# still birth mommas please help



## moma justice (Aug 16, 2003)

just talk to me
we lost our dd at 41 weeks 2 weeks ago....i had our first dd at home at 42 weeks
this time around everything seemed fine
heart tones, position, movemnet all were great whole time, including the last week...
we think the baby had been slowly dieing over time??? if that is possible....
her skin was pealing off
her lipswere purple
her cord was quite thin and purple

i hve had 2 other birth losses....
a m/c at around 3months
then a hydrosephalis baby that i was told i would carry to term and then his chance of living more than a few days was impossible
(he did not have any brain, al water) since i was in my last yr of college i aborted him via herbs at about 20 weeks
thne my healthy, homebirthed dd
then this still born dd....

so please just talk to me
tell me what you think,what you know, what you went thru....
i do not know anyone IRL i can talk to that has been thru anythi ng like this
thank you.


----------



## babygrant (Mar 10, 2005)

mama. I've never been through a m/c or stillbirth but there is a sticky at the top of the page and many mama's had stillbirths. http://www.mothering.com/discussions...d.php?t=124873 Hope that helps you a bit.


----------



## Debstmomy (Jun 1, 2004)

Moma J I am so so very sorry that your daughter left way to soon. My story is here on MDC, but I do not have the links. You can search for them using my name & my dd name. I too had a perfect pregnancy, and lost her @ 42 weeks. I can tell you the first few months are a huge fog. Actually, alot of that first year is a fog. Now, 15 months out, I no longer cry each day. While the pain never leaves, it does lesson. I hated hearing time will heal, but it is true. Share as much as you want....we will help hold you up.


----------



## queencarr (Nov 19, 2001)

mama, I can't stay long right now, but I wanted to tell you are, sadly, not alone. There are many women who have had similar experiences. the way you describe your dd sounds very similar to ours--we were told she had died 5-7 days prior to birth. I no longer have it, but I remember seeing a chart somewhere after my dd's birth that listed physical characteristics and timelines. I swore that I felt movements up until the day we found out but when I honestly looked back, they felt "different"; I though she was just settling in. I was told that it was probably that she was floating and occasionally bumping me, which was what I felt as movement (she was never very active as compared to my first). Ds2 is up, so I've got to go, but please feel free to pm for with any questions or you you just want to chat. Also our story is in my signature if it would be helpful to you. I am so sorry for your loss.


----------



## sarah9774 (Feb 19, 2005)

moma justice-

I am so sorry that you have had to suffer another loss.. It just doesn't seem fair. I lost my firstborn son at 40 weeks and 1 day, woke up and did not feel right, went in for NST and that is when it was confirmed that he had passed away. I have since been diagnosed with a blood clotting disorder (though I, nor the baby had any clots).. my story too is here somewhere.. my son would have been 2 years old this coming up February. As you know the journey ahead will be bumpy, but you can get through this.. we are here for you mama.. please know that..

As far as what I think.. it is possible that your dd was not getting enough nutrients over time/or oxygen.. I think that may have been what was happening to my son as well, due to the thickness of my blood) I am, by no means an expert..I would gently suggest (if you have not already been tested) that you get the panel of test done including the clotting d/o and Lupus.. if anything it will rule some things out for you. If you don't mind me asking, what was your beautiful daughter's name?

I hope this was helpful, again.. I am so sorry.


----------



## coralsmom (Apr 1, 2005)

moma justice,
we lost our daughter march 21, 2005, 41w5d. she was fine at our nst a week before, fine up until the labor- lots of kicking, moving, etc. our cnm, the radiologist, and an ob who our cnm referred to all felt she died around the time i went into labor, 12 hours before birth. the physical signs of her body told us this. i don't know if she was slowly dying before her birthday. her placenta looked 'normal' for a 42w placenta. during my pregnancy with her, i read that it is normal to go past your edd, but then when she died, i wondered if my insistance and waiting for her to come naturally had something to do with her death. what if i had been induced at 40 weeks? would she be with me now? or was she destined to die no matter when she was born? our cnm said some doctors feel there is a connection to SIDS and stillbirth. that stillborn babies are SIDS babies that died early, and SIDS babies were stillborn babies that lived longer. it is all so confusing and no one seems to know very much at all!!
there was meconium in the amniotic fluid, but her skin was not stained and it probably happened during or a little before labor. her cord was normal- attached, formed, length, no knots...there were signs of infection in her placenta, chorioamnionitis, but no one, including the maternal fetal medicine doctor at our larger hospital will say that this could have caused her death. i needed to know why. why was she fine one day, then gone?
i asked for blood tests to check for blood clotting disorders.
we had her dna tested for abnormalities.
i struggled to come up with a cause that i had something to do with- something i ate? soy? peanuts? food poisoning?
noone would or could, can, give a reason. we didn't choose to have an autopsy, and i suppose that the reason could lay hiden there, a small heart defect, some rare blood disorder, some organ formed minutely out of normal...
it has been a real struggle for me to live with this question of why since she died. i find myself staring at babies, wondering how on earth they lived? coral was just like them. what made her die?

she died a little over 18 months ago. for me, i have adjusted to living without her, but i can honestly say that i don't really like my life very much since she died. i have been to emdr, a grief therapist, and a regular therapist, and while their counsel is helpful, i remain mildly depressed. i cannot seem to find the joy that used to come and go in my life before she died. i think it is a little different for me because i am not raising any ohter children. my distractions are not very distracting, so maybe it is taking me longer to feel "better"? but, i know from reading here that this is not the way it is for everyone who loses their baby, everyone is different in how they live with their grief. the one common constant is never forgetting our babies, never stopping to love and miss them. i think about coral so many times each and every day and night. she is really alive in my life, but in a very unusual way. having this relationship with her makes me feel so close to her and then i feel calm and better. but i also feel ostricized, like i am a freak for fostering and allowing this relationship with my dead daughter to go on and on as time goes by. no one has actually called me a freak, but i fear that this is what anyone would think if they knew how often and how important she is to me. so i feel a bit separated from the "life" that is going on around me every day. i suppose anyone who has lost someone they love feels this way. grief is heavy. it doesn't help very much that our culture doesn't really support grieving as a part of normal life.

well, i've went on and on. i love to talk about coral. if you ever want to talk about your daughter, her pregnancy, her life, your life with her, without her, i am willing and interested in listening. i am so sorry you have lost her.

one last thought. it was very helpful for me to have copies of my entire health record while i was pregnant with her, and copies of all the records of her birth and death. i needed to see each and every word that anyone wrote about her death and birth. this is how i found out she had an infection in her placenta. having that information gave me a little power to know what happened, and the ability to ask more questions about what could have happened. and, i encourage you to have tests if that would make you feel any better. getting my blood results was a big question mark solved. it meant there was one less thing i had to wonder about. it was hard to ask for these things when i was so sad, still in shock, and feeling like i was asking too many questions. but it helped.


----------



## napua (Feb 1, 2006)

I am so sorry for your loss and I hope that you can find your way through your heartache.


----------



## Tater25 (Mar 27, 2006)

Moma Justice

We lost our little girl at 39 weeks about 2 months ago. It was almost the same situation as yours. I had gone to the doctor about 4 days before she passed and everything was perfect. I saw her breathing, I saw and heard her heart beat. It was such an exciting day. Then I didn't feel her moving on Friday so I decided I would be a paranoid mother and go to labor and delivery and make sure everything was OK. Well it wasn't. The doctor told us that her heart wasn't beating. Talk about a dagger in the heart. It was such a painful experience and continues to be just as painful. I was induced that evening and when she was delivered she was wrapped up in her umbilical cord about 4 times. It was around her neck around her body and around her feet twice. I am not sure how I felt about this. Yes I was relieved that there was a cause of death, but then again I still ask myself "why would this happen to Alyssa?". After doing a lot of research I have found that the umbilical cord gets wrapped around the babies all of the time but rarely causes death. I do beleive that the cord was wrapped around her feet for a few months at least. I began having pain in my ribs. It was a burning pain and I continually asked my doc if it was normal. It didn't cause them any concern and they basically said that it must mean that she was in postiion. Deep down I beleive that this is the reason she got so entangled. If she turned with her feet tied together, then of course the cord would just continue to wrap around her. It only makes sense.

Alyssa was not born with purple lips, but as time passed they did become purple. Also, her skin was peeling, but the nurse said it was normal. The doctor said she had not been gone long, so I am not sure these are signs of passing over time as you had mentioned. I am not sure though. Now that you mention the thinness and the color of the umbilical cord I wonder what mine looked like. I didn't even think to look at it that closely.

Sorry I have babbled on for so long, but I just want you to know that you are definitely not alone. Like Corals Mom, I love to talk about Alyssa and anytime you want to chat I am here. Thanks for listening.


----------



## moma justice (Aug 16, 2003)

thank you...how can i explain how much reading your words about you1r experinces has eased my pain....
please keep sharing...how you looked for answers both spiritualy and medicaly.

yes
why alyssa? why you?
that is what we will be asking forever maybe?


----------



## HaveWool~Will Felt (Apr 26, 2004)

Oh mama, I am so sorry for your loss. Please know that you and your sweet baby are in my thoughts....
What was your baby's name? Forgive me if you did mention it...I must have missed where you did.








I, too, lost my dd at 37 weeks.... 3/26/04...
Ditto to what the other mamas have shared....
Holding you close....


----------



## HoosierDiaperinMama (Sep 23, 2003)

moma justice,

I'm so sorry you've had to join us here.







s I'm very sorry for your loss. What was your baby's name? What were her stats? For me, talking about details like that helps me (and maybe you) heal. What did she look like? Do you have any pictures or keepsakes of her?

My dd was stillborn at 37 weeks due to placental abruption. I think that she had slowly been dying as well. There was a blood clot in her cord that likely formed over time and finally just cut off all blood supply to the placenta, therefore cutting off everything to Reagan.

For me, getting all of the information I could grasp helped a lot. For example, I connected w/many wonderful mamas here who had been in a similar situation and that understood what I had been through and also had some pieces of the puzzle, so to speak. Then, when I got pg again just 3 cycles after Reagan, we went to see a Maternal Fetal Medicine doctor and she began to piece together more of the puzzle. I underwent genetic testing and then, after my 2nd loss, I saw a hematologist who explained that I wasn't risking my life by being pg from now on. I just had to be more careful than the average person.

As far as spiritually, I have never held stronger to my faith than I have since we lost Reagan. I have a book that my mom gave me entitled, "Safe in the Arms of God." I haven't read it, but for my mom, it answered a lot of questions she had about Reagan's death.

Another huge tool for healing has been my DS, Ross. He was only 3 at the time, but I don't know that I'll ever begin to thank him for saving me. When they said Reagan was gone, I didn't care anymore. My body was shutting down and I was dying and I.didn't.care. I just wanted Reagan, who had been so quickly taken away from me. I shut down mentally and like I said, I didn't care. My baby had been taken away and I wanted to die. But, I had a 3 yr. old at home who was also my baby and he has kept me going these last 13 months. I want to write him a letter that he can open when he's 18 and tell him how much he has done for me. I truly wouldn't be alive if it weren't for him. Anyway, I'm crying now, but children can be amazingly healing.

Just keep hoping, mama. Hold on to those memories of your precious dd. Cling to your living dd. She will give you strength. And, we are here for you as well. Gentle (((hugs))).


----------



## bbaron (Oct 10, 2006)

Moma. I am not one to give you any advice, or to tell you everything is fine.
Because everyone says it will be ok, but I am not at the point that I see that yet.
We lost our son Baron 3w2d ago at 36w5d. All I can remember today is holding my stomach, knowing that was the only way I was going to be able to hold him, praying to God over and over again for a miracle. Telling God I knew that he blessed people with miracles.
After reading about you, I started praying again, for the first time in 3w2d.

That God blesses you with one of those miracles.


----------



## momz3 (May 1, 2006)

I am so sorry you had this happen. I'm not really sure what you're wanting to know...
Alexis was born 5 months ago...according to the medical records, there was meconium, her cord had clotted blood in it also. Her lips were dark red (as she was bleeding from mouth and nose and her face, too was pealing. We had just had a doctors visit just *2 days* before this happened! Felt her hard kicks and heard her heartbeat. She died of uterine rupture and placenta abruption. I'm not sure if this happened over time or what. But from what my docs told me, my labor contractions are what caused my rupture (didn't know I was in labor or having contractions). So she was probably perfectly fine the days leading up to her death.
Again I am so sorry...do you know what cause this to happen?


----------



## moma justice (Aug 16, 2003)

please tell me
what does uterine rupture and placenta abruption mean?

i do not knwo any details...
i litteraly left town 3 days after her death (her name is Rain) b/c both my dr at the hospital and one of our neighbors threatened to report us to the dept of family and children services

altho it has been about 3 weeks now and we know they have not conacted us (yet?) we feel like they never did file reports...i am almost positive my neighbor did not and after the dr saw us...a social worker and the police dept med examiner (like the one who examines the homicide bodies) came to my room and asked me alot of questions...fortunatly for me i have a lot going for me that makes me apear "smart and normal" despite my alt. homebirthy life style:
i was a public school teacher
i have one yr of midwifery training
we had a midwife and full prenatal care
my dh has his masters degree and works directly for the govenor of our state
we had one successful homebirth already under our belt
i had a normal preg with Rain and my dd#1
we did call 911 as soon as we realized something was wrong (when she was born)
and i explained that my mother is from holland and that homebirth is a cultural/religious preference and norm for my family and heritage.

so i think we are off the hook, but i was not going to risk ANYTHING abotu loosing my dd#1 after the death of my dd#2 and felt like leaving the state was the only sane way for me to relax...plus my parents own a farm in the mts and that is a much better place to heal.

anyway.

if anyone wants to give me any more details that would be so helpful.

ohh so i do not know any of the medical findings b/c i just left town asap and my dr was not into being anything but angry and cruel...so he did not offer anything up.

i can have the hospital send me the med records but then i would have to give them an address to send them to and
i am not ready to let any one "official" know where i am yet.

i know it is crazy
but we dont't vax and my dd has not been to the dr in over a yr.....(well except the chiro)
and if i got the worng social worker on the wrong day....could i be at risk for them opening a case on us???? even if there is a .5 % chance of it....it is not worth it to me.

i actually thought i might need to call my mom from the hospital and have her take laina that night and go....i DID tell her not to open to door to anyone...
the dr was actually asking us questions about her (not me not my baby that was dead not my labor not my bleeding) NO he was asking how old was she and where was she etc!
while i was still laboring to birth the placenta!!!
can you imagine?

anyway.

needless to say i was (still am i guess) pretty freaked out about that.

even tho reading my still born's med records would be so helpful to me as for my obvious questions of why????

when did she die? why did she die? will this happen again?
i guess no one will ever really know those answers tho.

anyway, please feel free to keep giving me info

ohhh and she was born 7.7 pounds and 19 inches.

i did have picures of her (the hospital took them)
but since she was wearing this outfit that they put on her and her skin was pealing off and her lips were all purple and they had already scrubbed her and frozen her and put her in a freaking disposible diaper....i did not keep the pics
i buried them with her ashes up on the mt near my childhood home.

i will never ever ever ever ever in one million yrs heal from them FINALLY handing me my baby and me realizing she was FROZEN
like ice
i held her for one minute after she was born and then the EMTs rushed into my bedroom and took her.
when i got her back hours latter in that hospital room she was not mine anymore
she was ice

it wasn't her at all anymore

it was the physical form of this crazy sick drama....

ok
now i am all sad and upset....i guess it is good to cry....
keeping this saddness inside would probably kill me.

so please keep talking to me
any details you remember.


----------



## KittyKat (Nov 17, 2002)

Ohhh momma I am so sorry you didn't even get to hold her and cry with her in your arms. If there's any way to get the photos back, there is a service that restores/retouches photos of dead babies so you have something beautiful to remember your beautiful child.

There's no law that you MUST vaccinate, that you MUST take your healthy child to the doctor. Legally, they can't touch you. I doubt any judge in his/her right mind would issue any kind of warrant against you or your DD.

It IS good to cry. It is healthy and normal. If you lost a child and didn't cry at all I'd be more worried... You can't keep it inside or it will eat you alive. Sure sometimes we have to wear a mask to go out in public, buy groceries, attend family gatherings, weddings... Sometimes we have to wait until after the kids are in bed and the house is still and quiet to let the tears flow, but flow they must and they will.

Sometimes I have dreamed I was screaming as loud as I could. Just screaming and screaming and no sound would come out. Or maybe just no sound as primal and raw as the pain... I have also dreamed it was all a mistake. He didn't die but had been living with some other family. So warm, and beautiful and bursting with life. I like those dreams better.

Have you found anything in your life that "represents" her yet?
One momma had a grasshopper that kept showing up at her boys' memorial, sitting in the decorations.
I myself found a 4-leaf clover growing out of the grass on Liam's grave. It was amazing, and when I told some friends about it, one of them sent me a 4-leaf clover pin that had been her mother's. What a gift!

Maybe your little one will send you a message like that someday, something to bring you a smile, even a teary-eyed misty one.

Kathryn


----------



## moma justice (Aug 16, 2003)

thnks again kathryn
that is why i named her rain....

so i could have her every time it washed over the earth....in storm in soft drizzle
sad quiet renewing rain washing everything clean


----------



## Mama8 (Mar 6, 2006)

I am so sorry for your loss. For your little one born still and for the 2 that went before. Sometimes things just don't make sense. I wish I had some profound words to make your heart feel a tiny bit better but I don't. All I can offer is a cyber-hug and a listening heart. Hugs to you and your family.


----------



## KittyKat (Nov 17, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *moma justice* 
thnks again kathryn
that is why i named her rain....

so i could have her every time it washed over the earth....in storm in soft drizzle
sad quiet renewing rain washing everything clean

That is so beautiful!

One time when we went camping to "get away" from everything, a few months after Liam died, there was this sunshower. I swear every huge warm drop that hit my face felt like a kiss. Everyone else ran for cover I just stood there with my face turned up soaking it all in... Trying to drink in a lifetime of lost little boy kisses in that glorious heavenly moment. It was SO healing. Now every time it rains on a sunny day I remember that time. Grey days don't feel like that as much...

I hope once the storms of sadness have washed through, you will feel renewed and come out stronger than you ever dreamed you could be.
















Kathryn


----------



## merpk (Dec 19, 2001)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *moma justice* 
thnks again kathryn
that is why i named her rain....

so i could have her every time it washed over the earth....in storm in soft drizzle
sad quiet renewing rain washing everything clean











That was very beautiful.

I will think of her now when it rains. And her strong mama.


----------



## gretasmommy (Aug 11, 2002)

Oh Moma justice, I am so sad today. For you. For Rain. For your little one.

So sad.

Yet I do know from others that there is reason to hope . . . . someday there will be hope in us. I don't know when, but someday.

i will wait with you for that day.


----------



## HoosierDiaperinMama (Sep 23, 2003)

I am so sorry for how you were treated, moma justice.














s And for how your dd was treated as well. Rain is a beautiful name and I love how you describe what it means to you. Gentle, peaceful hugs to you.

I wanted to answer your question too. Placental abruption is when the placenta separates from the uterine wall and it can also tear. Mine tore in half and then into more pieces. By the time they got in there my uterus was black from all the bruising and bleeding. To complicate matters, there was a blood clot in her cord so that is likely the first thing that happened that caused her death.


----------



## KittyKat (Nov 17, 2002)

Just stopping by to say hello, thinking of you.

Yesterday in the evening it was raining. I went outside to get the mail and looked up in the sky, and said a quick little prayer for you. I will never view a rainy day the same way again.


----------

