One Year Ago.....

I woke early with a sense that something was wrong with my baby.

That day was the beginning of a new existence for me.

From Austin's story:

On Monday, June 9th, I woke early, at 5:00 am, which I don’t ever do. I went to the kitchen and looked out the window at the beautiful day. It was so still. Not a leaf on the tree was moving. Austin hadn’t moved since I got up. Well, maybe he’s not awake yet. Still I wondered about him. I drank some water, thinking maybe he would nudge. Nothing. It’s early, what am I worried about? Now I realize that I had a sense immediately that morning that something was wrong with my baby.

I pushed the concerns away. It was early, and I was being paranoid. I got ready for the day and went about like normal. I only had two weeks until my due date so I decided to wash all the baby clothes that day. I don’t remember what else I did besides that. I took Savannah to school at 12:00. Throughout the day the thought would come to me that I hadn’t felt Austin move. He moved so vigorously all the time that to feel no movement was strange. Gee, he’s sleeping a lot today! Maybe his head is stuck in the birth canal so he can’t move much. Maybe he’s dead. No, he’s not dead! You can’t think that.

I lied down and concentrated hard on any movement, anything at all! I pushed on my stomach, pushed his legs, jabbed and poked to get a reaction from him. After 30 minutes there still was nothing at all. Now I realized that he was probably dead, he wasn’t being right. The nurse called back and told me to go to the hospital to the birthing center.

I didn’t want to wait until Clay made it home so I called the only person that I wanted with me during this crisis. Cindy Powell. She came for me immediately. School was just letting out so we got all our kids to sitters, then she drove me to the hospital. Clay beat us there. He proved that he, too, is strong in a crisis. We went in and they took me into a small room to get a heartbeat. The nurse put the heartbeat instrument on my stomach and immediately found a heartbeat. I was so relieved. I calmed down after that news. But the nurse kept moving the monitor on my stomach, saying she was trying to get a clearer heartbeat. She kept messing with it, which was annoying. Finally she went to find the doctor to do an ultrasound to see how Austin was positioned. That was when Cindy told me that the heartbeat the nurse found was mine, because I was agitated it was beating fast so the nurse thought it was the baby’s. When I calmed down, my heartbeat slowed, and she realized it wasn’t the baby’s heartbeat but couldn’t find Austin’s heartbeat.

So the doctor on call, Dr. Mulholland, came to do an ultrasound. He looked at the monitor for five seconds then told me there was no heartbeat. I already knew that was what he would say, but it was still shocking to hear. Everyone left so Clay and I could be alone. He held me while I screamed and cried. My baby!! I want a baby! I want a baby. It hurt so much. It hurt to hear that I wouldn’t have my baby, that my baby was dead. How could this happen? Did I do something to harm my baby? Dr. Mulholland came back to talk to us about what to do now. He said I could be induced right away or we could go home and I could be induced when I was ready. We decided to be induced right away. I couldn’t walk around being pregnant with a dead baby. We talked about what may have caused Austin’s death. Dr. Mulholland said it wasn’t anything I had done. He said the cord may have wrapped around him or he pinched the cord or maybe something was wrong with the placenta. These things we would find out at delivery, but we probably would not know what happened.

It's hard for me to comprehend that a year has past. How can it be, when the images are still so vivid in my head and in my heart?