Reflecting

I've had some time to reflect, gather personal stories and do some research on what happened that night with my pregnancy. My conclusions may be surprising to some.

From what I've heard and read about placental abruption, there is typically a lot more time from your first symptoms to the time baby's life is threatened. Many stories have women in the situation for days or even weeks and simply put on bed rest at home or only monitored once a day in the hospital. I'm not sure why mine happened so quickly (2-4 hours) but it seems it was a highly unusual case. Knowing this, I don't think that the first hospital I went to did anything wrong in this regard.

However, there are a few things that I do think they should have done differently. I had gone to the hospital by myself as I wasn't sure how serious things were and I decided Tyler should stay home with sleeping Dexter until I knew more. Since I was by myself and bleeding, I really think they should have been checking in on me more frequently if only to make sure I wasn't passed out. While it was slightly busy when I first got there, the last 2 hours the staff were just sitting at the main desk so the workload would have permitted that. This probably wouldn't have effected the outcome but it would have made me feel better about how I was treated. They're communication could have been better also. When I went to do my urine sample, I emerged from the bathroom with no staff in sight & no idea what to do with it. I took it back to my room thinking they would come grab it, but after about 10 minutes I came out to deliver it to the main desk and three of them were sitting there. This could have sped up the test results and maybe allowed me to arrive at the second hospital in time. In addition to this, the IV took five tries...if they had got it on the first try I may have arrived at the hospital in time as well. But maybe not.

Which leads me to my last issue, which is why the first hospital didn't just transfer me right away? If there was any concern at all that I may go into labour &/or need a c-section, the first hospital is not set up to do these things and the second hospital is 30 minutes away. Knowing there is a 1/2 hour delay of proper available treatment, I think their judgement should have been to send me there immediately. "Googling" told me that bleeding in the third trimester is a very big red (pardon the pun) flag especially when there have been no instances of it previously. There is no doubt that this decision would almost 100% have meant I would have delivered a breathing baby. He would have been admitted to NICU as he was just under 34 weeks, but babies that age have a very good survival rate. In fact, one woman in my facebook birth club, had virtually the same experience as me (due date and everything), her baby was born 4lbs 2oz (Wentworth was 2oz more) and she is at home with her baby now and most everything is good.

I am not bitter about what happened, as that emotion would really get me no where. I've accepted that hindsight is 20/20 and I choose to believe that the medical staff did what they thought was best at the time. But, with the review happening, I hope that this case will impact their decision making in the positive for future pregnant mamas with bleeding and that they can have a better outcome than I.

My reflecting isn't just reserved for the hospitals though. Typically, grieving people will blame themselves and try to figure out what they did wrong and honestly I am no exception. While I logically know that no good comes from that, I emotionally can't help it. When Dexter was born, I called him many nicknames but the one that stuck the best was "monkey" and now he definitely acts like a monkey. I jokingly said that I was going to be more careful in my nickname choice this time and called Wentworth an "obediant angel". Now I wonder if I doomed him to his destiny with that nickname.

I wonder if I should have avoided caffeine 100%.

I wonder if my fender bender at 24 weeks caused a small placental tear that went unnoticed.

I wonder if my supreme mood swings and bitchiness during pregnancy created a hostile womb or at least made him think "I want the heck out of this family".

I wonder if my anxiety about how I would handle two kids and my (short) disappointment about having another boy set things into motion in the universe to take him away.

I wonder if before I began this life, I chose to go through this experience to grow as a spirit/soul.

I wonder if picking up Dexter caused a "trauma".

I wonder if I should have packed up my whole family and went to the Grey Nuns immediately that night.

I wonder if I didn't want him enough.

I wonder if Tyler didn't want him enough.

I wonder if I created a serial killer or other bad person and God took him away to spare other people hurt.

I wonder if I was too fat and unhealthy.

I wonder if I ate too much junk food during my pregnancy.

I wonder if I had been wearing the right numerology color that night if things would have been different.
I wonder if my body did something or was ill-equipped to handle this (or more) pregnancies.

I wonder...