The Fragile Chain of Life It all started on a dreary winter day, the trees were bare and a permanent chill seemed to be in the air. Sharon had gone to her obstetrician's office for a routine 5-month checkup and Dr Watkins had suggested a sonogram. He explained that her uterus had stopped growing and the baby's heartbeat was very slow. She lay in the sonogram room with the cute giraffe wallpaper as the technician covered her rounded abdomen with cold gel and tried not to worry. She and her husband, Gary, were watching the monitor. They could see their baby but it wasn't moving. The technician swung the screen away from them. The two of them looked at each other, their eyes saying the words they didn't dare speak. Gary squeezed Sharon's hand. Dr. Watkins walked in, "Well, seems we have a problem. Your baby has what is called Potter's Syndrome. That means that his kidneys aren't developing. Unfortunately, there isn't anything medical science can do about this. Your baby can't live without kidneys. We have no choice but to deliver the fetus. I am so sorry but this baby can not survive." He reached over and patted Sharon's hand. "There will be more babies; you are both young and healthy." Gary felt like someone had knocked the wind out of him. The little boy they were having had a name, Trevor, and a blue bedroom with Peanuts characters. He even had a football and a giant stuffed panda named "Max". His Grandparents had furnished a wardrobe of tiny clothes and Sharon had painted the chest that they were laying in waiting for the little guy. Now, Gary was being told that this had all been a dream, now turned into a nightmare. Dr. Watkins went on, "We will arrange for a bed in the hospital and put vaginal suppositories in the cervix to empty out the contents of the uterus. Hopefully, it will only take a few hours and then you can go home the next day. I am so sorry but it is better to find this out now then to wait until you are full term. I will go write some orders and have my secretary set things up�, Dr. Watkins left the room. He realized he seemed cold to these devastated parents but, he was left without words in these situations. He would make sure Sharon would have medication for physical pain. That much he could do, the emotional pain was another matter. That afternoon, Sharon became Linda's patient. Linda was a RN in a beautifully decorated Women's Unit with glass etching of Mothers holding newborns. Linda looked over Sharon's orders from Dr Watkins. He put the diagnosis down as "Fetal demise (meaning the fetus had died) due to Potter's Syndrome" then he had written orders for medications; labor pain, nausea, diarrhea, and the suppositories to induce labor. It is difficult to get a pregnant patient whose baby has died in the uterus that has to be delivered. These patients need a lot of tender loving care and often, she lacked the time to give it. Linda approached the lovely young woman in bed. She introduced herself, held Sharon's cold shaking hand and proceeded to tell her about the suppositories and side effects and the medications that were ordered to help her. Linda knew that these patients often cramped for hours, sometimes even a day or two, had diarrhea, vomited, had fever with chills, and then would deliver a baby that wasn't alive. Their labor was as painful as a full term labor without a living child to show for it. There was always the chance that Sharon would go through it fast without severe side effects. There should be an easier way to do this, she thought. By the time, Sharon had gotten her second suppository, the cramps were intense. Gary lay in bed with her, rubbing her back and murmuring soft words of love. As she went into active labor, the hospital chaplain joined them, a personal friend of their family. Gary put his head next to Sharon's and their tears intermingled. His face was a mirror reflection of her pain. Linda caught the little boy as he entered this world. His color told her that he had already left for another place of peace. An Assistant took the baby away as Sharon passed the afterbirth. She was so quiet, staring at a point on the wall. It seemed as if all her emotions had been so intense they had moved to another place; to have stayed with her would have been more than she could handle. Linda asked if she needed pain medication. Sharon answered flatly, "it is over, no more life, no more pain". Linda softly closed the door after telling them they could see the baby, just to ask if they wanted to. The Chaplain stayed to help them. Gary came out after a while and asked to hold his child. It would be the first and last time. He said Sharon had decided not to. Linda wrapped Trevor in a blue blanket with a knit cap on his head. She suggested to Gary not to unwrap him because "his little body is misshapen and that would be upsetting for you". Trevor�s face was perfect and so sweet, just dark. She put Gary in a dimly lit room with a rocking chair and as she closed the door, he was softly singing "Somewhere over the Rainbow". Note: Potter's Syndrome is a disease that describes the lack of or malformation of infant kidneys. It affects one in every 10,000 infants. If the infant has no kidneys or they are malformed, the fluid needed to develop the lungs can't be produced, so underdeveloped lungs result. Also, the infant is packed so tightly in the womb that the limbs can't develop properly and sometimes they are born with physical deformities such as wrinkled skin, a short neck, and a flattened nose. If carried until full term and born alive, the infants usually die soon after birth. By Kathie Stehr December 7, 2002 |
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