Saturday 13 September 2008

Mom's Journal



My Mom wrote down her perspective of our experiences, and she recently sent them my way. I thought I would share her view point with all of you.

Tuesday morning Amy called about 6:30. She was dilated to 7. I dressed and Bill dropped me off. The Cook catheter did its job and she was dilated to 7. She was not fully effaced yet. The doctor came in and gave the epidural early because of the special circumstances. The pitocin and the epidural were begun. The process speed up a bit and Amy was in no pain and still very cognizant. When she was ready, the doctor was in a C-section so we waited until 2:00. Then they began to prepare everything. Amy’s medication had been lightened up bit so could feel to push. With two or three pushes Leah was born.

She moved her arms a little and opened one eye.

She was beautiful, not perfect but beautiful. She had 7 fingers on one hand, 6 toes on one foot. One foot was perfect with the little crease line on the bottom and pudgy. She had new baby color and her heart beat for about 45 minutes. She was a fighter. Her head was perfect. She weighed 1 pound 6 oz and was 9 and ½ inches long. Her hands were not formed well and her arms were short. Her legs were short but had great form.

The last nurse we had was Sarah. She said she was an Orthodox Jew. She told me this when I had asked to carry Leah to the room where she would wait to be taken for the autopsy. She said that being kind to her (Leah) in death was the last great thing you could do for a person.

I placed Leah in a nice white bag and she zipped her and put her in the refrigerator. She was wrapped in her cute white, blue and pink hospital baby blanket and I carefully placed her in the bag. I got to carry her down the hallway cradled in my arms. I said goodbye and kissed her one last time and went back to take care of my very first baby, Amy. My Amy who in spite of a horrific experience was brave and gave the gift of life to Leah and an opportunity to Jeff to hold his little girl.

On our nurses:
Lori was our first nurse who stayed with us all day and who was our nurse the full second day. When I told her that she was a gift from God to us she teared up and said “Thank you and I needed to hear that” She said she would be praying for all of us.

I get the sense that this young woman was sensing the same presence of God that we all knew was surrounding us.

Amanda the night nurse very talkative. She came in all night and checked on Amy as she slept. When I thanked her the morning of Leah’s birth, She said ”that she had attended many difficult births but she felt a spirit in the experience that was amazing. She said ”All the nurses at the station were talking about it.”

2 comments:

Haley said...

Thank you Amy, and Mary, for sharing. My heart is still breaking for you and your family, and my prayers are with you.

Chelsea Lee said...

this post shook me up more than any of the others. especially reading- "amy. My, Amy". i have no words, except that my heart, my prayers, my love all goes out to you.