Loss at 31 weeks
I need to practice sharing about our loss because it hurts so much and I want it to get easier. We had just shared our baby registery, started to get a nursery together, and everyone was so excited. I had a picture perfect pregnancy up until this point. I didn't gain more weight than the doctors wanted, I was taking prenatals before I even got pregnant, and I was doing everything "right". At 31 weeks something just didn't feel right. I called the small clinic that I had been going to and nobody called me back. As soon as I got out of work I went into the clinic. I told the nurse the movements I had been feeling were just different. And she said "well you still feel at least 4 an hour right? Its probably fine". But I just kept saying something wasn't right. The doctor finally came in and did an ultrasound and said something was wrong with the heartbeat, so she sent me next door to the small hospital. They hooked me up to an IV for fluids and also said something was wrong with the heartbeat. It was faster than it should have been. They were going to discharge me so my husband could drive us 2 hours away to a bigger hospital but then they decided to life flight me, because there weren't any ambulances. At the bigger hospital I waited all night to see the pediatric cardiologist. In the morning he saw me and said he thought it was one of three things, and its probably not the third, but if it was the third, it was bad, very bad. As soon as he put the ultrasound probe on me he walked out, and when he returned he told us that he just called for another life flight because it was the third problem. Our baby was diagnosed with fetal atrial flutter with hydrops, and the outcome would not be good. Essentially the top of heart was beating 200-600 bpm and the bottom of the heart can't keep up. I was flown to Mass General and given two oral medications that were essentially poison to me, but my baby's only chance to try to slow their heart beat and get it back into a normal rhythm. I was closely monitored by the doctors for my safety. They stopped 24/7 fetal heart rate monitoring because the baby's heart beat was so fast that the monitors were not accurate so they switched to doppler every 6 hours. I was lucky to be transferred again, to Brighams and Womens. On Thursday at shift change the nurse checked for a heart beat, and after 3 days of hospital switches, pokes, monitoring, our baby passed away. I was enduced and gave birth to our beautiful baby boy on Saturday. (He was a surprise, we didn't want to know the gender) This condition is so rare and there are not many cases for doctors to study so we are finding great peace in being apart of a research study to find out more about the causes and why this may have happened. Although we are incredibly sad, we are thankful that our baby boy is no longer suffering. I had an early miscarriage in September and now this, and I am having such a hard time trusting and loving my body.

Achieve your health goals from period to parenting.