Giving Birth to our Sleeping Beauty

Waiting to give birth to Peyton was the most grueling process. Every contraction and every "check" that the doctor and nurses did was a reminder of what was about to happen. I was going through childbirth just to have to bury my baby. Can you imagine waiting around until you are fully dilated and having to push your deceased baby out of you?? Knowing that you aren't going to hear her cry. Knowing that you are going to have to go through all of the healing process that your body goes through and not have a baby to cuddle with.

I really wanted to try and give birth to her without meds. I wanted to do it without any epidural. I mean, she was going to be so little, it couldn't be that painful right? When I talked to my doctor about it, she advised against that. And not in a way that made me feel like she didn't support it. She explained to me that since this was a stillbirth and since Peyton was only 24 weeks gestation, my placenta wasn't going to do it's natural thing and come out after the baby. She was going to have to do a lot of work to get it out. And she just really didn't want me in anymore agony than I was already going to be in. Boy am I thankful for her advice.

On Wednesday, January 10th of 2018, at just 24 weeks gestation, I gave birth to our sleeping beauty. She was born at 1:01 pm. She was 2 lbs, 8 inches. I delivered a child that was dead....to put it bluntly. Can you even begin to imagine that? Well let me tell you, it’s earth shattering. The brokenness and emptiness that you feel is soul crushing. Pushing and working to get her out was miserable. I was praying that I would wake up from this horrible nightmare. I thought, "there is NO WAY that this is really happening." Sadly, it was and it was our reality. With each push, I was so conflicted. One minute, I was thinking...”please get her out of me” and the next minute I was praying that I could hold off from seeing her. I was dreading seeing her dead. I was dreading feeling my heart break even more than it already was. 

Once she was out, we could tell that something wasn't right. To me, she was beautiful. She had those signature Shaw baby lips.  There were minor things about her that told the doctors and nurses that she was sick and that this was not your normal pregnancy. (More details to come on that.) Her poor belly was measuring 31 weeks. She had taken on so much fluid...maybe her kidneys failed and couldn’t process the fluid?? Either way, she had been sick. That little bit of fluid we were seeing a few weeks before had gotten out of control. And as my doctor was working on my placenta, it was evident that something was definitely haywire. My placenta was very sick. It was HUGE, too. Like, bigger that it would be for a full term baby. It was breaking off into pieces as my doctor was getting it out. She really had to work to get all 13 pieces out. And that is why I am so thankful that I got that epidural....OUCH!!

So there we were... broken, devastated, barely hanging on. I've never been so broken. I've never felt such heartbreak and pain. She was laying there, lifeless on my chest and I just wanted her to cry. I wanted her to wake up and look at me. I wanted to scream. I REALLY wanted to wake up from this nightmare. I remember taking every bit of her in. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I wanted her to stay there with me forever...but she couldn’t. Then you have my poor husband. I just kept hearing his sobbing....he could barely stand up at that point. He was so utterly and completely broken and my heart was broken for him. My parents and his parents came in and held our baby, their grandbaby and all we could do was marvel at her beauty and cry for ourselves. She was fine, she was in Heaven with our Savior. She was the lucky one....but our selfishness of wanting her here, our human feelings were so strong. We were so upset that we couldn't have her here with us. We wanted her here with us.

I was so exhausted. I held her a little but could barely muster the strength to talk to anyone or stay focused on anything. I remember being so tired. I think I was physically and emotionally exhausted. Little did I know, I was getting very sick. A few hours after giving birth to Peyton, my blood pressure started getting high and I ended up getting Pulmonary Edema. Luckily, my nurse caught it just in time. She heard me coughing while I was laying down and she immediately listened to my chest. She left the room and came back with a doctor and 4 other nurses. So, here I am, laying in the bed....Brett has Peyton, my mom is talking to my dad, and the doctor started asking us questions. I could barely answer them...I was so weak and could barely talk. I was sooooo unbelievable nauseated too. I could barely do anything. The doctor, with his big burly voice says "I don't have time to look at her chart, we have to move fast..." ….UMMMM excuse me??? What does that mean? Am I sick? What is happening? He starts shouting out orders and lays it all out, no holding back. He tells us that basically, my organs are filling up with fluid and my blood pressure is so high that we have to do something immediately to keep me from seizing or throwing a clot and dying.....WHAT???? Now, don't get me wrong, this doctor is absolutely amazing and we loved him, well, ended up loving him. But he wasn't sugar coating anything. He was telling us exactly how it was. And God love Brett. He lost it. Like fell apart, couldn't catch his breath. Here he is, holding his stillborn daughter and hearing a doctor tell him that his wife could (worse case scenario, here) die. He walked over to me...scared, frustrated, hopeless, and said "you have to talk to me, you have to wake up and talk to us." Can you imagine laying in a hospital bed and hearing all of this going on around you and not really being able to engage in conversation?? I wanted to hug him and tell him that everything was going to be ok, but I just couldn't, I physically couldn't... All I could do was pray. I just prayed. Over and over and over, I just kept begging God to bring me through this and get me back to my babies. I begged and pleaded. We had already gone through so much...I needed to be there for my babies at home. I’ve never prayed and relied on God so much. It was all in his control and literally, all you can do it pray in those moments. And even through the fear, I had such an incredible feeling of peace. God was there and he was listening and whatever the outcome, everything was going to be ok. 

In the middle of all this, at some point while what feels like 100 people are in my room, I start throwing up. I am so sick at this point and I am getting seconds of relief. But while I am throwing up, I keep feeling all of this fluid running down my back....I am soaking wet and I am thinking that I am losing my mind. Every time I would throw up, a rush of fluid would just run down my back. I tell my nurses and we figure out that I am third spacing from my epidural spot. I am so full of fluid, my body is trying to get rid of it any way it can....al least it’s coming out, right???  

Luckily, the amazing doctors and nurses get me all leveled out.....thanks too, to some Magnesium and Lasix. So the next day, I am MUCH better, like came back from the dead. In face, I am so much better, that some of the outstanding nurses from the night before came to visit with me and pray with me. They were so moved by the fact that I had been so incredibly sick the night before...possibly having to be transferred to another part of the hospital...but here I was, the next day, sitting up, talking. Feeling so much better!! How incredible is that?? 

This next day (Thursday) it was time to say our final goodbyes to our little princess. Today was the day that we had to give her over to the hospital so that they could get her to the funeral home and have her cremated. The next step Brett had discussed with me when we talked about taking all of this in little steps. Thank God my father in law handled coordinating everything with the funeral home because we were just not mentally able. Our Pastor was there with us and he prayed over us as we said our last goodbyes....as we held her and kissed her for the last time. He explained to us how one day, we would see her again and she would know us as her earthly mommy and daddy. In all of this, we kept telling each other that this wasn't our baby. She wasn't here anymore. Yes, this is her flesh, but she is with Jesus...she is in Heaven. She is safe and sound, away from pain, heartbreak, sickness, suffering. She is ok and it's ok that we are giving her body up. See, as parents, we are supposed to protect our babies, and having to hand over Peyton's body, knowing that we would never get to hold her again, was almost unbearable. But thank God for our amazing Pastor. I am so thankful he was there because he explained so many things to us...he helped us through this day so much. We could not have asked more of our church family, they were all absolutely incredible. The biggest thing I took away from him was that Jesus was weeping with us. He didn’t take our baby away for some master plan...he didn’t want this, he didn’t want us in this pain. He was hurting for us and with us. Sin caused this. Because there is sin in the world, there is death. And our baby girl was absolutely in Heaven...waiting on us. And she WILL know us when we make it there one day. She will know us as mom and dad. I can’t even begin to tell you the level of comfort and peace that gave me. 

On Friday, the day before my birthday, we were discharged from the hospital. We were so ready to get out of there. I needed to be away from there. Every newborn cry that I heard was like a dagger through my heart. I remember climbing into bed with Brett the night before we were discharged and just crying. I cried so hard for my baby. My arms were so empty and I just missed her so much. I was so upset and it was all really sinking in. I can’t even begin to explain the feeling of needing to hold your baby and not being able to...and knowing that you would never be able to. You have just given birth, your soul is searching for your baby, it wants to hold it’s baby and not being able to is what I could only imagine Hell feeling like. This was Hell on earth for me. 

My discharge nurse just so happened to be my friend and it was actually a really good day talking to her and being normal for a minute. We exchanged funny stories of our kids and family and it just felt good to laugh. See, for us, even in the midst of all the pain and heartbreak, we had moments of peace.  Moments of laughter. Good moments that God gave us. We remembered our happy moments, delivering our first two babies. We even mad it a point after Pita Stop to do the normal we always do, pick up dinner from the Pita Stop, one of out favorite spots in Birmingham, and eat it at the hospital. We did get to experience those happy moments. We had to cling to those happy moments. God shined through and brought us moments of light, laughter, and happiness. And we had to cling to happy memories. We weren’t about to sink into a dark hole. We couldn’t. We had two kids waiting on us at home. It wasn’t going to be fair for them to not get their parents back. 

But don’t get me wrong here, y’all. I was angry too...and I had moments of anger at God.....

Stay tuned y'all….there is still so much left to say. UP NEXT: COMING HOME....AND heading back to the hospital.

I can’t wait to share more with y’all....because there is MORE....SO MUCH MORE.