My story--The Hospital Stay

As it turns out, there are blessings if you look for them.  My evening nurse was fantastic.  I really wanted to eat a cracker or have some 7-up to help settle my stomach, but after a spinal, there is a no food or drink order for 24 hours.  Around midnight, she snuck a graham cracker and a 7-up can in the room, and told me that these were for my husband when he came back (with a wink).  Throughout the night, I ate 1/2 of a cracker and had 4 small sips of soda.  Just enough to settle my stomach, but not enough to cause any trouble from the medication.  She was so empathetic, and she saw that I wasn't going to be sleeping at all that night.  In between caring for her other patients, she came in my room and sat with me and talked.  We talked about what had just happened, but not too much, because she seemed to know when I was done thinking about it and needed to be distracted.  She told me about her life, how she was a traveling nurse, and really lived on the other side of the state.  She told me about her ex husband and her kids, and we talked about anything and everything.  The conversation just flowed, and before I knew it, the sun started to rise and I had made it through what was probably the most difficult night of my life.  Her shift was over, and my daytime nurse came in to introduce herself to me, and she asked if I was okay.  I told her that I was just looking at the clock and counting down until my mom came...2 more hours until the plane lands.  Then 30 minutes more to get her luggage and drive here.  I couldn't wait.  

Around 7:30 in the morning, a lab technician came in, needing to draw more blood.  I was not happy.  I still had an IV, but she had to reprick me, and I already was quite bruised from the massive blood-letting the previous afternoon.  Why in the world did they need more?  Weren't the 14 vials from yesterday enough?  She said no, that they needed a CBC post-surgery, but this would be the last prick.  Then she tried to make small talk to cheer me up, because she could see I was crabby.  "Is this your first pregnancy?" she asked.  "No."  "How many kids do you have?"  And this is where I lost it..."One" I said, with tears welled up in my eyes, and then I had to take a few deep breaths to keep from crying.  At this point, I was no longer numb from the spinal, and my stomach muscles were too sore to cry.  I stuffed the emotions in.  And then the small talk stopped.  She must have missed the sign on the door when she walked into the room, but I'm sure she figured out why I was not a pleasant patient.  She finished drawing my blood and left.

The countdown continues...1 more hour to go!  Then it was any minute now...And, a little later than planned, but still as fast as she could get there, my mom finally arrived, sleep deprived, but she was there with the great big hug that I needed.  And I needed it more than I realized.  Once she was there, I felt safe and I didn't have to be strong or in control for a few minutes.  I could let someone else hold it together for me.  I could gently cry on her shoulder.  And without saying a word, she knew what I was feeling, what I needed, and she knew just how to comfort me.  It's something only a mother can do, and it was such a relief.

We talked about what had happened during the last 24 hours, and I filled her in on all the details.  Then we talked about Whitney.  I hadn't yet told her that her baby sister had died.  Yesterday when we said goodbye, I was pre-op.  My mom had suggested that we tell her the truth, and we don't soften the words by explaining that we lost her (because then losing toys or getting separated in a store would be traumatic) or that she's sleeping (because then bedtime would be scary).  And she also suggested we explain as much as she questioned, but not more.  I let my mom read the book that the nurses gave me, and I was debating on reading it to Whitney.  And then I had to do a lot of thinking.  The book explained that the baby was an angel.  Did I really believe that?  No.  I don't think she's an angel, in the typical sense.  I don't picture her with wings or a halo.  Although I loved the way the book was written, I decided not to read it unless Whitney had a lot of questions that I didn't know how to answer.  She had no construct for an angel, and explaining it wasn't going to be easy, especially since I don't believe in them in the traditional sense.

Later that morning, my rabbi stopped by to express his condolences and offer some advice.  I told him about all the decisions that had to be made and how I was still struggling with some, and he gave me the best advice.  In a crisis, he said, you have to make the decisions that feel right in the present.  Don't worry about how you might feel a month from now or a year from now.  Make the decision you have to make that will help you get through today.  And if you come to regret that decision in a month or in a year, then you can deal with the regret later.  There will be counselors or therapists that can help with that.  But at the very least, you'll know that you made the decision that was best for you at the time.

He did a lot of listening.  I told him how I could accept what happened, and how happy I was to have my mom back in town.  He told me that when he got Andy's text, he was in a meeting with all the other rabbis and the board of directors.  He had everyone step outside except for the other rabbis and he informed them what had happened to us.  He said that they all wanted to express their condolences and come by over the next few days.  He also talked to me about how Judaism views fetal deaths and death in general.  I was trying to figure out what to do with Miri's remains, and no option was a good option.  He told me that the body is merely a shell in which the soul resides, and upon death, the soul departs, so anything that we did with the body would be fine.  There's no standard protocol for how you dispose of a fetal body, as the baby was never considered alive, and all the religious rituals only pertain to those who took a breath.  He offered to say a few words if we wanted that, when we decided what to do.  He also gave me almost the same advice as what my mom had about telling Whitney.  It actually did help having him come.  I wasn't sure he'd be able to say anything I didn't know already, but that one piece of advice he gave me was priceless.  It took away some of the worries I had, because every decision I had to make was so quick and so final, and I didn't want to make the wrong ones.

Not long after my rabbi left, Whitney and Andy arrived at the hospital with McDonald's for them and my mom.  After they ate (I was still on my 24 hours post-op no food order), I had Whitney come in my hospital bed and lay down next to me.  We explained that mommy had a big boo-boo and she needed to be very gentle for a while.  And then I told her... "Whitney, I need to tell you something very important.  Your baby sister died."  "She died?"  "Yes, she died."  And then Whitney surprised us all with her question..."Are you going to try again?"  I clarified, "Try to have a baby?"  And that really was what she meant.  Wow.  She really got it.  I told her that we couldn't try for a while because of mommy's big boo-boo, but that maybe later when it was all better we would.  I explained that her baby sister wasn't in my tummy anymore.  The doctor " cut cut cut, then lifted up my skin" to get her out.  And there was a big boo-boo where he cut cut cut, and she would need to be very careful around mommy.  Mommy couldn't pick things up, or walk very far.  But everyday, I would get a little better until one day, the boo-boo would be all better.  She then reassured me that the baby in her tummy "is doing just fine."  I told her that I was glad to hear it.  Then she reiterated a few times that her baby sister died, and we told her that she did.  And she didn't have any more immediate questions.  I gave her a big hug, and we cuddled in bed and played for a while.  And I thought, how wonderful it was to be 2, and have the ability to immediately switch gears from a serious conversation to Mickey Mouse.

Now you might think that telling a 2 year-old that the doctor cut me open and lifted my skin up is a bit graphic.  But about two months earlier, we were laying in bed, watching tv, settling down, and she would hug my belly, feeling the baby kick.  She would talk to the baby and ask her about her day, then tell the baby about hers.  She would give the baby a kiss, and whisper "I love you, baby."  And during this nightly routine, one day, she stopped in the middle and asked me, " How is the baby going to get out?" I thought, oh boy...what do I tell her?  I'm having a c-section, but maybe that's scary.  Should I tell her that it comes out through my vagina, like it does for most people?  Then the teacher in me took over..."Well, how do you think it comes out?"  (When you don't know how to answer a question, let the students try to answer it themselves.)  And to my surprise, she had been lifting my shirt up to see my belly, and she said, "Do you lift your skin up?" And I said, "Yes.  That's what is going to happen!"  Whew...that is in essence what happens in a c-section.  Then the very next night, she asked if she could lift my skin up to see the baby.  And I explained that it was attached and that we can't lift it up.  Then she asked if we "cut cut cut", could we lift it up?  I said that a doctor needed to cut cut cut, but then yes.  But the doctor won't cut cut cut until the baby is bigger and ready.  So, she figured out what a c-section was all by herself, and I just went along with it, because it was the easiest explanation I could think of.

The hospital staff greeted me just before Whitney arrived with a folder filled of information.  It had a list of various funeral homes, a pamphlet about SHARE, a national organization which would provide support and meetings for parents who had experienced stillbirths, and other information which to this day, I still haven't looked through.  I spent the next 4 days in the hospital.  During that time, I parsed out so many of the difficult tasks that I was then faced with.   The first task that I had to do was to fill out her death certificate.  The nurse tried to do most of it for me, and filled in "Baby Girl Shrensker" as her name.  My husband and I talked it over, and we decided that she should keep the name we had agreed on just days earlier, Miriam Grace.  We obviously weren't going to give that name to any other child we potentially would have, so why not bestow upon her the honor of a name?  So I got a new blank form and for the first time, I wrote her name.  With Whitney, I had doodled her name along with many of the others in consideration over and over to make sure I liked it, but not with Miri.  Literally the first time I saw her name in print was on the death record.  Actually writing her name on the certificate somehow made the situation very real.  That was hard.

Later that day, in the early afternoon, I was greeted by my doctor and I begged him to take out my catheter and IV and let me eat.  Apparently, the general rule is that after a spinal, you need to be foodless and off your feet for 24 hours, and therefore, they have to keep your catheter in.  While it didn't hurt, I was just ready to no longer feel "bionic".  He agreed, and told me that I could eat again no earlier than 2:00 in the afternoon, but he'd be okay with letting me return to normal a little earlier than expected.  My nurse came in, had me take a deep breath, and as I exhaled, she pulled out my catheter.  My IV came out a few minutes later, and I felt relieved.  I ordered lunch, but when the food got there, I didn't have much of an appetite.  I was starting to feel very gassy from the surgery and the depression of losing my baby didn't help me want to eat either.

That afternoon, Andy and I went back and forth finishing the sentence "It would be worse if...".  It would be worse if this had happened in two months.  It would be worse if she was born and then died of SIDS.  It would be worse if I had gotten to the hospital on time, but oxygen depletion caused her to have permanent brain damage.  It would be worse if she was born with some sort of genetic defect.  It would be worse if I had done something (even by accident) that directly contributed to her death.  And somehow, this depressing game made us feel a little better, because although the whole situation was awful, we knew we didn't have it as bad as some people.

At one point, I looked over and saw tears in his eyes.  He said, "This isn't fair.  This is the type of thing that happens to other people.  We didn't deserve this."  And I agreed that it wasn't fair.  But I did tell him that this apparently is the sort of thing that happens to us.  And as for his last point, I'll never forget what I said..."No one deserves this.  This is the sort of tragedy you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy.  There's nothing on Earth anyone could do to make them deserve to go through this."

We started talking about what to do with her body.  Andy wanted to just let the hospital take care of it, but I wasn't so sure.  It seemed like an unloving act, just "throwing her away", not knowing where she was or what had become of her.  After reading through the information in the folder, my other options were burial or cremation.  If we chose cremation, I had thought of two places I'd be okay with.  My first choice was somewhere on the grounds of our temple.  I wanted her to be at a place like home, but not at our house, and not at my mom's, because if we ever moved, leaving her behind would be a huge problem.  And, in the past year, I've really made a second family at temple.  I go twice a month, and there would be more shoulders available for me to cry on than tears in my eyes, if I found it difficult.  And, because I go so frequently, I knew the difficulty of visiting would soon wane. Our temple would be a safe place and very supportive to us.  The second place I had thought of was in Hawaii.  Miri was going to be named after my uncle Jerry who lived in Hawaii and had passed away 3 years earlier.  He was cremated and his ashes were spread out to sea in a traditional Hawaiian funeral.  I thought perhaps we could spread her in the same part of the ocean, symbolically so Jerry could look after her.  And, Hawaii was also where Andy and I honeymooned.  I thought of other places too, but eliminated them, as these two would make me the happiest.  Andy added a third suggestion, on his dad's grave in Kentucky.  I was not at all fond of this idea, although I completely understand why he wanted this.  For me, having never met his father, it would be like spreading her over a stranger in a city far away that I wasn't connected to.  I wouldn't be able to visit if I wanted to, and since he never once has been to his father's grave, I didn't think he'd ever go.  To me this would be like abandoning her, but to him, it would be putting her with her grandfather in a place near to his heart.  We both ranked the options.  Mine went Temple, Hawaii, Kentucky.  His was exactly the opposite order.  We agreed not to make a decision until we decided that cremation was the option we would go with.  In my head, I was pretty sure we would both compromise on Hawaii if we chose cremation.

After everyone left that night, my friend Elizabeth came up to keep me company for a couple hours.  It felt good to not be alone.  When she left, my evening nurse came back to check in on me.  I wanted her to stay and talk, although I also wanted to try to sleep a little.  I got about one or two hours in, and by 3:00, I was done trying to sleep.  I spent a little more time talking to my nurse about her life, waiting for the sun to rise.

The next day, I went online to cancel all of my registries, only to find that you can't actually cancel them yourself.  You can "complete" them, but you cannot completely remove them without contacting the customer service people.  I wrote about 4 emails asking that my registry be removed from the various websites due to the loss of my daughter.  Most of the companies found this email to be sufficient, but some requested a phone call to verify that I was who I said before deleting my information from their system.  Some of the companies even wrote me a condolence email in response.  Writing the emails wasn't fun, and I cried each time I explained that I had a stillborn, but making the phone call was even worse.  I spent a few hours mentally preparing before I was able to pick up the phone and ask that my registry be deleted rather than completed.  When you think about all the time and hours that you spend searching for just the right color for the nursery, just the right furniture, just the right accessories, and it was all for nothing...It had to be deleted.  It was one more episode of letting go of my dreams and hopes for the future.  And later, after I got home from the hospital, I had to make phone calls about returning items that had already been purchased for me.  Every company was very easy to work with, except one...

My grandmother had ordered our baby furniture in November, and it was supposed to come in around mid-February.  She had used this company 6 times previously, purchasing nursery furniture for 5 of her grandchildren and for Whitney, her great-grandchild.   I asked her to talk to the company about canceling the order and refunding her money, since she had the credit card.  They were not very sympathetic.  They said that the furniture had already come in (even though none of us received a phone call alerting us to this fact) and therefore, they could not cancel it.  As a nicety, they offered to refund 75% of the purchase price, charging her a 25% restocking fee, but because my name was on the order, I had to cancel it.  She explained to them that I was in the hospital, recovering from a c-section, and please do not call.  Needless to say, I got a phone call from the store manager that afternoon, explaining that I would be losing 25% of the purchase price by not picking up the furniture, and she wanted to make sure that I didn't want to keep the furniture.  Why would I want baby furniture for a dead baby?  Every time I would see the furniture would be a reminder of what happened.  And who knew if I'd ever have another baby after going through this.  And, even if I did, wouldn't it be odd having that child in someone else's room?  Of course I didn't want the furniture! It was absolutely uncalled for to have to deal with this on top of the mental anguish I was already going through.  The fact that they called me in the hospital infuriated my grandmother even more than their not-returnable policy, and she ended up getting her lawyer involved.  After a month of back and forth, the company acquiesced and refunded her money.

One of the most agonizing decisions was what to do with her remains.  The hospital wanted a decision within 36 hours of delivery, but I kept begging for more time, which they thankfully gave me.  We could either leave her at the hospital and they would dispose of her, or we could make private arrangements.  After some questioning of the nursing staff and a little research on their part, leaving her there meant cremation, but the remains would be unrecoverable.  In other words, she would get swept away with the next person in the incinerator.  I couldn't do that to my daughter.  And yes, in Judaism, the body is merely a shell, housing the soul which had already departed, but I just couldn't do it that way.  So, the nursing staff was very kind and gave me a compiled list of funeral homes and phone numbers so I could call to make other arrangements.  I really had two choices--cremation or burial in a cemetery.  Neither option seemed right.  I wouldn't want to be cremated myself.  How could I have my daughter incinerated?  And technically she wasn't alive, so I didn't need to go through a whole funeral that a cemetery would provide.  And, if I did that, would I feel guilty for not visiting often enough?  Would we want to buy our own plots and have her buried with us one day?  That was more than I wanted to start thinking about.  I made some phone calls to funeral homes to learn more about each option.  Worse than making the decision was the question-asking they did.  The first funeral home really caught me off guard.  What is your name?  What is your address?  And so on.  Giving them all my information was fine.  Then, "What was your daughter's name?"  My heart sank.  Tears flooded my eyes.  I had only said her name out loud a couple of times before she died, and getting it out now was too much.  I tried to hold back the sobbing enough to get the words out, and I muttered with all the strength I had, "Miriam Grace."  The man on the other end, said, "Katherine?"  I replied, "No.  Miriam." with more tears.  And he still couldn't understand and said some other name which I can't recall anymore.  At that point, I was utterly overwhelmed, got out the words, "hold on" and quickly handed the phone off to my mother who had to finish the conversation the for me.  I was less than 48 hours out of surgery, and not on any real pain-killers (I had toughed it out with Whitney, taking only Advil-like medication and figured I'd do it the same again) and the act of crying was excruciating, as my stomach muscles were sore beyond belief.  Every time I welled-up, I had to do everything in my power to not let it out.  By the third try, I just couldn't say her name anymore.  But I learned, and the next day when I called another funeral home and they asked the same question, I replied, "Can I tell you later?" and I got through all the other questions and information.  Then at the end of the conversation, I asked if she wanted the name, and I took a deep breath, clearly said "Miriam Grace, goodbye." and promptly hung up, with tears in my eyes again, but proud that I handled it myself.  The third phone call went just like the second.  The funeral home directors were nice, but I really didn't need any sort of a service for Miri...I just needed help taking care of her body, and it seemed that they were more interested in being able to help with some sort of service.  Most of them graciously offered to help me for free, as this was such a tragic turn of events, but the funeral homes required to meet me in person before anything could be done.  One of them even offered to make phone calls on my behalf to local cemeteries, until they found one that would donate a plot.  Spending 5 days in the hospital and then not being able to drive for 2 weeks really hindered my ability to meet with the directors as promptly as they asked.  So after those tough phone calls, funeral homes weren't for me either.  After talking to some nurses, I found out who the hospital used to cremate the unclaimed bodies, and I called the company directly.  They offered to cremate Miri for free and save her remains for me to pick up when I could, something the hospital couldn't do.  And, they allowed me to fill out all the consent forms online from my hospital bed without meeting anyone.  So, while cremation wasn't a pleasant thought, it was something I could live with, and we'd be able to handle our goodbye privately, discreetly, and on our own terms, at a time when it felt right.  This was one of those decisions that my rabbi had talked about...It was the best choice in the present, but I didn't know how I would feel about it in the future.  I waited until the very last minute to fill out the consent, because I knew this was a decision I couldn't undo.  On Thursday afternoon, I filled out the paperwork, and they picked up her body at 10:00 on Friday morning and then she was gone.  And I felt so empty and torn apart.  It was strange, because I knew she was dead.  I never saw her, but we were still in the same building.  But once I realized she left, I felt so lonely.  At that moment, not only did I no longer have her alive, I didn't have her dead either.  Somebody else had her, and it was a moment of letting go that I hadn't expected to take so hard.

Thursday morning, I decided to alert a few people about what had happened.  I first emailed my department chair and one other faculty member, letting them know that I would be unavailable for a few weeks.  There was a meeting planned for Friday that I would obviously miss, and the start of the semester was that upcoming Tuesday, and I definitely wasn't going to show up.  I then made a phone call to my HR director, because I needed my family-medical leave to start earlier than I thought, and I wanted all the paperwork to go through.  When I called, she was on the phone, and I spoke to her secretary.  She asked what the call was about, and I told her I'd rather not say.  (It was hard getting the words out, and I had learned a few things from the funeral director calls the previous day.)  She said that she'd leave a message for her to call me back, and it would probably be in the next 10 minutes.  45 minutes later, no return call.  I called her again, only to get the secretary, who informed me that she was in a meeting now and that she did tell her to call me.  She asked what the urgency was, and reluctantly I told her that I was in the hospital, lost my baby, and I needed my leave to start now.  She must have heard how hard it was to tell her the story, and she promised me that the HR director would call me immediately upon returning from the meeting.  About 5 minutes later, I got the phone call.  And, her secretary had alerted her about my situation, so I didn't have to explain too much.  She told me that I needed my doctor to fax a note indicating that the c-section happened earlier and that would be fine.  I got the fax number from her, and left it by my bed, waiting for the doctor the next morning. Then I decided that I needed to alert the family that I was supposed to be tutoring on Sunday, so they weren't left in the dark with a no-show.  But before I told them, I got a hold of one of my friends who also happened to be a math teacher, and asked her if she would tutor the family for me for a few weeks.  When I explained why, she was very willing to help in anyway that she could.  So I emailed the mom and briefly explained that I lost the baby, was in the hospital, and couldn't drive for a few weeks, but I found a tutor for them in the interim and gave them her name and phone number.  I also emailed my online job, explaining what had happened, and letting them know that I needed some time to not have any job responsibilities.  Of everyone, they were the most compassionate. They told me to take all the time I needed, and whenever I felt ready to come back would be fine with them.

I was in a lot more pain this time than I had remembered with Whitney.  I couldn't really move my right leg without using my hands, and every time I sneezed or coughed, it was excruciating.  My mom had suggested that I try some percocet, because why deal with more physical pain than necessary, since I was having so much emotional pain.  Reluctantly, I agreed, but not until after dinner.  Sometimes pain killers make me feel queasy, and I wanted to have food in my stomach to counter that.  Once my evening nurse came on duty, I asked her for a percocet, but told her that I couldn't swallow pills.  So, she said she could crush it in applesauce.  My mom had done that for me when I was young.  I hate applesauce for that reason...it reminds me of the bitter taste of crushed pills.  Yuck.  So then she suggested maybe jello.  I'm not a big fan of that either.  But her third suggestion was the winner.  Ice cream.  She made me an ice cream sundae with percocet sprinkles.  You get through the bitter sprinkles on top, and the you have the rest of the ice cream as a "congratulations...you took your medicine" treat.  A delicious feel-good treat.  And for the next few days, around the clock, I asked all my nurses for percocet sundaes.

Thursday night, my parents let Whitney sleep over at their house to give Andy a night to decompress and be alone.  He really wanted to have a drink and not be responsible for Whitney for an evening, and I was glad that my parents were able to give him that.  But for me, that meant that everyone left early.  I called Elizabeth to come keep me company one more time, and she graciously did.  I also had a visit from one of my coworkers.

Thursday evening around 8:00, once I was assured that all my close friends and family members had been reached (except Allison, as she was on vacation), I decided to post our news on Facebook and start getting the "I'm sorry's" over with.  I felt like all at once would be better than a slow trickle as the news spread, and Facebook was the fastest way to reach nearly everybody.  The post read, "Sad few days for us...We lost the baby on Tuesday night.  There were just 9 weeks left in my pregnancy, and she stopped moving.  When we got to the hospital, she was already gone.  It was just one of those rare things...nothing happened specifically to cause it and there was nothing we could have done to prevent it.  We're still trying to process everything since it happened so fast and unexpectedly.  I know you'll be thinking of us.  Flowers are not necessary and I am not talking on the phone to very many people right now.  If you call and I don't answer, it's nothing personal.  Please understand that I just can't talk to everyone and relive it over and over.  I'm still in the hospital for 2 more days trying to recover from the c-section and it just physically hurts too much each time I feel like crying.  But I just wanted to let those of you know who had been sharing in our joy these past 7 months."  I received pings throughout the night and a few phone calls as my family and friends heard the news.  But, it was all the strength I had that day to write the post, and I actually turned my phone on vibrate and set it aside on top of a towel, so I didn't have to hear the pings or vibrations and wonder what everyone was saying to me.  During the middle of the night (around 3:30-4:00 in the morning), I finally gathered the courage to read what everyone had written.  It was sad, because again, it was one more step in making the situation real, but it was also comforting, knowing how many people were truly sorry.  I even had a few personal messages from friends who had experienced miscarriages that I didn't know about because it was early in the pregnancy and no one knew that they were even pregnant.  And they reached out to me, because they too lost a child.  I was very appreciative of this, but their situations were not quite like mine.  A miscarriage is different from a still birth.  One of my good friends that I had grown up with and had just recently reunited with a year earlier shared her stillbirth experience with me in an email.  I was surprised and relieved to know that she understood, and I wrote her back right away.  There were a few phone calls throughout the evening, and I slowly returned them, one at a time, when I had the mental and emotional strength to do so.  The first one was to a friend, Lindsey, who I watched go through this 4 months earlier.  The day I announced my pregnancy was the day I found out about her loss.  I knew she would be the ace up my sleeve.  She would be the one I could talk to and lean on when I needed someone, because she got what it felt like.  The second call I returned was to Allison, who called me in tears upon reading my post.  She was the only one I didn't tell ahead of time that I thought I should have.  But, she was in Disneyland, the happiest place on Earth, with her family, and I couldn't ruin their vacation with my news.  I was hoping she wasn't checking Facebook while away, but she was.  And she was one of my biggest blessings as the days and weeks moved on.  The other phone calls got returned over the next two days, but when people didn't answer, I left a message and didn't try back.  It took a lot of mental energy for those calls, and I wasn't really feeling chatty.

Friday morning was hard for two reasons.  First, I woke up and read through the remainder of the I'm sorry Facebook postings that had accumulated overnight.  And secondly, I was watching the clock approach 10.  I didn't know exactly when she left, but by 11:00, I was pretty sure she was gone.  I'd never have the chance to see her.  I'd never have the chance to hold her or hug her or kiss her forehead.  And thinking about giving her to people who would burn her beyond all recognition was (and still is) just awful.  But it was really the only choice I could live with.  

I decided to venture out of my room on my own and stroll down the hall before everyone arrived.  The doctors had recommended that I get up and walk around, and I made a lap or two on Thursday with Andy.  I saw the sign they put on my door...a leaf above a pond with a drip of water falling off it.  And it saddened me to see it instead of the happier "It's A Girl/Boy" signs that everyone else had.  But, I was happy that they had something.  It was a way to protect me, and I was appreciative of that.  I hadn't really felt like doing much of anything before that first walk, and I didn't really want to, but was prodded by my family to get up, so I did.  By Friday, though, the hard choices were over, and I knew that I had to start helping myself heal.  So I took a little slow stroll and I was proud of myself for mustering up the energy to walk the floor.  But of course, I turned the first corner, and what did I hear?  A very happy new mom telling her visitors, "It's a girl!"--the words I wanted to be shouting.  Again, my eyes welled up, but I stuffed the emotions in and finished my lap around the floor. I made a second pass and then headed back to bed.  That was plenty to deal with and I was ready to go back and hide out in my room again.

When Whitney arrived, I told her that today I was healthy enough to take a walk with her,  but that I would need her help.  She was so happy that she could see my progress and that she could actually do something to help me.  She couldn't wait to take me out of the room.  The two of us ventured out together and made one lap around the floor.  She actually made a great walking buddy.  She proudly held my hand, and her little legs moved at the perfect slow pace for me.  It was so reassuring to her, and I was so happy to see her delight in the fact that I was healing.

Friday evening, Andy took Whitney home to get her dinner and my mom stayed with me for a little longer.  She told me about her evening with Whitney.  They slept together in my mom's bed, and Whitney apparently understood what was going on much more than we had expected.  She was laying in bed in the dark, and in a faint voice, she said, "My mommy is very sick..." My mom reassured her that I wasn't sick, but I just had a big boo-boo.  She said, "My baby sister died."  My mom told her that that was right.  Then she was worried.  "Am I going to die?" she wondered.  My mom told her no.  But she told me that her heart broke hearing all of Whitney's fears that she had been keeping inside all this time.  She was apparently also worried that I would die because I was so sick.  My mom tried to comfort her and assuage her fears, and they spent a lot of that night snuggling together.  I am so glad that Whitney had her to talk to.  She must have been so scared throughout everything.  We made a decision that day to come up with something new that I could do to show Whitney how much better I was getting and how my boo-boo was healing every day.  It worked out well that we took a walk together that day.

On Saturday, being released was also strangely difficult.  At the hospital, I felt safe and protected from the surprises of the world.  Even though I was on the maternity floor, and even though I could still hear the "It's a girl!" celebrations in the hallway, I was in a place where I knew I would be met with compassion at every turn and I didn't have to explain my situation.  I packed my things, and I had to decide what to do with the memory box that the nursing staff had made for me.  I asked my mom to take it and put it in the trunk of her car, because I wasn't ready to see it yet.  The nurses actually didn't even bring it in my room.  They handed it to her outside my closed door, so I didn't have to deal with it.  She made one other trip with my husband and took my other effects and the flowers to her car.  Then about 20 minutes later, my OB came for a last visit.  He told me that he had cancelled all my appointments at his office, so I didn't need to worry about that.  He looked at my right hip, where all the pain had been concentrated, and told me that he thought it was from the knots in the sutures and that it would slowly get better over the next month.  And he again expressed his condolences and sent me home.  When the discharge paperwork was completed, they brought a wheelchair to my room to wheel me out.  I got in, and started the journey towards the doors, when all of a sudden, it hit me.  I was going home very empty-handed.  And there was another reality-check I hadn't prepared for.  It was a long ride down the elevator, but an excruciatingly long wait for my mom to circle her car around to the door.  I don't know if there are words to describe the emptiness of not taking my baby home with me.  The car ride was hard too.  I told her as she was driving that this was hard for me and I cried, and she grabbed my hand, and gently said, "I know.  I know," as she squeezed it.  She offered to drive around the block a few times before I got home to help me collect myself before walking inside and seeing Whitney.  But I told her no.  And I took a few deep breaths and stuffed the tears in again.