Boogers on the Wall

There’s nothing like the nurse not being able to find your baby’s heartbeat when you’re smack dab in the middle of labor and delivery. Scares. You. To. Death.

That’s what Monday was like for my husband and me. After 9 months of worrying about our unborn baby, the fear and anxiety came to a head when her heart rate kept dropping too low with each one of my contractions.

That’s when a supervising nurse came in to put a heart rate monitor on her scalp to track things more accurately. But she couldn’t find the heart rate on her scalp.

For a minute I thought I was going to lose it. She never found it with the scalp monitor and went back to tracking it with the abdominal monitor.

Meanwhile I thought I was going to have a heart attack.

The nurse said she thought that something must be going on with the umbilical cord during each of my contractions – not something a mother of a stillborn baby wants to hear.

Luckily I dilated completely and my doctor arrived within the hour. After one push our little baby girl was born and we were able to see what was dropping her heart rate. The cord…wrapped around her neck.

Seriously? If I ever get to create a world, my babies are going to come cordless.

I can’t tell you the gratitude I have felt in my heart that she is all right. The miracle of birth is just that, a miracle.

My husband and boys saw a couple leaving the hospital the next day. They were empty handed. The mother was crying as she left without her newborn baby. My oldest wanted to go tell her he could relate to what she was going though.

What eight-year-old has insight like that? Miscarriage, stillbirth, and infant death happen much more than any of us would like to think about.

As I sit at home after bringing my beautiful princess home today, I am more relieved than ever. I am so blessed. I get to snuggle her, cuddle her and kiss her chubby cheeks.

I don’t know why some babies make it and some don’t. I can’t explain why some babies are born healthy with a knotted umbilical cord and sometimes a cord around the neck is lethal.

All I can say is that my heart is full. Full of love for all my babies who made it to this earth safely and especially for the one who didn’t.