Post Mortem Results- The Outcome

On Saturday we had our meeting to get the final post mortem results. It's a day met with both anticipation and fear. Of course, I wanted to know why my son was taken away from me a few weeks short of his due date; but at the same time I was scared at what the report might say. Would it uncover some horrible mistake I made along the way? Would it conclude that the whole thing was my fault? Would the report indicate something that would prevent me from carrying any child to term. Would the doctor say that we have no hope of ever having a child of our own?

A couple of days before our appointment, my husband asked me if I was prepared for the answer. He was concerned that if the report indicated something that I may interpret as my fault that I would never forgive myself. I lied and assured him that I could handle whatever the report said. Of course I would blame myself if the report indicated I had done something wrong. But there was no way I was not going to find out. So I told him what I think he wanted to hear. I'm not sure he believed me by the way, but I think it was important for him to at least bring up the subject for discussion.

So here it is.... our baby died because his placenta failed to do it's job. Somewhere along the line, the placenta stopped working properly. It didn't grow a large as it should have and due to some inflammation, it was unable to provide enough oxygen and nutrients to my son. According to the report, it was going on for some time and ultimately, my precious son just wasn't able to survive. None of our ultrasounds gave any indication that anything was wrong and apparently it's not something that they can really see on the scan anyway. They can't completely rule out an infection but since there was no sign of it in either the placenta or my son, that's probably not what it was.

I have mixed emotions of course. I now know what happened. I also know that it wasn't my fault. There's nothing I could have done to prevent this from happening. But my son is still dead. It wasn't obvious at any of my scans. All his measurements were perfect so there's no way the doctors could have seen it either. But I didn't get to bring him home from the hospital in his car seat and put him to sleep in his moses basket like I had planned. It's also not something that is likely to happen in future pregnancies (if I am ever so lucky to have another pregnancy). If I am fortunate enough to have another chance, I would be monitored and watched like a hawk. But this information doesn't bring him back and that's all I really want.

I got home that night and allowed myself an evening of red wine and lots of tears. Why did my body fail me? Why did this have to happen to my son? Why, why, why????

My husband was crying as well, but his tears were mostly for me. His heart is breaking to see me so devastated. He's a solution guy and he wants to be able to fix this, to fix me so I can be happy again. I remind him that this isn't something that he can just fix. I also remind him that I am having more happy days and happy moments (I know it may not seem that way based on reading my blog posts but it really is true) and that it's just going to take me some time. I know deep down he understands this, but it's just really hard for him to watch me suffer like this. I think if he could, he would take away all my pain and bear the whole burden himself. I got really lucky when I married him, he's a very special man. And for that I am eternally grateful.

P.S. Just as I was writing this I got a call from my fertility clinic. They just wanted to follow up to see how my pregnancy had gone and update their records with the outcome. Talk about being kicked when I'm down!