Our Angel, Elliott

Sometime between our appointment on November 23rd and our trip to the childbirth center on November 27th, our youngest son, Elliott, passed away. Our lives have been changed forever, and the loss we feel is unimaginable. Our amazing little guy was alive and strong on Tuesday, and something happened that we'll never understand.

I began having frequent, strong contractions on Monday night, November 22nd. They weren't strong enough to think I was in labor yet, and at our appointment the next morning, I was checked for progress and hadn't made much -- I was just starting to dilate, but it was clearly not "real" labor. I continued to have contractions every 3-4 minutes from Tuesday night on. I was exhausted, not sleeping well, and in general discomfort. On Friday afternoon, I realized that I didn't know if I was feeling Elliott moving at all. I had been so focused on the contractions that I couldn't tell if he was reacting or sleeping...but I mentioned it to Dan. We tried to find his heartbeat with our doppler, without success. But we didn't find my heartbeat either, so we figured it was just something wrong with the doppler. Saturday afternoon, we decided to try again to find the heartbeat. When we still couldn't, but we found Dan's when we checked, we thought it was worth a call to the on-call doctor to have things checked out. Honestly, I didn't think we had anything to worry about. I figured we'd go in, they'd monitor us for an hour or so, and send us home for being "those parents." God, I wish we were "those parents."

We got to the Childbirth Center at 5:00 PM on Saturday evening. The nurses that got us in our room were kind and joking, trying to ease our minds. When they hooked me up to monitors to find Elliott's heart rate, they couldn't. So rather than grab a doppler, they brought in an ultrasound machine, to get to the point and find his beating heart. But they couldn't. They told us not to worry -- they weren't experts. The doctor would be there soon. But she couldn't find Elliott's heart beat either. A final "official" ultrasound was performed by an ultrasound technician that confirmed we had lost our son. I was sobbing, asking them to not give up, to please please please keep trying. It wasn't possible that he was perfect on Tuesday and gone now. It couldn't be true.

But then we had to decide how to deliver him. I had my heart set on a vaginal birth -- the one that I wanted with Owen, and the one that I was determined to have with Elliott. I wanted to try still, since the recovery would be faster and the hospital stay would be shorter, so we began the steps for an induction of labor. At 7:00 PM, a Cook's catheter was placed through the small opening in my cervix and inflated on either side. The purpose is to use the "balloons" to soften and thin the cervix, so that labor can be helped by Pitocin to create contractions and finish the dilation process. It was uncomfortable at first, but it also was creating very strong, close contractions for me right from the beginning. They were on top of each other, with only 30 seconds to a minute off between them, and they were off the charts in strength. We were told that this stage of labor would probably take 10-12 hours, but the nurse was thinking we wouldn't last until midnight with these contractions. I didn't want to get an epidural, but I was in pain. I asked for a narcotic drip to help, which did help for a while, but it also slowed my contractions and made me sick. By 5:00 AM, I was throwing up, and the catheter hadn't fallen out yet. The nurses removed it at 7:00 AM, and I asked for an epidural before we started the Pitocin stage.

It took three times before the anesthesiologist was able to get the epidural in, but when he did, he did a great job. I never lost feeling in my legs or feet, but I didn't feel the contractions at all. He was also great at managing my nausea, which was such a nice relief. At around noon, the nurse on duty checked my progress, to see how the catheter and Pitocin were working. And, much like with my labor with Owen, nothing was happening. I was only a little more than 2 cm dilated, and Elliott was nowhere near my pelvic opening. They offered to break my water and keep trying -- no one was pressuring me to have a c-section or to give up. But I knew by then what we had to do. I didn't want to spend another whole day waiting to meet Elliott, delaying the inevitable. At 1:00 PM, we made the decision to have a c-section, and the on-call doctor called our doctor in. The two of them did the surgery together.

At 2:28 PM on Sunday, November 28th, Elliott was born sleeping. It was eerily quiet in the operating room, and until that moment, I was still trying to convince myself that there was a chance that everyone was wrong and that he'd wake up and start crying. As time went on in the surgery and they were working on closing me up, we had to face the truth -- our amazing little boy didn't make it. Once Elliott was cleaned up and wrapped in blankets, Dan was able to hold him. He was so beautiful!! He weighed an amazing 11 pounds, 10 ounces, was 20.5 inches tall, and had a gorgeous big 15-inch head. His hair was almost black, and he looked so different from Owen. I was convinced we'd have another little redhead, but Elliott was his own little person. He had my crooked little toes, and the chubbiest legs. He really was so perfect and I will never understand why he didn't get his chance at life.

By 3:30, we were back in our room with Elliott. We had the afternoon, evening and night to spend with him. We held him and talked to him and did what we could to memorize his face. A photographer from a volunteer group called "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep" came and took pictures of our son. Family came by to meet him. I couldn't stand the thought of sending him away, knowing that we had such limited time with him. In the morning, though, we had to begin the preparations for letting him go. We had to choose a funeral home for after his autopsy, and we had to say goodbye to his physical body. It was horrible -- something that no one should ever have to do.

On Tuesday morning, we were discharged and had to leave the hospital without our baby. Thank god we had Owen to come home to -- he got us through so much when we were in the hospital, and he continues to help us heal now. He doesn't know what has happened, and he has moments where he seems terrified we're going to disappear again, but he's so sweet and funny and has such a love for life, that we can only be thankful for what we have. We aren't burdening him with our recovery, and we won't try to explain this to him until he's old enough to really understand, but he is helping us more than he can ever know. And when he gets the chance to meet a little brother or sister in the future, he'll be just as amazing of a big brother as he was to Elliott already. We are so sad that he doesn't get to a chance to know Elliott, but we are thankful that he's too young to feel our pain with us.

So for now, we just take our lives day-by-day, minute-by-minute. We have no other choice. But we are so proud of both of our boys, and will never forget how much Elliott touched our lives in such a short time.