The Best and Worst Night Ever

We left for our church's annual Memorial Day cookout around 5:30 on Sunday afternoon, May 29th.  I was having a few strange pains when we got there, but it was over 100 degrees so I thought that I was possibly getting dehydrated again since I'd just gotten out of the hospital late the night before.  We spent about an hour there before I told Jeff that I just didn't feel well and thought we should go home.  I was continuing to have the pains, however now going to the bathroom wasn't helping them get any better.

We got home around 7:30 and I drank some water and laid on my left side.  That way, if I were having false labor, the contractions would stop, and hopefully I'd curb any dehydration that was starting on me again.  Laying down helped things for about an hour and a half.  Around 9:15, I told Jeff I thought we ought to call Dr. S., just in case he wanted me to be observed or something.  After talking with him, we decided to force fluids and wait one more hour.  He figured I'd probably done too much so soon after getting out of the hospital and just needed some extra rest.

We made it about 30 minutes.  My parents had called and I told them it might be best that they come and get Kamden just in case we wound up having to go to the hospital, and they were getting Kamden's things together when the pains started getting worse.  They got Kamden's things together and prayed with us before they left and then Jeff and I sat in silence, him handing me water bottle after water bottle and quietly reminding me to drink between pains.  3 bottles of water and the 30 minutes later, he noted that I wasn't letting up on his hand at all and asked how the pain was.  It suddenly hit me that they were starting to intensify and come every 90 seconds or so.  He called Dr. S. back and we were told to IMMEDIATELY get to labor and delivery.

Then the real excitement began...

We had to check in with the ER as the main hospital was already closed for the night.  I had Jeff get me a wheelchair and then waited inside the door while he parked the car.  After reminding Jeff he needed to go and park the car, I sat and tried to breathe through the pains that were now turning into HUGE amounts of pressure.  Jeff rushed back in and told the man working security that we were there to go to L&D and could he escort us.  He gave us the go ahead and we rushed up as fast as we could.  We got to the check in area and Jeff signed me in at 10:47.  A WONDERFUL nurse named Melissa came out to check on us and all I remember is looking at her and whispering, "Please help me..."  She wheeled me into the triage room and helped me to the bathroom so that I could change into a gown.  I told her I was pretty sure that I needed to use the restroom so I'd like to do that before they moved me to the bed.  As soon as I sat down I was sure something was VERY wrong.  To any men reading, I'm sorry for the descriptiveness, but hey, you don't have to read this part.  If you've ever had a child, you know that right before you are ready to deliver, you feel EXACTLY like you will if you are about to have a big poop.  Well, I started to have that feeling and I KNEW I didn't have to do THAT, not to mention that the pain was in the wrong part of my body.  I looked up at Melissa and said, "Oh my God...  I don't have to go to the bathroom.  I think it's the baby...."  She told me I had to get up, to which I replied, "I know...I can't though."  She helped me breathe through the contraction and walked me to the bed, assuring me that I had to have more time than it felt like.  However, once she got me to the bed, her eyes grew wide and I heard her tell another nurse, "I don't care WHAT doctor you get...get one in here NOW.  This baby's head is RIGHT there and ready to come."  About that same time, I started having another contraction and was trying for all I was worth to keep my sweet baby in.  That was the only way she'd be able to live, and I knew it.  I held Jeff's hand and in less than a second, our eyes spoke a thousand fears, questions, and unspoken thoughts.  Our baby was coming.  I turned to Melissa and started to cry.  I repeatedly asked her to please help me and to make it stop.  She held my hand and moved close to my ear and told me that we were all going to be okay and she wouldn't leave me.  They wheeled me across the hall to room 853.  My check in time was 10:50pm.  Kaidaince Brynna MaeKayla arrived at 10:52pm. 

Kaidi - Minutes old

Jeff squeezed my hand and told me to stop pushing, that she was there.  I kept insisting she wasn't until I saw them move her to start cleaning her up.  I finally understand what the saying "time stood still" means.  I know people were talking.  I know they asked me questions.  I know I answered them.  I couldn't tell you at all what was actually said or done in that time though.  She was so quiet.  She was alive, but she was silent.  We had been told to expect her to never draw her first breath, so I didn't expect to hear much.  What I saw was a perfect, angelic profile that looked SO much like her brother when he was born.

Just for comparison's sake, here's Kamden at 2 days old. 

 

The doctor came in as the nurses were cleaning her up and he asked us what we had been told about our baby's condition.  Jeff gave a fast run down of what we had learned about Potters Syndrome in our crash course over the last four months - No kidneys, no identifiable stomach or bladder, underdeveloped  lungs not compatible with life.  The doctor smiled sadly and asked if we understood that this meant there was nothing he could do for our baby, and Jeff assured him that we understood.  I think I nodded...but I kept just staring at her face.  The doctor then asked us if we'd ever been told the gender of our baby.  We told him no, that there had been so little fluid that the ultrasounds never showed.  He asked Jeff to come over and look and told him that our precious baby had never developed genitalia.  He wasn't able to tell by feeling if there were testicles trying to descend, so really there was no way to tell what gender our baby was.  (Jeff later told me that there had been no openings at all on Kaidi's lower body - no where to urinate or poop.  Dr. S told us that it's not uncommon when there is a major deformity with a kidney(s) for there to be major deformities like this as well.)  The doctor asked us what we'd like for the baby to have been and what gut feeling I'd had through the pregnancy.  I told him almost immediately that she'd always been "my little girl" and Kamden had always said he had a "baby skister".  She was my Kaidance Brynna MaeKayla.  He smiled and asked me if I wanted to hold her, and I didn't even verbally respond.  I just held out my arms.  He patted the top of my head and smiled, telling me she was gorgeous and he was sorry he couldn't do anything for her.  Then he handed me the tiniest bundle I've ever held in my life.  

All 3lbs 5oz and 16.5 inches of her. I'd tried to prepare for the worst by looking up pictures of babies born with Potters Syndrome.  Generally because of the lack of fluid, babies born with Potters have quite flattened faces and sometimes major skull deformities.  I know that no matter what she looked like, she would have been perfect to me, but she looked PERFECT.  I was later told by a nurse who works specifically with infant loss that she'd never seen a baby look so perfectly healthy and normal who had been born with Potter's in the almost 30 years she'd been working with them. She looked SO much like Kamden.  She had beautiful reddish-brown wavy hair that I just know would have been extremely curly when it grew out.  Her fingers were long and I could imagine her playing piano with her big brother while he taught her how to play "Twinkle Twinkle" and "the Charlie Brown song" he loves so much.  Her feet were long with toes that curled under just a bit on one foot - just like mine.  And she was still alive.  My OB finally showed up (he had been fighting fires near his home and rushed to get there, but only got there in time to deliver the afterbirth.  I joked with him that this is what he got for showing up late and also asked him I won the prize for fastest delivery of the night.  He assured me that I'd probably won for the year.)  Dr. S checked her and said she still had a heartbeat, but it was extremely weak.  He said they would continue to check her every 15 minutes or so until "it was over", but that I'd have as much time with her as I wanted and needed.  

He then needed to examine me so a wonderful nurse from the NICU nursery, Nancy, came in and asked if we'd like to bathe her.  I handed her to Jeff and she squeaked at him a few times.  She SQUEAKED!!  We weren't expected to hear any sounds from her and she squeaked and grunted at him.  I heard him whisper to her, "Please baby girl, please fight," as he carried her over to the basin the nurse had filled.  He helped to bathe her and focused on her gorgeous hair.  She had so much of it that it was hard to get clean.  The nurse took her out and got her dry, put into a pretty little gown and handed back to Jeff.  He stood silently rocking her when Dr. S. came back in to check on me and to check the baby.  He moved the stethoscope around several times before looking up at the clock and smiling sadly.  

It was 11:38pm.  Our precious Kaidi was gone.

Jeff called my parents, and they woke Kam and came to the hospital.  I was nervous as he'd not yet had it click that I was even having a baby, so I wasn't sure he'd understand who she was and what was going on.  When he first came in, he exclaimed, "LOOK!  That's baby Gideon! (Jeff's cousin has a baby a week older gestation wise who was born at 24 weeks that we have been following progress on through caringbridge.com.)  I smiled and told him that no, this was his baby Kaidance.  His face lit up and he cheered, "That's MY baby sissy!!"  He went over to Jeff and asked if he could hold his baby.  Jeff seemed hesitant, but there was no way that it could hurt, so Jeff moved to another chair, held Kamden on his lap and helped him to cradle his baby sister.  Kamden was in awe.  He started listing things...  "I love her nose...  I love her fingers...  Daddy, she's praying.  Is she asleep?  I be gentle.  I need to pet her hair."  We all held it together until he bent to kiss her and said, "I love you baby Kaidi."

Each of my parents held her and my own mother held me while I cried.  She wanted so much to comfort me, but she told me she wasn't sure how so she'd just hold me until I was ready.  My aunt and uncle came up as well, and it meant so much to me.  They have been major prayer partners and warriors with us from day one of finding out something could possibly be wrong with our baby, and now they were there in our darkest hour to stand by us.  They prayed with us before leaving and not long after they left, my parents took Kamden home to get him to bed.  Jeff and I sat in our delivery room while they finished her hand and foot prints, impressions, asking us random information needed for my chart, testing her blood type to see if I needed more rogham injections...  We finally moved to a different room around 5 am - Jeff slowly walking and carrying her in his arms, and me riding with the keepsake box that would be all I'd leave the hospital with placed gently on my lap. 

The nightmare we'd started 17 weeks earlier was technically over.  We had the closure of whether she'd live or die, but now we were starting on the next chapter of our lives with a huge hole in our hearts and our family.  After the night nurse, a complete angel named Jennifer, checked me over, I had Jeff place sweet Kaidi in the crook of my arm, where I slept with her for the rest of the night and into the next day.  We finally surrendered her body to be taken to the funeral home around 1:30 on Memorial Day.  I would have held on forever if I were able, but it was time.  My parents were there as was Kamden.  My parents helped me dress her in her burial clothes - a beautiful pink outfit my mother had bought that morning - and he handed her to Sis - the nurse I mentioned earlier who works specifically with infant loss.  She prayed with us, read a beautiful poem, and cradled our daughter as if she were made of glass when she carried her out.  

My heart left the room with my daughter.  I did nothing but sleep and hold Jeff's hand until we left at 11:30 the next morning.  I made myself eat, but never tasted the food.  I showered, but never felt the water.  I rode out to the car in a wheelchair with Kaidi's box on my lap, so angry to see other moms with their babies.  Why them and not me?  Not that I'd ever wish this pain on someone else just so my daughter could live, but why all the moms who don't even WANT another child who have "an accident", or those who are too young or unfit to be parents who are glorified on TV for getting pregnant - why them and not us?  Why had SO many prayed for a miracle only to see God seemingly turn His face away and answer with a "No"?  Why us???  I still don't know.  I don't know that I ever will.  But it's our lot...and we have to go through it.  It's up to us HOW we go through it - allowing it to draw us close to each other and to God or allowing it to drive a wedge between us.  We know what we choose and that is to be a family united who trusts in God.  Please Lord, don't let our human nature get in the way. 

I'll post in the days that follow pictures and about Kaidi's memorial service and our first few days home.  I'll warn ahead of time that I plan to be totally candid about my feelings and emotions as I deal with losing our baby girl, and what has followed since coming home has not been pretty.  I want to put it all out there, the good and the bad, so that those who may find this blog and are going through similar know they aren't alone in their feelings.