We were called and told to go to the hospital at 8pm. It was like torture waiting for 8 to come. My two best friends arrived. No one knew how to act. I just couldn't think straight. We had my friends take the girls to another friends house for the night.
Mr. and I got out of the car at the hospital and were fighting about something stupid, I can't remember what. Who was going to hold the keys, something that lame. We were just both so traumatized. So scared about what was going to happen. We were on our way to the Labor and Delivery Department at the hospital and I had to give birth to a dead baby. I had read about the experience of this online somewhere years ago, maybe right before Munch was born-on one of those message boards for first time moms. That was my only deep buried knowlege that this ever happened.
We got into the room. It was TINY. Maybe they decided on the smallest room for me because my baby was the smallest baby being born, I don't know. The nurse was just so sweet and young and I couldn't believe what I was doing there. She asked me,"Do you want to hold your baby after it's born?" I was in shock. I said I didn't know. I burst into tears. Mr. was doing paperwork somewhere else. I didn't know what to do. I was in such a state of grief and shock.
The thing I noticed when I was about to get into the hospital bed was that it only had one belly band. Usually there are two bands for two monitors. A blue and a pink, one to monitor the contractions on Mommy and one to monitor heart rate on baby. There was only one. God.
I put on my hospital gown, it had slits over the nipples for easy breastfeeding access. Cruel.
They hooked my IV up. I just couldn't grasp that I was there to have a dead baby come out of me. It was like I had to keep reminding myself of the fact. But then my friends arrived and Mr. sat on the bed next to me. Another Dr., whom I had actually seen at the beginning of the pregnancy, came in and walked us all through everything that would happen. And I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. I asked her for another ultrasound to make sure. She was understanding and soft spoken. She did it. She gave me pictures. He was floating in the exact same position as he was the day before at the "formal ultrasound". I treasured the pictures though. I cried more. So did Mr. I could hear my friends in the hall, crying loudly, I had never heard them cry like that before. Never.
At about 9, they gave me medicine to dilate my cervix. My friends left about an hour later. Mr. felt too sleepy to stay awake, we had been up almost all night the night before, and he couldn't keep his eyes open.
My pain started to get pretty bad. I asked for the morphine pump. It didn't work properly and there was a lot of back and forth with all sorts of nurses to try to get it to work. It really really really hurt. Even with all the morphine I was pumping into me, I was in such pain and could not relax, get comfortable or close my eyes. I felt so alone. I felt like I was worlds away from every other human on the planet. I wanted to cry, but I actually couldn't, I was so focused on the pain. It wasn't like regular contractions with breaks in between, it was a constant aching, tearing apart of my insides kind of pain.
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