Stories of Lost Children
Our Twins
by Rachel Steigleder, Orange, USA
I was pregnant with twins. We knew it was a girl and a boy, Hannah and Michael. I went at 20 weeks to the hospital for a level 2 ultrasound and they found that Hannah did not have a heartbeat. The doctors said that the demise would just shrival back into the placenta. My husband and I were very sad but knew that we still had our little boy Michael and I had to keep up my health and spirits for him. At 25 weeks I went into pre term labor. I was rushed from our local hospital to Yale New Haven Hospital. I was given a drug to help stop the contractions but hours later delivered Hannah. My body after that shut down and the contractions just stopped. The doctors explained that one of many things could happen. I did not deliver Hannah's placenta and that meant chance of infection or I would soon deliver Michael and we were explained his chances by a NICU doc. I could not believe that this was happening.Michael was born at 6:31pm two days later. At 5am the next morning they called my hospital room and said that things looked bad and to come and spend some time with our son. He had no lungs and air was seeping into his chest cavity, He was also septic with infection. The doctors explained our options. He was not going to live and things were only going to get worse for him. My husband and I decided that we could not let him suffer anymore. There was only one choice. We were brought across the hall to a small room and waited for them to bring Michael in. They brought this small (2pds 5oz) bundle to us. His face was raw from where the tape had held the ventilator and his lip pushed up from the tube in his mouth. His arms black and blue from tubes. We thought he was beautiful and he was ours. It was not fair that he was being taken from us, that they were taken from us. He lived for 45 minutes off the machines and peacefully died in our arms. We shut his eyes and just sat there. Numb!!! We look at these pictures of Michael they took at the hospital but right now they are not comforting, they make me more angry. We are not sure when or if the pain will ever go away. It is hard to look at our 3 year old daughter(Megan) and answer her when she asks about her brother. We had explained Hannah's demise as the doctors fault and that she counted wrong. We thought that was all she needed to know at that time because we thought she was still going to have a brother. To explain heaven to a 3 year old is sickening. I feel so cheated and robbed of something that was so wanted. I am physically going through postpartum, bleeding and my milk came in and I have no babies. I never thought life could be unfair. I always heard these stories, they were a friend of someone I knew or read about but this is my nightmare. I just want to open my eyes and it is gone... but its not, it is my everyday life now and I am not sure how to go forward.
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