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I Never Even Got To Hold Her...A Heartbroken Mother Grieves... by Karen Lynn Vidra, The Texas Tornado
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Rated "G" by the Author.
A woman who delivered her baby daughter prematurely is trying to cope with her death. As you can imagine, she is heartbroken.
I look at the pictures of Abbie Rose, my baby daughter, and I can't help but be overcome with emotion or a great sadness. For she lived only one week after her earlier-than-expected birth, and she had a whole myriad of medical problems that eventually ended up killing her.
Abbie Rose wasn't expected to be born until November of this year (it's now August), but she was born in July; she was about four months premature, and she weighed only 11 ounces at the time of her birth. She was only about 10" long, and she resembled a tiny, lobster-red peanut more than a human child, and when I first saw her that fateful July morning (she was born on July 4, 2005), I was shocked at just how tiny she really was. She was limp and was not breathing, and to tell you the truth, I was scared for her. I didn't think she would live beyond a few minutes or a few hours, but she was a lot stronger than I gave her credit for, but she still had a lot of problems that threatened her very life.
The next time I saw my new daughter, it was in the NICU (neonatal Intensive Care unit) some 40 miles away; and I was surprised to see that she survived the journey. She lay on a "warming bed" (so as to regulate her temperature; premature babies are born with the inability to control their body temperature), on her back, her stick-thin arms and legs spread-eagled, and she lay barely moving, barely breathing. She was hooked up to a respirator that breathed for her tiny, immature lungs, and she had an IV line running into her scalp, which was most disconcerting, and she also had EKG monitors pasted on her little chest; the wires ran from the monitor pads to a machine, which traced her cardiac and respiratory rhythems on a tv-like screen. If her heart rate or her breathing rate dipped beyond a certain point, alarms would sound, and the nurses would come running to see what was going on; and it was always a nerve-wracking time. She was a shockingly bright-red color, and she had fine, dark hair covering her arms, shoulders, and head (this is known as "lanugo", and it is common in very premature babies such as Abbie Rose; it would eventually later fall out, according to her nurses), and she looked--well, very sick, to put it mildly. Tubes ran from her mouth, her nostrils, her umbilicus, and her bladder, and she also had IV lines plugged into her foot and her scalp; and she looked so tiny and fragile.
Somehow, by an unexplained Miracle, she managed to survive those first critical, trying first days, but she still was not out of danger, and several times during her week of life, she had some major medical crises, including a life-threatening brain bleed, numerous spells of apnea and brachycardia (absence of breathing or slower heart rates) that would trip the alarms and send the nurses rushing to her bedside, and she also had a seizure, and she also eventually stopped breathing when her tiny heart gave out, and no matter what they did, they could not save her; so she died. She was only a week old, and now I am left with the sight of an empty crib in a ready-made nursery that was supposed to have been her "home" upon coming home from the hospital, and I am left with only her clothes, shoes, diapers, and socks, and her toys that would have been hers had she lived. I am also left with unanswered questions regarding the true nature of her death and why she had to be born so early and then die just a week later, or if anything could have been done to prevent it from happening. I am also left with my family, who appear to be angry at me for some reason (it's like they blame ME for her death!) and the memories of seeing her in the NICU, suffering so much, and seeing her bruised, bleeding little body as the nurses and doctors fought valiantly to try to save her life. I also am left with pictures of her lying in the NICU and wondering what it would had been like had she been born closer to term or on her due date. Now I will never see Abbie Rose grow into a little girl, a teenager, or an adult, and unless I have another child, I will never have the joy of seeing her learn to drive, go to college and have a career, get married, or have kids; and I will never get to experience the joy of becoming a grandparent for the first time.
I still don't know why Abbie died the way she did, and I still don't know why she had been born so early, weighing less than a can of soda pop; but someday I will find out the answers. Until then, all I have are sad memories, and I don't know if I will ever have another child, for fear that he or she will end up just like Abbie Rose did...DEAD. Now she is with Jesus, up in Heaven, and all I have are broken memories of a child that could have been mine forever.
Your empathetic heart is at work in this excellent presentation of such a sad event! Beautifully written Karen! You really pour yourself into every write! Bless you!
Shocking and powerfully documented, Karen. Having miscarried a child at 11 weeks, I know all the dynamics which you so masterfully describe. And you have caught the stunned sense of shock and anger well - as well as the acute sense of loss - and the wonderment of life itself.
It truly is amazing how many babies survive these days who are born so desperately pre-term. It also makes you stop and realise (sounds daft!) but a baby DOES grow and transform beyond belief on an almost daily basis - it just doesn't "pop out" as a complete child at nine months.
Treasure the questions, honour the journey and lay Abbie Rose sleeping on the breast of Jesus, where she is, where she came from, and where she belongs... I know this is probably all fiction, but it reads real to me. My own poem on my own loss is called On Psalm 139.
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I look at the pictures of Abbie Rose, my baby daughter, and I can't help but be overcome with emotion or a great sadness. For she lived only one week after her earlier-than-expected birth, and she had a whole myriad of medical problems that eventually ended up killing her.
