In my last posting about Madison I told you of some of the hardest things we had to face while I was pregnant with her. By far the most difficult thing to deal with was the passing of time. You see, as long as I was pregnant everything was okay.
There was no visible sign on me that my baby had a fatal birth defect. As the weeks passed I grew larger and larger as Madison grew inside me. People at church and others who knew would sometimes stop and ask me how things were going. They sometimes said the most insensitive and stupid things without even realizing it. I often heard people say, "Oh, I'm sorry...you know you can always have more kids though". And then there was my favorite stupid line, "Well at least you have Myah and she's healthy". Now don't get me wrong...I was (and still am) grateful for Myah and that she was healthy and whole, but there is no way that having one healthy, whole child makes up for having one who is destined to die early on. Myah wasn't a replacement for Madison. For those of you who may be parents, you know there is no way that one child can replace or make up for another. Every child is precious and when one is lost, then there is nothing and no one that can replace that child. I'm sure that the reason why so many people would say stupid things is because they simply did not know what to say. I mean, what do you say to someone whose daughter is slowly dying? People try to fill in the awkwardness with something positive. After awhile I realized that and I didn't hold stupid comments meant in comfort against them.
As I mentioned in my previous postings, my 23rd birthday was April 16, 1998. My Darling Husband took me out for dinner at a great little Mexican place. It was a wonderful distraction from life. The staff at the restuarant sang Happy Birthday to me in Spanish and the owner gave a speech about the importance of birthdays and celebrating life. He didn't know about Madison so that made his little speech all the more moving to me. The following three days went by without any problems. On Sunday, Darling, Myah and I were supposed to go to a friend's church for a special program. We had to drive quite a distance and actually ended up missing the program because we got there too late. I kept having backaches during the long drive, but I didn't think anything about it since I was seven and half months pregnant and backaches can be quite common at that stage. Anyhow, I went to bed early that evening because I was so tired, again quite common when you are at that stage of pregnancy - read more
I woke up at about 2am on Monday morning with a horribly excruciating backache. I decided to lay down on the couch since that sometimes helped relieve some of the pain. I must have layed there about 45 minutes and my backache just got worse and worse. The pain began to spread from my back, around my sides, and into my abdomen. I didn't want to admit to myself that I was in labor. It was too early...I wasn't prepared to say goodbye yet. But nature doesn't stop even when you are unprepared for the inevitable. I woke up Darling and while I paced the house he called my mom to come over to watch Myah. My mom and dad finally got to my house and off we went to Butterworth Hospital.
When we got to the hospital, the doctor put us in a wing of the birthing center that was unoccupied except for us - visit link. I guess they wanted to make sure we were not disturbed. I had a wonderful nurse who was patient, kind, and most importantly gentle with me. Actually it was the nurse who delivered Madison. I'm jumping ahead of myself though, so I will back up. When we were moved into a birthing room, my doctor came by to see us. He checked my progress and we discussed some of the birthing process. Since Madison was missing the top of her skull, it was difficult for the doctor to estimate when she was going to be born. He told Darling and I that it would be probably about four to five hours. The doctor broke my water in order to speed the labor along.
That was at 8:30 in the morning. My doctor had brought along his student doctor and told the young man to stay with me for awhile. I had those little stretchy belts on my abdomen measuring the contractions and the baby's heart rate.
Well after a bit the monitor stopped picking up Madison's heart rate. This is rather normal. As the baby moves and the belt becomes twisted from its position, it is normal that the heart rate is lost until the belt is repositioned.
The student doctor tried to reposition the belt but still couldn't pick up Madison's heart rate. He got a portable ultrasound and began to search for the heart moving on the image. I knew...I just knew. Even before he brought out the ultrasound. I knew that she was gone. Finally that poor young doctor-in-training had to tell me. I felt so sorry for him. He quietly said to me, "I'm sorry. I can't find the heart rate. Her heart isn't beating anymore".
My dad was in the room with me as well as my Darling. I just shut my eyes and began to weep. My dad was on one side of the bed and Darling was on the other. They also began to cry. My dad held my hand and I could feel the great wracking sobs coming out of him. My dad...the rock...the island, was weeping over the death of my daughter, his granddaughter. The next half hour or so is kind of a blurr.
I just couldn't function on a conscious level. All this time I had hoped and prayed that Madison would be born alive. I wanted to see her alive with my own eyes. I wanted so badly to hold her tiny baby hand and have it clench around my finger. I wanted to hold her and rock her as she gently and quietly left this world. I wanted to see her alive. I wanted Myah to see her baby sister alive. I wanted Darling to hold his daughter while she was alive. Instead she was dead before she was even born.
I'll finish up Madison's story next posting. I can't do it now and I am afraid that this posting is getting a bit too long and too emotional. Let me just say that her death didn't end her legacy.
