The local hospital was a community hospital and therefore did not have a Level 3 NICU. It was really important to me and my doctor that I not be separated from my baby so she thought it best to transfer me to the big hospital in San Francisco. They sent a helicopter and a transport team for us. The team strapped me into the gurney, had me sign some papers, and after reviewing vitals and test results decided that transporting us was topo risky. He was concerned that the flight would be too long and stressful and having already lost one baby, they didn’t want to risk it. They unstrapped me, threw me back in the hospital bed and hooked me back up to all the monitors. It was time for Plan B.
Baby B had to be delivered and soon. They would have to perform the C-section there and then transfer the baby to another hospital with a better equipped NICU. Knowing that I wanted to stay with my baby, my doctor started calling in favors. A colleague who ended up assisting during the delivery was able to arrange for the aptly named Good Samaritan Hospital in San Jose to admit me as a post op patient, so that I could recover from the Caesarian in the same hospital that would be treating my little girl.
They wheeled me into the O.R. The crazy anesthesiologist did his thing and two teams of medical professionals were on hand, one team per baby. They delivered Baby A first. The silence upon her emergence was deafening. We named her Jayden Veronica. She is the only one of our children with a middle name.
Baby B was next and as Little G was yanked out, she let out the loudest shrillest scream ever. The relief in the room was palpable. My doctor cracked the first smile of the day. After a quick once over, they let me hold her, but just long enough for a picture. They took her into the nursery to prep for transport and started the closing process. It seemed to take forever because it did. Those stitches were meticulous. In fact every nurse and doctor who came in over the next few days to do a suture check commented on the beauty of them. It was like that was the only thing she could do to help take some of the pain of loss away from the day or at the very least not add to it.
The transport team came for the baby. They needed to take her right away, She was severely anemic and would need a blood transfusion. That night Little G took her first helicopter ride.
While I was coming down off of the spinal and waiting for my ambulance, my husband and I got to spend time with our second born daughter. We used that time to say hello and goodbye to Baby J. Her features were perfect. She was so small and had a full head of hair. If I didn’t know better I would have thought she was sleeping. I held on tight to her and told her how sorry I was and how much we would all miss her. Then I began to notice how cold she was and I felt the hole in my heart grow bigger. I sent my husband home to get Lady M who was spending time with some friends. My parents were flying the next morning.
I was moved to the other hospital to meet up with Little G. It was a rough night of no sleep, infiltrated IVs and whole lot of people trying to tell me how to mourn. I figured out that there is no polite way of telling people to “eff” off. I could mourn later. Right now I had a baby that needed me desperately and a confused little girl whose mommy didn’t come home. And so I plowed through. WHat else could I possibly do.
The next few weeks were brutal, but that’s a whole other story.
Some Things Just Need Saying 