Aemin's Story (long post)
Hello there, my name is Jessica Potter. I'm new to this forum, and I'm writing this right now with the hope that my story will help someone out there.
I got married in the summer of 2008, and boy was it a beautiful wedding! My husband Daniel and I got married in a little country church, right in the middle of my native Cherokee County. I was born and raised in the mountains, and I had always wished for a simple country wedding. We were married in June, on the 28th. On our honeymoon, caution was abandoned and replaced by our sincere love for one another.
Two weeks after returning home, I realized that my period was late. The first person I told was my cousin Angela, since she'd just had a baby. We snuck off to our local Wal-Mart, to buy a couple of pregnancy tests, not wanting to alert my husband to my possible pregnancy if I wasn't actually pregnant. After all, why get his hopes up? After arriving back home, both tests were taken. They were positive! I was caught somewhere between awe and disbelief. When Dan got home from work, I broke him the news. He couldn't of been happier.
My pregnancy was absolutely perfect. With each new doctor's visit, I got new pictures to take home and show my enthusiastic husband. On my third visit, Dr. Davis announced with delight that I was having a beautiful baby boy. Just what I had hoped for! We were so happy! It wasn't long before I felt his little kicks. Many a night passed where Dan and I would stare, in awe at my growing belly, and watch as our son's kicks moved it. We decided to name him Aemin. His full name would be Aemin Ray Ford Potter, Ray after my grandfather, and Ford after Daniel's grandfather.
We have never been happier than those few precious months, but our joy was not meant to last. A perfect dream suddenly turned into a terrible nightmare the day my son stopped kicking. I waited, and waited....and waited. He would not move. I didn't know what to do, so I called the Labor and Delivery unit at the hospital we had chosen. They told me to come in. It was the second of January, 2009. I was seven months along. I called my mother, asking her to go with me. I joked around and told her that I was probably being paranoid. Nothing had gone wrong so far, why change now?
When we got there, two things were apparent right from the start: they were severely understaffed, and my doctor was out of town. They placed me in a room down in the hall from one where a woman was in active labor. There were only two nurses on duty. I will never forget either of these women. Trudy and Dee.
After getting settled into my room, the nurses quickly got to work looking for Aemin's heartbeat. They tried poking my belly to get him to wiggle, using a device that made sudden loud noises, and using a sonar to try to pick up his heartbeat, all to no avail. They finally brought out the ultrasound machine, to see if he was alive. Trudy did her best to comfort me, saying that he could just be in a bad position, but throughout the hour they spent searching for signs of life, my heart could not have been more sick with the approaching grief. I knew he was gone. About the time the tears started flowing, the Ultrasound Tech told me that Aemin had passed away. All the while, my husband had been standing behind her, diligently watching the screen for updates on his boy. He broke into devastating sobs when she told us his heart had stopped beating.
We were given the choice to wait or to go ahead and have our labor induced. We decided not to wait. Many visitors came to see us and share their sympathy. After eleven hours of waiting, I got to see my son face to face for the first time. There were no exclamations of joy. There were no loud cries from a baby entering the world. The nurses didn't speak. No one told me how much he weighed. No one told me how long he was. No one, in that whole hospital, asked me his name. It was so quiet. Eventually, one by one, people filed out of the room until the only ones left were Daniel, Aemin, and me. Dan and I just held each other and cried. What had just happened? Such a joyful occassion was not meant to hurt so much, but it didn't change the fact that our hearts were completly and utterly broken. We held our boy, and he was perfect. And so, when the nurses took him from us for the night, my child that had been created out of love, and loved from the moment that little pink line showed up, was apart from me for the first time in seven months.
I found out later (from my mother) that Aemin was 2lbs, 7oz. He was 13 inches long. He had his daddy's nose, my fingers, and both of our hearts. We buried him next to his great grandpa, James, and made sure that there was room for us beside him when our time comes. A few weeks passed, and the results came back from the tests done on my placenta. Aemin had passed away due to an infection (Acute and Chronic Chorioamnioitis) that no one knew I had. Apparently, I had some kind of infection before I got pregnant, and it somehow transferred to my amniotic fluid very early on in my pregnancy. I was told that the chances of having another stillbirth related to this infection was less than the chance of being hit by lightning.
Now, over a year later, I am pregnant again. This time around, we are expecting a little girl, and again, everything is going well. We are so scared. I've since learned that Chorioamnioitis reaccurs in future pregnancies, and Dr. Davis has informed me that there are no ways to prevent it, so there isn't anything he can do. We don't know if I'll get the infection again, but there is a possibility. It doesn't matter though, our little girl is already our little angel, and we can't wait to meet her!
Ladies, bad things happen to good people. Please don't give up! I never knew what strength was until I met some of the mother's who have lost children. Even though we hurt, cry, and sometimes wish we didn't have to wake up to face another day, we are strong. We are united by our grief, and we are all part of a club that nobody wants to join. Some of us radiate an inner peace, while others, fresh to this overwhelming pain, question how they're going to find the strength to stand, let alone face a brand new day. The pain doesn't not go away, but it does lessen. Be strong and be proud! We are mothers.
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That was such a sad story but I can see it bringing much comfort to other women who have gone through the same thing.
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