Coralia June

17 June 2005

This is an account of how Coralia June entered the world before her time.

My husband and I have been trying to conceive for years and had basically given up hope and started researching adoption in Eastern Europe. But those plans were put off by the high costs, daunting paperwork and ever changing rules and guidelines as well as some political strife. We tried IVF but were not successful because my ovaries are tilted at an angle that does not allow for harvesting the eggs with the collection needle they use. Artificial insemination did not work in that case either.

In January my new years resolution was to start charting my temps religiously and in February I became pregnant. I highly recommend fertilityfriend.com because I think it really helped me to understand my cycles. I plan to use it again - but that is another story. Suffice it to say that I found myself pregnant and my husband and I could not have been happier, it was a miracle to us after the years of trying. My due date was 19 November 2005. I turn 39 in August so we decided that due to my age (and a couple other factors) that we would do an amniocentesis to rule out Down Syndrome.

I went in for an amnio on Friday 27 May 2005. Everything appeared to go fine but in the evening I stood up from my chair and felt a gush (it was amniotic fluid). I called the emergency number and was told to get to a doctor ASAP. I went to the nearest hospital - where in the middle of waiting to be seen I felt a second gush. That was just before they did an ultrasound on me. When the tech was doing the u/s she became very pale and said that there was basically no fluid around the baby (just a tiny pocket) but that the heart was still beating normally. They immediately checked me in for 100% bed rest. When I saw the doctor came the next day every sentence started with “IF” and ended with “the baby will miscarry” or a similar such statement. It was horrible. There was some sort of anomaly in my blood but they would not explain what it was or wasn’t.

Then there was the language problem, the hospital staff are French speakers and their English (and my French) were just not up to useful conversation. Also, my desire for direct information and discussion was a bit more pushy than these Belgian doctors are used to... I was having horrible problems with the IVs as well. Within 12 hours my arms would swell up painfully and bruise. After the second or third day they started putting the antibiotics directly into the vein inside my elbow (no IV) but then I started looking like a drug user with “tracks” on my arms!

Tuesday (1 june) they started talking about putting the IV in my NECK and I freaked out. That was the last straw and I told my husband I wanted to transfer to the hospital in Leuven. The doctors and nurses out there are Dutch speakers and most all of them speak an acceptable level of English. Once I transferred on Wednesday I had no more problems with language there so it was definitely the right choice. They also started giving me the antibiotics orally so no more IVs. As an added bonus my roommate was a Ukrainian woman with very good English who I became fast friends with from day one.

In hospital here they serve bread as a staple twice a day. I cannot eat bread and getting that concept across was impossible - in both hospitals. You’d think I was an alien or something. I feel seriously sorry for people with wheat allergies who cannot eat anything bready. Here in Belgium, it must be hard to live with bread everywhere.

When they did the u/s in the new hospital it showed that the fluid level had doubled (but was still seriously lacking). The prognosis was still frightening but seemed better. Certainly my morale had taken a boost from the change of hospitals and this (relatively) positive u/s reading. A few days later they did another u/s and again the fluid had doubled (but was STILL way too little). Then the next one the baby was in such a position that the tech was unable to measure more than half of the previous amount and the worrying started again.

Leuven is a teaching hospital so there is a lot of rotation and “tag-alongs” with the doctors and I have to say that in my condition I was a bit less tolerant than usual. Every day another doctor would come along and ask me how my fluid loss was going. After that weird reading I was worried that maybe I *was* still losing and just could not feel it. It could explain why the measurement went down... I asked the doctor why nobody had done a test on me to check if there was still loss or not. One of the junior doctors (who I did see every day) said that I had had one and I most certainly had not. I just got a touch hysterical and cut her off and was a bit forceful in my explanation than strictly necessary. ALL the doctor and tag-alongs took a step back (LMAO). The supervising doctor said such a test should be done, but I could tell the regular doc had NO desire to do it, esp since I made her look bad. I realized after she left that I had not gotten a firm yes and when on the test so I was obnoxious until they did it. The test was negative and that gave me hope again.

They said they would do another ultrasound on Tuesday 14 June. Nobody came to take me down for the u/s so I called the nurse to inquire. He told me that the doctor wanted to see me and that the u/s had been rescheduled (or cancelled or something like that - my mind sort of blanked after the doc wants to see you part). So then I started to worry. Half an hour after that he came into the room and told me the doctor would like to see me in the consultation room. I told him I was on bed rest and was not supposed to walk around the halls. He said it was ok, I should come. Then I REALLY started to freak out. It occurred to me that it suddenly didn't matter to them if I walked... That could not be good. To top off that panic it took the doctor 15-20 minutes for the doctor to make it to the conference room. Scott and I were in TOTAL PANIC at that point. The waiting was nearly worse than the news the doctor brought with her. Nearly...

She came in looking sad and pulled out the amnio report. She told me that my baby had Trisomy 18 - Edwards Syndrome, which she told me was “not compatible with life” there was no hope for this child. It was a shock to say the least. All that time I thought we were merely fighting the battle for replacing the amniotic fluid and suddenly all that was for naught. It was over, and yet somehow I was not surprised. I was grieving, obviously, but somehow I think I knew. I had a dream that woke me up the previous morning. In the dream we had had to stop the pregnancy. I did not remember the reason in the dream but I woke up crying and could not go back to sleep. I think after that I was just waiting for the shoe to drop and there it was - in black and white and Dutch. The doctor explained that the problem with the fluid levels was probably due to the problems with the baby - most likely due to malformed kidneys. Even if we had been open to the idea of trying to hold on to her the chances of the fluid levels returning to normal was unlikely. The doctor explained that it was best to end the pregnancy now because at 17 weeks the baby would not feel the pain - later would be worse for her and for me. Even if by some chance she beat the odds the likelihood of her having any kind of life were nearly zero... The decision was clear to both of us - there was no decision but one.

The doctor told me that given I was nearly 17 and a half weeks the only option was to induce labor (and no I could not sleep through it). At 6 pm on the 14th (and every four hours after that) they gave me the first vaginal tabs to begin labor. At about 5 am on 15 June I started having cramps and the feeling that I had been constipated for a year and really need to do some pushing to deal with it. I went to the bathroom and my water broke. I immediately started throwing up (that was a bit of a shock). I pulled that cord in the bathroom - who knew it was attached to a siren (eek!). They came in and helped me back to the bed. They offered me drugs or an epidural. I was feeling particularly sorry for myself so I opted for the epidural. Ohh that was nice. It hurt going in but I felt nothing after that which was heaven. I fell back asleep for a few hours.

When I woke up Scott and I talked. I told him that I wanted to give the baby a name because she is real and should not go through eternity as "Nibblet Martens." But I could not bring myself to use my favorite girl name, Glorielle. I feel a bit guilty about that, but Glorielle has an image in my head - a lively girl, a girl who would live. I just was not ready to give up on my dream of a lively little Glorielle...

I have always loved the name Coralia. I would not have used a Cora name for a child growing up here because Cora is a department store in Belgium. But for this baby that will never be an issue so I decided it was perfect. DH agreed, although he had reservations about giving her a name and making her so “real.” I asked him to choose the middle name. At first he resisted and then he asked to think about it. I sent him home to feed the cats and get some clean clothes. They told me that it usually takes a full day - or two sometimes even longer - for the process to finish so we figured he had time. He called me on the road at about 10:30 and told me he had decided he wanted her middle name to be June - because he liked the name Coralia June. (I suppose we are lucky she was not born in February, huh? ;-)

I think she was just waiting for a name because about five minutes later I felt a warm splash - that was about all I could feel from the waist down. I called the nurse thinking I needed the bedpan again or something. She came and opened my legs and ploop there was the baby - just like that. Like a champaign cork... The placenta came right out in one piece - with some encouragement from the doctor. They did a quick ultrasound to make sure everything was out and it was good. The nurse took the baby away to wash her but then (at my request) brought her back to me.

She was just so tiny weighing just 4.23 ounces (120 grams) and 6.69 inches (17 cm) long. I held her for a while. I just needed the closure. I needed her to be real to me and I wanted to understand “why...”. It was immediately evident to me that the things the doctor told me about were true. She had a very noticeable double cleft palette, her little neck and skull were misshapen and her ears were way too low. Her little fingers were clenched and her feet were a bit clubbed looking. Although truth be told they looked a lot like my feet do - perhaps she merely inherited my Flintstones. She had her daddy’s toes though with the second one longer than the large one. Her fingers were like mine - with a too short little finger. Her clenched up little fingers clung to mine in a way that still makes me cry to think of it. The picture above contains scans of her actual hand and foot prints - they are about life size. They had a bit of trouble getting all the fingers and toes to show because of the curling.

Scott did not want to see her little body so it was actually good that he was out while she was born. It all happened so quickly that he wouldn’t have even had time to hold my hand before it was over. I have told him all he needs to know, and probably a bit more than he was ready for - but I respect his wishes to not see her. The nurse gave me a couple of pictures. I will put them away and if he ever changes his mind he has the option. It is easier on him, I think, to have it this way and I can respect that. He was there for me every second of this ordeal taking care of bills, taking care of everything and being the strong one (not our normal arrangement). I realized during the past three weeks how truly lucky I am to have found this wonderful man all those years ago.

We are both grieving but we will get past this and we will try again. At least we know now that I can get pregnant and all of the indications are good for a healthy pregnancy. In a couple of months I plan to start charting again and we will see how it goes. I take comfort in the fact that I know why this happened and can be certain it was not something I did or didn’t do. It was one of those 1 in 3000 live birth accidents that simply happen randomly. The geneticist told me that the chances of this happening to us with another pregnancy are not any higher than for anybody else, regardless of age. He told us that in his 30 years of practice he had only seen two cases where a second pregnancy resulted in the same trisomy 18 outcome. He also said that the it is likely the amnio complication were probably the result of the birth defects and that I should not be afraid to try it with the next pregnancy. Obviously it was a good thing I did it with this pregnancy...

I feel certain that there will be another pregnancy and I am clinging to that belief for all I am worth right now. It helps keep the tears at bay. Just when I think I have cried out the last tear in my body I find a few more somewhere boiling up to the surface. I hope that time will make it easier to see babies and not want to sob...

We are having Coralia cremated and plan to take her ashes to Banff, Alberta in Canada. Scott's father's ashes are there and it is where we got married. We plan to be there later in the summer for his cousin's wedding which is being held in that area. I included a fragrant yellow rose with her body to be cremated with her and I have taken another from the same bouquet and placed it in a book to dry. I plan to put it in with her pictures and ultrasounds as a small keepsake box to remember her by.

Scott has also written our story in his words. You can read it on his blog.