Can I go through this again?

by Lisa Hatle

Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001

I've been reading these stories and I'm just amazed on how many people have gone through losing a child. At the same time it feels like everyone around me has perfectly healthy children and have never experienced any loss. I find my self very envious of my friends and family. I get extremely irritated when I hear about children who are neglected or abused. How can they have children and people who want and try so hard for a child can't? It's so frustrating!

My story begins when my son was born on March 12, 1996. I had a normal pregnancy than the birth came. Our son has had a lot of medical problems since he was born. He was overdosed in the hospital because the pharmacist gave him a adult dosage and marked it infant. Our son is deaf in his right ear and it might be because of this we don't know. We sued the hospital but had to settle because he has had other medical problems so they can't prove he lost his hearing from the overdose. It took me a long time to want to have another child because of this. Our son is 5 and we decided that it would be nice for him to have a sibling. I never thought I would have so many problems.

November of 1999 I became pregnant. I was only pregnant for 5 weeks and I miscarried. I was sad but on the other hand I was blaming it on the birth control pill and that I got pregnant to soon after I got off of it. We got pregnant again about 2 months afterwards. This time I went 8 weeks and we went to have a ultrasound and we found out the baby had no heartbeat. I was devastated. How could this happen again? What is wrong with me? At the same time my best friend was 12 weeks and she had the same thing happen. We both ended up having a D&C within days of each other. This time I ended up having all kinds of test done on me to find out why I keep miscarrying. It turned out that everything was fine. I waited almost a year and I got pregnant in January 2001. We had a ultrasound at 7 weeks and I was so nervous. We were able to see the baby's heart beating, we were so excited! I was so happy but still a little scared. I was starting to worry a little bit because I wasn't feeling the baby move that much but I kept telling my self that I was to early. We had a routine ultrasound at 18 weeks. We saw the heart beating but the baby looked different to me. I was right. The radiologist came in to look and told us that our babies arms and legs are very short. They were only measuring at 13 weeks. She said that our baby might be a dwarf and we need to do further testing. I was shocked! My husband and I are very tall people and we don't have dwarfism in either of our families. The next day we went and had another ultrasound which said that the type of disease our baby had is fatal. I felt my whole world crashing. The doctor told us we could induce pregnancy or I could carry the baby but there was a very high chance the baby would die in utereo. We found out about a week after that our baby had brittle bone disease. The type our baby had was fatal and that more than likely the baby would be crushed if I carried to term. We decided to induce. This was very hard for me. My family was not supportive at first until they found out that it could be dangerous for me. I was induced on June 5, 2001 and delivered the baby on June 6, 2001. It was a horrible experience and very painful emotionally and physically. It turned out that my baby was already dead before I delivered the baby. The baby wasn't fully intact so I never was able to hold or see my baby. I still feel sad about that. We found out from our babies ultrasound that the baby was a girl. We named her Vanessa Ann. We cremated and buried her 2 days ago. I felt a closure but I'm still very sad. I feel very empty inside and want to be pregnant still. We don't know if we can ever have another child because there could be a chance that this could happen again. We are awaiting the autopsy results and won't have any information for about 6 weeks. I hope I can still have another child but I'm scared. I wish there was a way of knowing that you can have a healthy baby.

I pray for all of you who have suffered a loss. I know how painful it is. It does help to read some of these stories and see that there has been healthy children born after all that has happened.