HOW A MISCARRIAGE HAPPENS

September 9, 2019

This is the part where I speak about how I lost my baby, and if you are the kind to who do not have the stomach for things like these, I warn you, this will be descriptive. I write to tell my truth and how truly painful and horrible it is when you lose a child. I would not take it against you if you do not continue. But if you do, please bear with me. I need to speak of it. I need to validate my baby’s existence with words. It is the only way I feel I can immortalize him and remind myself that he is real. 

It was 4 in the morning & I got up because that is the usual time my daughters wake up to prepare for school. I noticed that my bed was wet. I didn’t think much of it, except that I felt a bit surprised I wet the bed. I am too old to be wetting the bed, but I hurriedly went to the bathroom to check. No blood. I was relieved. Then I went on with my business and that’s when it happened, I felt something was coming out, like a lump. I was not in pain, nor was I having contractions. But when I looked down, that was when I saw him, hanging by his umbilical cord, small like a newborn puppy, complete with tiny hands and feet. 

I screamed. 

I could not believe it. I screamed and cried for help. I called for my husband. I thought: Should I try to put this baby back in? Can I still save this baby? What is happening to me? What is happening to my baby? 

All I could do was cry out loud and I kept calling for someone and constantly screamed: “Help me! Oh my God please help me! The baby! Help me!”

My husband came in the bathroom and saw me sitting on the air, semi crouched, careful not to hit the baby on the toilet or on the floor, crying and screaming. He screamed too. 

“Hala! Ngano man na?! Hala!” was all he could manage to say. 

I begged for him to help me but he was too shocked as I was. I screamed for my eldest daughter to get me a towel and I wrapped the baby and myself in it, wearing it like a loosely worn adult diaper. I then slowly, legs apart, walked towards the car and begged for King to hurry. I didn’t want my baby to be crushed by me, so I was extra careful to make sure that he wouldn’t be crushed when I sat on the car seat. My daughters were speechless and unable to do anything. All they could do was pace around the house unsure of how to help. 

The drive to the hospital felt too long. My husband kept shushing me. He was scared, I could tell. I was devastated because the longer we were in the car, the more I knew my baby was gone. 

I screamed for help the moment we drove up the emergency room driveway. Two medical assistants rushed to transfer me to an ambulatory bed. I pleaded that they be careful of my baby and to save him. I think at this point I have finally lost it. I was not thinking about myself, I was just thinking about Bjorn. 

I want this baby so bad. I thought to myself. This is my baby, why is this happening to me? And was I such a bad person to not deserve to have this baby? 

Confused, I begged for answers. What was happening? What’s going to happen to the baby? Can someone tell me something? 

An intern arrived and decided to do an IE (internal examination to examine dilation of cervix) on me even with the baby still attached to the umbilical cord and to me. My placenta did not come out soon after the baby as it should. The intern doctor (whatever you call them), did the IE and inserted her fingers to check if the placenta was lodged somewhere in my cervix, this caused the rest of my water to flow and my abdomen to start to contract. She also attempted to yank out the placenta by pulling on the umbilical cord up and down, which caused me to bleed profusely. 

As my husband would describe it, he left the ER with me crying and begging. He had to go the admitting section so I can be cared for right away, but when he came back, he saw me almost bleeding myself to death and hardly responding to anyone anymore. I was white as a sheet of bond paper, and I just whispered to him to take care of the kids. 

I only remember quickly losing all my energy, my face and my arms and then my chest were slowly getting numb. My chest started to compress, and with whatever strength I had left, I asked my sister to help me. I told her: “Something is wrong. Please tell them to check me… help me.” 

My sister was calling my doctor, my aunt, and my other siblings. She knew I was going into shock from losing so much blood. She could see blood was dripping from the bed to the floor. My husband desperate and getting angry demanded for answers. 

I thought I was a goner for sure because I am sure I saw my mama there beside me. My mama died 2 years ago, and she was there, clear as day, at my left, peacefully looking down on me. Maybe I was seeing things, maybe she was there. But I know it was her that I saw and I even called out for her. She just stood there peacefully looking at me the whole time. 

It was fortunate that my doctor was already awake, she called her assistant doctor in the hospital that nobody is to touch me, to prepare an operating room, and that she was on her way. 

In less than 30 minutes, I was wheeled in the operating room for an emergency D&C operation to take the placenta out and to stop me from bleeding to death. 

It is a miracle I am still alive. 

The last thing I remember before I passed out was the doctor cutting the baby’s umbilical cord and cradling Bjorn in her arms to offer him a prayer and silently baptize him Angel Joseph. This how his name came to be. We added Bjorn becauseI already named him so when he was still in my womb. 

And after she whispered the last of her prayers for him, I remember crying for him as they took him to be cleaned up while I was quickly given spinal anesthesia before I finally passed out.