Jacob's Story ~ Chapter 4 ~ The Night That Never Ended

~ The Night That Never Ended ~

(Again, I am writing this present day so much of this I have found is indeed a blur...)

During that hour that we watched as Jacob was tirelessly being worked on, Amy, our midwife, sat by my side.  I remember asking her what was happening and somehow, soothingly she would say "well, it doesn't look good.  He's not breathing".  She did not talk my ear off or try to fill the room with empty words.  We were all just stunned and waiting...Dan was going in and out and calling our priest Fr. Christopher, all our parents, I don't know who else. He would come back and check on me but I just remember Amy so well, by my side, never leaving me alone through that hour.  As I laid there, legs shaking, all I could see of Jacob was his left arm stretched out to his left side.  I heard things that you hear watching Grey's Anatomy and ER, like "another shot of epi" or something like that....I remember nurses needing to switch off doing compressions on his tiny little chest as one said "My fingers are cramping up.  Ready to switch? Okay."  I remember that everyone that had come to witness such an unusual birth had now rushed into action to try to save our sons life.  It didn't make any sense.  None of it. I didn't even have a place in my brain to try to comprehend what was going on so it was just nothing, black space, literally.  I think at one point Amy gently said, "he's not breathing and it does not look like his chest is rising when they are giving him oxygen." 

In that hour I know several things happened.  At some point I must have delivered the placenta...I assume.  I remember Dr. Susan looking intently at Jacob's umbilical cord...and I think at the time she saw that there were two vessels instead of the three that are supposed to be there.  However, now I know that babies are born with two vessel cords all the time and although it can mean complications, those babies can be just fine too.  I think maybe 30 minutes in they came in to do an X-ray, I think, although I can't remember a big machine being wheeled in?  But I know an X-ray was done and he never left that table so they must have brought one in... I remember seeing doctors there talking to each other trying, I guess, to think of what to do next.  There must have been 4 or 5 nurses surrounding Jacob at all times.  I knew by that point we were just waiting to have them process the X-ray and give us an answer, but one that probably would not matter.  Every now and then I think a nurse or Dr. Susan would come by and press very firmly on my belly to make sure my uterus was contracting so I would not bleed too much.  The pain of being pushed on, where Jacob had just been, was so seemingly pointless and uncomfortable...was I not uncomfortable enough?  Was that really necessary?  Something that I was so familiar with, and had been fairly uncomfortable the previous times after Adam and Allie were born, but a pain that was okay because at the same time I was holding a sweet new baby in my arms.  This time I was just alone, shaking on a table, confused, and all I had of Jacob was the view of his little arm and fist.  All I knew from what was happening, and my many lazy nights watching soap opera type hospital shows, was that it had been much, much longer than 5 minutes and Jacob had been without oxygen the whole time...that was not good.  I know I asked Amy at one point, or simply said, "it's been more than 5 minutes"  Maybe I just thought it?  

As this all is going on, time is just passing by in such a weird way and all I could see was that bridge in my mind turning to darkness...wanting to make it stop but it being too heavy and strong...like it was on autopilot and part of a bad dream I could not get out of only I knew I was not dreaming, this was all really happening.  I remember feeling like I was being altered at a cellular level, I would never be the same person I had started the day as, never the same person that was so happy exactly one week earlier having pictures taken of my big round belly with Jacob alive and well in it.  The X-ray came back and I am not sure that anyone really told me directly what they found.  I am sure someone did but I don't know who.  It was determined that Jacob did not have a trachea so nothing connecting his mouth to his lungs so therefore, that is why the oxygen they were pumping into him was going no where.  They had the results but they kept doing compressions.  They were not stopping but everyone knew by that point.  I knew it was coming....the dreaded three words followed by a time of day that I would remember forever...I knew it was coming and it would put an end to our time in that delivery room, to this event, to however long it had been that we'd been waiting here...it was coming, it was coming.  And then a few minutes later, disheartened, tired nurses stopped all their efforts and one doctor, one of the onlookers from behind me just an hour earlier, said "Time of death, 10:02 PM."  And that was it. 

I knew Jacob had died long before that, I knew that those nurses did everything they could and more to make him live but he didn't.  Slowly nurses came over to me and said how sorry they were.  I tried to thank them sincerely, so sincerely, for they had all experienced an hour of my life I would never forget and that would be encapsulated in my soul for eternity.  Those people in that room mean so much to me so when I finally met Nicole, the one charge nurse that had helped me onto the bed to deliver Jacob the rest of the way, it was all I could do to not crumple into a ball and just cry with her.  With everyone in that room I would never need to explain or tell the fractured memory of that hour, they all just knew, they touched him, saw him, saw us, helped us.  God could not have put any other group in that room than the ones he chose to be with us and for that I will always be grateful.  I think they brought a new bed in for me and helped me move over, I remember there being blood on my gown and my legs from where I'd delivered him.  They wrapped him up in there I think and gave him to me and off we went, back to the room I had been in just an hour earlier.  All our stuff, the suitcase filled with his first outfit, the same one Adam wore when he was born, his blanket, socks, hat.  We got into the room and I am not sure what happened next but I assume they gave Dan and I a minute and told us we could stay and hold him as long as we wanted to and then left the room.  

We just cried.  

He looked so amazingly beautiful, so peaceful, so perfect in every single way, you never would have known anything was wrong with him.   He just looked like he was sleeping.  That was all I kept thinking, "he looks like he's sleeping, he looks like he's sleeping."  I snuggled him into me, into that perfect crevice between your shoulder and neck that their head just so perfectly settles into and he still felt warm to me.  It's so confusing to hold a dead baby when they don't look dead, and you don't want them to be dead...can't they just be alive? I didn't want to ask God for a miracle because I didn't want to be mad at God if he didn't do one.  I was just trying to wrap my head around what was happening, or had happened, that Jacob had died and there was nothing anyone could have done about it, even if we had know ahead of time, this was just one of those things, those statistics you hear about, one out of every million babies dies from this kind of thing, but that is never YOUR baby.  But it was our baby. 

I remember he had this thing sticking out of his mouth that they had used to try to get oxygen into him, maybe intubate him?  When nurse Danielle came back in we asked if they could take that out...she said they could, but only if we did not want to do an autopsy.  For us, we could not imagine them cutting open our perfect boy and since we were blessed to know that he was missing a rather important part of his body from the X-ray, we didn't feel that was necessary.   We just wanted to hold him and treasure him as long as we could and we knew that we could not stay at that hospital forever so very delicately they removed the tube and handed him back to us.  Nurse Danielle said they could call a photographer from a service called Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep and they could send someone to take pictures of us with Jacob and Jacob himself so we did agree to do that.  Fr. Christopher was on his way as were my parents.  My father is also a priest.  For Adam's birth, my parents were there when he was born and so when Fr. Christopher came after Adam's birth they both read prayers over him with his name for the first time...these prayers would be somewhat different.  We were both so exhausted, there are not even words to use to explain it.  I knew this was the only time I'd ever get to hold him, in this life, and I wanted to soak in every minute, every second, so I had to focus and stay awake.  At some point Amy said her goodbye's so we could spend time with Jacob and said she and the girls would call and check on us tomorrow, that we were not alone and she was so sorry.  Dr. Susan came in and again pressed on my belly.  I remember her saying ANYTHING I needed she could get me, maybe short of crack cocaine, but it seemed to me that she could have even been swayed on that. I remember thinking I had some sort of weird opportunity and excuse to get all drugged out and I can't say that the idea, on some level, did not sound intriguing, but I just asked for something to dull the after pains which had already started and my legs were so sore and exhausted from the labor and the hour of shaking so they gave me two things for that which I was grateful for...at that point the only good thing about Jacob not being alive is that I was free to take drugs for whatever physical pain that lingered in my body as I would not be nursing him.   God, even writing this I feel exhausted, I don't know how we made it through that night. 

Fr. Christopher came, my parents got there and they started reading prayers for Jacob, for his passing, not his birth, prayers for me the mother and Dan.  Beautiful prayers but ones that I was not really listening to. I just stared at my precious son, held his hand. I do remember this; because he was gone his fingers curled up, right around my finger as they do when they are alive.  So with Jacob holding my finger, I held Jacob as they read the prayers, Dan by our side.  Amy, the photographer (both our midwife and photographer are named Amy), got there just after we started the prayers and she so quietly began taking pictures.  How odd it is to have pictures of something so sad, but I knew I would cherish them and was so glad she was there.  The room was dark, just a little lamp on, it was probably about 1 am by this point. I have no idea how long the prayers took, didn't matter, Fr. Christopher was so quiet, kind and comforting but sad too I could see.  So sad.  I just kept saying to everyone, "it just looks like he's sleeping" and it did.  I wondered if he'd start to look weird as the night drew on, as the death started to settle in.  The photographer asked if we wanted a picture with everyone, my parents and Fr. Christopher and we said yes because, well why not?  But I remember smiling in the pictures.  I mean it's a group picture, what do you do? I didn't want it to look like something from the 1800's but knew smiling was not right either....so this was the beginning of the inner conflict I have till this day..."what is normal in this situation?"  I find myself asking that all the time, this was just the first time.  Everyone slowly said their goodbyes to leave us alone with Jacob and let Amy take a few family pictures.  She got his feet, the little crooked crack on his bottom just like Adam, the crooked pinkie finger, just like his brother Adam and Dan, his perfect face.  Amy said that it was so weird for her to be there because she too had had her baby and recovered in the very room we were in.  I felt bad for her.  How hard must that have been, and how ironic.  How many stories has that sweet little hospital room seen?  Then even she left and it was just Dan and I.  We cried so much, held him. Dan wrapped him up in the Steelers terrible towel he'd wrapped Adam and Allie up in after they were first born.  The nurses came back in and made a memory box for us, took footprints, hand prints, gave him a tiny crocheted hat that some local church donated for new babies, wrapped him up in a clean receiving blanket with little ducks on it and again let us be alone with him.  They asked us which funeral home we wanted to use and we told them the only one we could think of.  They offered to call them for us when we were ready.  When we were ready? Would we ever be? Would I ever be able to get myself out of that bed and walk? Was there any reason to?

Time passed on and as it did Dan and I grew even more exhausted to the point that we knew it was time to call.  Dan asked Danielle to call them and she did and said they told her it would be about an hour as they were located back in Winston Salem.  So the final hour began.  We just held him together in the bed.  I think it was 4:30 am by this point.  I knew we were going to have to hand him over to strangers when the funeral home people arrived and knew that would be hard so was trying to keep whatever shred of strength I had left in order to do so without going insane.  45 minutes turned into an hour which turned into an hour and a half.  We were so tired we were starting to get frustrated, would they ever come?  I remember the nurse coming in and out of our room for different things and there was this one baby out in the hall, at the nurses station, who I assume had also been born that night.  I remember because she or he was screaming and as the door opened and closed I could hear and see this baby in a hospital bassinet crying.  I remember thinking "why isn't anyone holding that baby!  Give that baby to me!  I would die to hear my baby cry like that, and if I did, I'd be holding him so he would not cry, get me that baby!"  Finally the funeral personnel did arrive, and then I was not ready....it was here...another horrid milestone in what was sure to be a horrid week, giving up Jacob to people we've never met.  They were both dressed in suits at 5:45 am.  An older gentleman and a younger guy that looked to be maybe even a little younger than Dan and I. They came in together and were kind but business like.  They said something scripted like, "We are so sorry for you loss, we'll take good care of him."  Dan and I told them we did not want to have him embalmed and that we would figure out the details of the services later but we would be having services.  I remember them saying they would call us the following day to discuss all of the details and with that, it was time for us to let go.   We held him, and kissed him and....well giving your baby to people you've never met, in suits, so they can take him in a car you've never seen before, to a funeral home you've never been in, is just a horrible thing.  It was impossible to do and we had to do it, and NOW.  It was time, we kissed his sweet head and reluctantly handed him over to the two men.  They slowly walked out of the room,  and with Jacob they took our hearts and whatever was left of our souls it felt like...it was all over for the night.  Jacob was gone, away from me.  I sleep with my babies next to me when they are first born so they are always by me, every minute almost, so to do this for me was just incomprehensible and devastating.  There just are not words.

Dan helped me get out of the bed, get to the bathroom.  I think our nurse Danielle came in to help me get somewhat cleaned up, wipe off some of the crusted on blood on my legs and thighs and get dressed back in my own clothes.  I felt like a rag doll just barely moving, no will to do so, but wanting to be home, wanting to have this night end, wanting to be in our bed, and wanting to see our children Adam and Allie who I felt like I'd not seen in an eternity by this point.  They gave us his memory box, Dan threw all our stuff back in the suitcase and they got a wheelchair for me.  Nurse Danielle wheeled me out and down what seemed like a maze of white hallways...all quiet in the early morning hours. It was all wrong, we were going home but empty handed.  Down the elevator and out the doors to another long hall where we came to the exit.  I stood up and Dan went to get the car.  I remember hugging Danielle and thanking her for everything she had done....knowing I would not see her again in a long time, but feeling connected to her in a way one should never have to feel connected to a nurse.  She hugged me and I remembered the warmth of her from when she'd been supporting me through the last painful contractions during labor, but this was a goodbye hug, a sad hug.  Dan helped me out to the car, the empty car, and off we drove. 

It was about 6:30 AM by then, would take us about 45 minutes to get home, we just had to make it to our bed now, that was the only goal left. It was so dark, but dawn was getting ready to break. The baby seat for Jacob that Dan and literally thrown in the trunk of the van lay on it's side, useless and unnecessary. The emptiness and quiet in the car overwhelming but we didn't talk, what was there to say. We got home and as we walked the path to our house I remember seeing a little sign stuck just in front of the bush next to the house....one that had been lovingly placed there from the baby shower...maybe it said something like "It's a boy!" with space to write in the weight, length etc. From the baby shower yesterday I was sure my dear friend Ana had placed it there as, when we were literally walking out the door the day before to go to the hospital and everything was still fine, she was just arriving to help my sister-in-law with the kids. She'd been sent to drop off all the gifts I'm sure and had left before the news hit of what had happened to Jacob. Passing the little sign felt like a knife entering my weak body, it was the last little twinge of hurt before we could make it to the bed. I would never see that sign again as Ana came and must have gotten it early that day once she heard.  In the house we somehow made our way up the stairs. We crawled into bed about 7:15 am...I knew the kids would be up soon...but we were so tired. We laid down and fell asleep.   Night finally ended and was done. 

Below are pictures that were taken by Amy our photographer from Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep. She is a photographer from Statesville, NC and we are forever grateful to her for capturing out sweet time with Jacob that night.

http://murphys-memories.com/