My Anna

On August 23, 2008 my daughter Anna was born and then not even two days later died, actually on a calender it's only one day, but in my mind she lived forty-one hours and each of those precious hours counts.
Anna wasn't born premature, the doctors didn't do anything wrong, and according to the doctors, neither did I. It doesn't really help being told that, I still always wonder if I could have done something different, something to change everything that happened.
When I was seven months pregnant I went for a routine ultrasound, my doctor thought my stomach was a little too large and she wanted to be sure my due date was on track. I could see the baby on the screen: head, hands, feet. I'm not a doctor, but everything looked good to me which is why I was surprised when the tech turned the screen off and left the room abruptly. When she came back in she took another look at the screen and then had me sit up. She said that something was wrong with the picture and the baby's head didn't look right, she mumbled something about features being missing. I mentally recounted in my head the image I had seen....eyes...check, mouth....check, nose...check....ears....had I seen ears? I couldn't remember....well that wouldn't be a big deal...she could wear a hat.
The tech printed me images of everything but the baby's head, so I couldn't be sure about my ears theory. She told me I needed to go to Strong Hospital for a special ultrasound. I didn't wanna go to Strong, my baby was gonna be born at Parkridge hospital, as far as I knew only really sick babies were born at Strong. I didn't know what was wrong but I was starting to think it wasn't her ears.
I got to The Strong Special Care Clinic. They got me right in. A Doctor with a fancy foreign name came in and did another ultrasound, I couldn't see the screen this time. She told me She was sending the images to her office computer so she could see them on a bigger screen. She told me to get dressed and wait.
My two year-old, Alex was with me. He was being so good, but he was hungry and had to pee. he ended up peeing his pant, he started crying, which made me start crying. I cleaned him up and the doctor came back in. She sat down next to me and told me the baby had something called fetal hydrocephalus. Basically the fluid that flows between her spinal cord and her brain was becoming stuck in her head, it could flow in, but not out. Already so much had backed up that her head had grown to the size of a baby one week after birth, and I was barely seven months pregnant. This was why my stomach was so large.
The doctor admitted that if it wasn't against the law to do a late term abortion she would recommend it. She said this was the worst case of this disease she had ever seen. It would most likely be fatal.
Now let me tell you this disease is actually pretty common, but normally not so severe as to be fatal or to even cause too much damage to the baby. My baby had it so badly that not only was her head overgrown she had almost no brain left, the fluid had destroyed it.
So what did I do? I went on with life. I told my aunt Roseanne and she in turn told my father. Being the secretive person I am no one else even knew I was pregnant. I went to work and I came home. I had to get a new doctor...a whole team of doctors who specialize in high risk pregnancies. I used to call the receptionist, Meagan, whenever I got bored, I always felt better, even if I was just "confirming an appointment".
I was almost thirty-seven weeks along and had an appointment for another check up and ultra-sound. I wasn't feeling well. I was dizzy, I couldn't concentrate on anything, if I laid flat on my back I got extra dizzy like there was no blood getting to my brain. My aunt drove me to my appointment. She told the doctor about the problems I was having...I hate to be a bother so I hadn't mentioned them. He sent me to the hospital.
At the hospital they took blood...and made me wait. The results came back as preeclampsya, which is fatal if left untreated, so it was time for me to have a baby, but first I had to wait, They needed to do two c-sections before mine...one for twins. So it was about eleven at night when the finally prepped me for surgery. They took me into the room and told my aunt they would come for her in twenty minutes as soon as I has my anesthesia so she could be with me during the surgery..no one was sure if the baby would make it out alive.
They tried to get the needles in my back but I couldn't bend over properly because for some odd reason bending over caused my leg to hurt so badly I couldn't stand it. they finally got it in after about an hour but when they laid me down my head got fuzzy and I thought I was going to die...they said it was all in my head...of course it was in my head that's what I was telling them laying down made my head lose all the blood. they let me sit up and put something on me that recorded my blood pressure instantly, then they laid me down again, my blood pressure dropped to 53 over 30, which is apparently really low. Some nurse pulled out the shock paddles, but the other nurse injected me with something to bring my pressure back up....she would have to do this an almost unheard of twelve times before I stabilized....that'll teach them to say it's all in my head. They took me out of the operating room and into the ICU. The kept the shock paddles close by just in case. They then started to worry that all the stuff to keep my heart going was going to burn up my little veins, they decided to put a direct line into my neck...this involved putting a blanket over my head....I dealt with this for about half an hour until my crazy head was certain I was going to suffocate and I pushed the blanket off...the red headed doctor decided the direct line wasn't going to happen. Then they brought in someone to do a cardiogram to make sure my heart was ok. All this time I remember my aunt being on the phone with my father telling him not to come to the hospital, he would only be in the way.
They decided to do my c-section by putting me all the way to sleep. The anesthesiologist with the foreign accent assured me I would be fine. I didn't believe her, after all she was the one who thought I was imagining the funny feeling in my head. I was certain I wouldn't ever wake up again, I wanted to tell my son goodbye, but I couldn't, so I didn't say anything.
I did wake up. And it hurt. At that point in time I wanted to die...they had just cut my stomach open, cut into my ab muscles and uterus and they wouldn't give me pain meds until they were certain i was ok.....I cried for my mommy and then I begged for someone to just kill me....I would rather be dead then feel that pain...and no one would tell me where my baby was.
They finally gave me liquid morphine and released me from the ICU to my room I found out my baby was in the NICU and appeared to be doing ok. But something was wrong with me.....I couldn't see, not clearly at least. I could make out shapes and colors, but that was it...they said it would pass...it did...mostly....my eyesight isn't as good as it was before.
My dad came to see me. He brought cheesecake and My sister Ashley. They snuck away to see my baby. A nurse told me that she heard him tell Anna that her Grandma would take care of her.....my mother is dead. I spent the whole day in my room...that was Saturday. On Sunday I got another nurse an older woman named Pat....she made me get out of bed and go see the baby...she said it would be good for me...I was scared....I refused to hold her. I didn't want to hurt my little Anna by mistake...her life was already bad enough as it was. Later that day my friend Maryanne came to see me...we went to see Anna again, this time I held her.
Later that night a nurse called my family and then asked me to come down to the NICU, Anna wasn't doing so good anymore. They knew she wouldn't live long and had called for my family to come be with me. My sister Ashley made it just in time.
I held my Anna as she died on Sunday August 24, 2008, a little after 7:40 at night, forty-one hours after she was born. I told her that I loved her and would miss her, but it was ok if she had to go. I told her I didn't want her to hurt anymore, I told her I was sorry.
She died in my arms and I felt it in my heart.
A nurse came and took her from me. I saw my sister kiss her before they took her out of the room.
They brought me her blanket that night and I fell asleep with it...crying. I miss my Anna, I may have only held her for a short time, but I carried her for nine months.