Peace of my heart

It has been almost one month.  On December 28, I had a nice lunch out with Adrian and I remember the baby kicking away while we sat in the restaurant.  "She likes Tilapia," I said. After lunch, Adrian dropped me off at my OB's office for my routine check.  Angeline's heart rate was checked (normal).  My exam was as expected.  I had a relaxing evening at home that night, I was lounging around, watching a movie.  The following morning I woke up and she was gone.  Just like that.

What a month...

It seems that the autopsy may yield some answers after all.  Although we do not have the full conclusive report yet, I have received a preliminary report.  It seems that Angeline's heart had some significant abnormalities, which probably resulted in her death.  Other findings suggested that she had been in stressful conditions for some time, I believe she was hanging on and fighting for as long as she possibly could.

This came as a surprise.  As I have mentioned before, none of my screening tests raised any suspicion of cardiac abnormalities.  I had routine ultrasounds which were apparently normal.  I actually had repeat ultrasound imaging of the outflow tracts of the heart at 22 weeks.  Not because anything was thought to be abnormal, but just because she was moving so much at the 20 week scan, there was some difficulty in actually getting the views they needed.  No one suspected a cardiac problem at any point.

In a sense, I believe learning of Angeline's heart defect will give us some peace.  First of all, I have decided that nothing is worse than knowing nothing.  In more than half the cases of stillbirth in the US, families never learn why their baby died.  Not knowing is such a terrible haunting experience.  The pain of thinking that your normal, healthy baby was lost for unknown reasons is excruciating. This past month I have suffered with the belief that our healthy girl was lost.  It appears that our case will be one where we are afforded the opportunity for a sense of closure as regards the cause of her death.  

This finding presents the possibility that Angeline's loss before birth was the lesser of two evils.  If she were to have been born with a severe heart defect, she may have been subjected to surgeries and invasive procedures as an infant, maybe to survive, but maybe not.  What would have been the quality of her life?  It would have been infinitely harder to watch my infant girl suffer and die after trying to fix her broken heart...

So strange...  Of all the things I was worried about with my pregnancy, this wasn't one of them.  I was very anxious about a first trimester loss.  I was a little worried about genetic problems such as Down's Syndrome.  As time went on, I worried about the possibility of preterm labor - of course, by the time I was almost 31 weeks I felt I was almost in the clear.  A few more weeks and she would probably do just fine, even if I went into labor early.  It never even occurred to me to worry about congenital heart disease.  I actually have a friend whose baby was born with Tetralogy of Fallot, and thanks be to God, did very well with his repair surgeries and is now thriving.  How unlikely it would be for my baby to have a congenital heart defect!

This just goes to demonstrate something my mother and I have said many times: it just doesn't make much sense to worry, because it is not the things that you worry about, but the things that you least expect that come up and really take you down.  I have experienced this and seen this time and time again.

To know that little Angeline's heart had not formed properly at a very early stage of development reinforces  the fact that every life is a complex and miraculous victory.  The development of a healthy baby is absolutely nothing short of a miracle.  In Angeline's case, I believe that she hung on as long as she could.  In doing so, she touched so very many lives here on earth.

I will close with I lovely sentiment from the website of Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep:

"There is no foot too small that it cannot leave an imprint on this world."