involve a cerclage and possibly bedrest. I suffered a miscarriage at 7 weeks in March 2004. At the ultrasound, they told me it looked like the baby stopped developing, there was no heartbeat, no fetal pole.

If my story makes you uncomfortable, imagine how hard it has been for me. I'm the one who lost my child, I'm the one who is hurting. I'm proud of Eroll and I'm proud of my love for him, which has taught me so much these past 3 years.