Before beginning this "blog" I wanted to tell a bit of mine and my daughter's story.
It was a normal day in July. A normal doctor's visit. I had to put a pony tail holder around the button on my pants just so they would fit. I sat in the parking lot of my doctor's office hoping the rain would let up soon. Of course, it didn't. I ran inside, checked in, and ran to the bathroom to wipe the rain off me. My husband met me there and came in a few minutes later. My name was called shortly after we sat down. We got to the room and the doctor came in shortly after with a med student that was shadowing him. I laid down on the exam table for the student to find my little Marianna's heart beat with a doppler. After about five minutes she handed it to my doctor. I wasn't worried. Marianna loved to run from the doppler. He still couldn't find it. He requested a hand held ultrasound machine. He couldn't find the heartbeat but he could see her laying very low. He asked if we would walk across the hall to the ultrasound room. As I got up the med student said "We've had to do this with almost everyone today!" so I wasn't worried. I knew my kid was just being stubborn.
As the tech put the wand on my belly the TV screen above me lit up and I could see my sweet girl. I told my husband, "Look! There she is! She's got so much bigger since last time!" As I said that I noticed she wasn't active like she normally is during an ultrasound. Then the tech turned on the sound to record the heartbeat...silence. She kept looking and playing though. Then she stood up, very calmly said, "I'll be right back." As she left I just stared at the screen. My husband asked, "Did she find it?" I couldn't answer. I was scared. My doctor then came in, he immediately grabbed the same wand and put it on my belly. I watched him as the color slipped out of his face and the light dripped out of his eyes. He turned the monitor screen to us, pointed, and said, "This is her body. This is her chest cavity. I'm so sorry, but there is no heart beat. At this point I'm not sure what happened." 5 words brought my whole world crumbling down.
My ears rang. My head hurt. My voice disappeared. My heart broke into a million tiny pieces.
I was admitted to the hospital later that night. Fifty-one hours later my little Marianna Elyse was born. July 19, 2017 at 12:19 am. She weighed 13.2 ounces and was 11 inches long. She was beautiful. She was perfect. She was ours.
I am 1 in 100, literally. According to March of Dimes, 1 in 100 pregnancies end in a stillbirth. This is about 1% of pregnancies and about 24,000 babies.
