I officially go here now...
Nov 22, 2016 10:49:30 GMT -5
Post by aprilz81 on Nov 22, 2016 10:49:30 GMT -5
Last Tuesday we started the induction process to welcome Ava Grace into the world. She was in heart failure based on the fluid that was showing up on the ultrasound around her heart, belly and between her skull and scalp. The longer we would have waited the less likely a live birth would have been and our MFM said it was already extremely unlikely she would survive the stress of labor and delivery.
After 38 hours of induction and labor Ava Grace was born into Heaven at 32 weeks exactly on November 17th at 5:10 am. She weighed 4 pounds 15 ounces, was 17 1/2 inches long and her head was 17 inches around. She was imperfectly beautiful in every way.
Labor was one of the hardest things I've ever done. My body just wasn't ready and it took forever to get me to 4 cm, even though I was already at 1 cm when they checked me into the hospital. They started the induction with cytotec (first dose orally, remaining doses vaginally) at 3:00 on Tuesday and Wednesday morning I was still only at 2 cm so they inserted a foley bulb. That got me to 4 cm in a little over an hour and they decided to start Pitosin so I asked for the epidural first.
They allowed me to eat a light lunch (toast and yogurt) to give me some energy. Once the epidural was in I was able to sleep for a few hours which was nice. During the late afternoon/early evening I was starting to have some sciatic nerve pain and muscle cramps that even the increased dose of epidural wouldn't touch. I was getting sick and the anti-nausea meds weren't helping. I couldn't get comfortable no matter what position I was in, and I just wanted to be done.
At 1:00 am on Thursday morning I was finally at 10 cm and gave pushing a try. I wasn't making a lot of progress (she was breech) so they wanted me to labor down for an hour or so. I asked for a heartbeat check at that point and she was still with us.
The side benefit of the trial pushes was that I realized that being up in the stirrups eased the sciatic nerve pain so I asked them to leave me there. They looked at me like I was crazy but that was the most comfortable I had been since the epidural had first been placed.
When it was finally time to push for real I pushed for about 30-40 minutes and she was finally born with the assistance of forceps. The doctor handed our daughter to my husband and my Mom cut the cord.
She was dark purple and her poor skin was starting to tear from the stretching of her skin due to the fluid and the rough delivery.
We had been so hopeful that we would get a few minutes with her, but we are trying to take comfort in knowing that she died without pain or fear and when she opened her eyes she saw God and Jesus in Heaven.
NILMDTS was a no-show but the hospital photographer came in and took pictures for us. I'm pretty disappointed in them because they just did a black & white filter and didn't even make an attempt at lightening her skin tone or smoothing out the raw patches. My sister was also in the delivery room and took pictures for us and she got some good ones. We have about 120 pictures and while I don't know what more we would want it just doesn't seem like enough.
We gave her a bath and the nurses dressed her for us. We held her, touched her and loved on her as much as we could but she just deteriorated so fast. The nurses helped us get everything on our keepsake list accomplished and the 3D mold of her feet is my favorite thing ever. We called for the funeral home about 11:30 and they picked her up about an hour later.
Before we said our final goodbyes we played "You are My Sunshine" to her. It wasn't planned, but my Dad sang it to me and DH's mom sang it to him when he was little. We did a joint mother/son, father/daughter dance at our wedding to that song and it just seemed right that we played it for her. We sobbed all the way through it.
When my Mom came back into the room she handed me a gift. It was a silver necklace in the shape of a key with "You are my sunshine" stamped on it. It was perfect and she had no way of knowing that we had played the song for her. A mother's intuition....
They let me go home that night and it felt good to be home in our own bed. I slept like a rock and then woke up feeling guilty for feeling good about getting sleep. I just wanted to be a normal, exhausted new mother.
Saturday morning we interred her ashes and held the memorial service. DH had a beautiful eulogy for her which surprised me because he isn't one to express a lot of emotion. It was the perfect mix of humor (telling how I told him I was pregnant and how Ava would stop kicking the instant he put his hand on my stomach) sorrow for how little time we had with her, and joy that we will see her again someday.
Physically my only complaint is a bruised tailbone from the forceps. I have one (maybe two?) inside stitches that I don't even notice and my bleeding is fairly light. Emotionally I'm okay, we had 14 weeks to prepare for this so I think a lot of our grieving is behind us, but we are taking it one day at a time.
I'm taking 6 weeks off from work and I'm already bored to tears. I work from home anyway so I feel like I should just go back early so I have something to do. Yesterday I cleaned upstairs (nothing heavy, just straightening up and organizing) and scanned all of Ava's ultrasound pictures. This morning I am de-frosting our deep freezer and straightened up a few things in the garage. I'm normally a pretty lazy person but I feel like I need stuff to occupy my time.
This is one of my favorite pictures we got. Her little feet were the most perfect part of her.
After 38 hours of induction and labor Ava Grace was born into Heaven at 32 weeks exactly on November 17th at 5:10 am. She weighed 4 pounds 15 ounces, was 17 1/2 inches long and her head was 17 inches around. She was imperfectly beautiful in every way.
Labor was one of the hardest things I've ever done. My body just wasn't ready and it took forever to get me to 4 cm, even though I was already at 1 cm when they checked me into the hospital. They started the induction with cytotec (first dose orally, remaining doses vaginally) at 3:00 on Tuesday and Wednesday morning I was still only at 2 cm so they inserted a foley bulb. That got me to 4 cm in a little over an hour and they decided to start Pitosin so I asked for the epidural first.
They allowed me to eat a light lunch (toast and yogurt) to give me some energy. Once the epidural was in I was able to sleep for a few hours which was nice. During the late afternoon/early evening I was starting to have some sciatic nerve pain and muscle cramps that even the increased dose of epidural wouldn't touch. I was getting sick and the anti-nausea meds weren't helping. I couldn't get comfortable no matter what position I was in, and I just wanted to be done.
At 1:00 am on Thursday morning I was finally at 10 cm and gave pushing a try. I wasn't making a lot of progress (she was breech) so they wanted me to labor down for an hour or so. I asked for a heartbeat check at that point and she was still with us.
The side benefit of the trial pushes was that I realized that being up in the stirrups eased the sciatic nerve pain so I asked them to leave me there. They looked at me like I was crazy but that was the most comfortable I had been since the epidural had first been placed.
When it was finally time to push for real I pushed for about 30-40 minutes and she was finally born with the assistance of forceps. The doctor handed our daughter to my husband and my Mom cut the cord.
She was dark purple and her poor skin was starting to tear from the stretching of her skin due to the fluid and the rough delivery.
We had been so hopeful that we would get a few minutes with her, but we are trying to take comfort in knowing that she died without pain or fear and when she opened her eyes she saw God and Jesus in Heaven.
NILMDTS was a no-show but the hospital photographer came in and took pictures for us. I'm pretty disappointed in them because they just did a black & white filter and didn't even make an attempt at lightening her skin tone or smoothing out the raw patches. My sister was also in the delivery room and took pictures for us and she got some good ones. We have about 120 pictures and while I don't know what more we would want it just doesn't seem like enough.
We gave her a bath and the nurses dressed her for us. We held her, touched her and loved on her as much as we could but she just deteriorated so fast. The nurses helped us get everything on our keepsake list accomplished and the 3D mold of her feet is my favorite thing ever. We called for the funeral home about 11:30 and they picked her up about an hour later.
Before we said our final goodbyes we played "You are My Sunshine" to her. It wasn't planned, but my Dad sang it to me and DH's mom sang it to him when he was little. We did a joint mother/son, father/daughter dance at our wedding to that song and it just seemed right that we played it for her. We sobbed all the way through it.
When my Mom came back into the room she handed me a gift. It was a silver necklace in the shape of a key with "You are my sunshine" stamped on it. It was perfect and she had no way of knowing that we had played the song for her. A mother's intuition....
They let me go home that night and it felt good to be home in our own bed. I slept like a rock and then woke up feeling guilty for feeling good about getting sleep. I just wanted to be a normal, exhausted new mother.
Saturday morning we interred her ashes and held the memorial service. DH had a beautiful eulogy for her which surprised me because he isn't one to express a lot of emotion. It was the perfect mix of humor (telling how I told him I was pregnant and how Ava would stop kicking the instant he put his hand on my stomach) sorrow for how little time we had with her, and joy that we will see her again someday.
Physically my only complaint is a bruised tailbone from the forceps. I have one (maybe two?) inside stitches that I don't even notice and my bleeding is fairly light. Emotionally I'm okay, we had 14 weeks to prepare for this so I think a lot of our grieving is behind us, but we are taking it one day at a time.
I'm taking 6 weeks off from work and I'm already bored to tears. I work from home anyway so I feel like I should just go back early so I have something to do. Yesterday I cleaned upstairs (nothing heavy, just straightening up and organizing) and scanned all of Ava's ultrasound pictures. This morning I am de-frosting our deep freezer and straightened up a few things in the garage. I'm normally a pretty lazy person but I feel like I need stuff to occupy my time.
This is one of my favorite pictures we got. Her little feet were the most perfect part of her.