December 17th-Mara’s story

If you follow our blog, first, thank you. We are glad you're here. Second, you have probably noticed that we have stalled out on December 16th, and you probably know, or have guessed why. Because right now, there are two divisions of time in our lives, before Mara died, and after Mara died. To read the story posted here for December 17th is continue down the same road that we, our family, and our friends have been careening down since 11:55 pm on that day, when our daughter, Mara Olivia Karayannis, passed away. There is no going back to what life was before and this blog is a perfectly concrete representation of that. December 17th is the day she was born, but it was also the day she died. When a child is stillborn, do you even get to say she was "born?" These are the things you think about when you lose a child.

Why are we recording this? Why on Earth would we want to write it all down, reliving it while we do so, publish it for people to see, and subject those we love and care about to the details of this tragedy? Because this is Mara's story. She is our daughter and this is all we have of her. Our memories. To ignore any  part of the story is to deny her. How could we ignore what little we have? Every second we had with her is precious, and we believe her short life deserves to be recorded and remembered, just as much as Aaron riding a bike, having surgery, or eating his dinner. It is comforting to walk through the details of this strange and horrible day and commit them to writing. We study history, we crave records. They make something more real, they help us remember, and they allow others to be touched by stories that they did not witness. It has taken us a while to sit down together and get this recorded. It is deeply emotional and our memories are imperfect, scarred by trauma. Doubtless other people we saw and spoke with on the 17th could add to this story, and to the continuing story of how we are living through our grief since that day. We would love to hear from anyone who has a memory to share. I felt as if I needed to get this written down before I could continue moving forward. It is a major milestone in the grieving process for me.

Read about our daughter and share the burden of our pain for a while. We know that she will touch your life as she has done ours, and hope that you will run to the people you love and hold them tight, simply because they are there. If this story brings anyone a sharper focus on what REMAINS through grieving what is LOST, then Mara's memory is truly a treasure.

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The morning of the 17th I woke up early. I don't remember exactly when but it was certainly between 3-5:30. The past few weeks I had developed a horrible tendency to wake up at 3:45 in the morning, even on school days. Once I was awake there was no going back to sleep because I was large and uncomfortable. I had a full day of social Christmas fun ahead of me so I went downstairs to relax in Chris' chair, watch a Christmas movie and scrap a bit. Sometime in the 6 o'clock hour I started chatting online with my dear friend Andrea, who is on UK time. We talked about me waking up early, me being ready to have this baby, the plans I had for that day and about scrapping. I made a two-page spread of Aaron's first Christmas that morning. I still have that chat archive, and it was so strange, and very haunting, to go back and read it. I wish I could scream at that version of myself to get up and go to the hospital and demand they deliver that baby girl. If only. Chris had a leadership event at school, a babysitting fundraiser from 10-3. We were planning to meet up with him near school later in the day for part of the Christmas fun. Aaron woke up at some point and Chris headed up to school. Aaron and I got dressed and ready for the day, but I hadn't told him about all the fun stuff we were packing in. All the while I was thinking it would be a really perfect weekend for our baby to arrive. I was ready school-wise, and we just couldn't wait to meet her. I was 39 weeks pregnant. We did so much on this day, saw so many people, it was such a normal day, it’s just still so hard to understand how things turned out the way they did.

The first thing I had planned that day was to walk down the street to see Santa ride by on a local fire truck. This happens in our neighborhood every year but for some reason we have never caught it. Sometime around 11, we walked down the street together, it was a really cold morning, and as the fire truck came slowly down our street I told Aaron who was on it.

He was really excited to see the big fire engine, wave to Santa, and most of all, collect the pieces of candy that Santa and his elves threw from the truck. He grabbed handfuls, and picked out five pieces to give to Girl-Cameron, because we were going over to their house for a playdate next. We walked back up the street and when we got in the house I had to sit down for a bit. I felt like the baby was riding low, and my back was uncomfortable, and I was thinking that maybe we could be getting close. I talked to Chris on the phone as we were walking down to see Santa drive by and told him I was feeling kinda rough, and he said it would be a good day to have our baby. Aaron and I had a quick snack at home and then we drove up to see Colleen and Cameron. Aaron watched Rudolph in the car on the way up. He was excited for the playdate, but what we hadn't told the kids yet was that we were also going to see Santa for pictures in the mall.

We had a great visit with Col and Cam. The kids ran around crazy, and I remember that Aaron was particularly wild and not very well behaved that day. I complained to Chris about it on the phone. While the kids were playing in the basement and Colleen and I were on the couch talking, I was trying to get in a comfortable position because I felt the baby really low and I was feeling the familiar pressure in my pelvis. The second I said that to Colleen, she said, "I swear this is true, and you're going to think I'm just saying it because of what you just said, but I was looking at your stomach and I swear I saw it shift." When we were sitting upstairs, and I was checking out their new chair, we joked that it would not be very good to have my water break on the new chair. The kids exchanged Christmas gifts and boy was Aaron excited!

After a little coordination on the phone with Chris, we worked out that he would be able to join us all for Santa pictures. Colleen and Cameron and Aaron and I drove over to Springfield Mall to see Santa. We visited Santa together a couple of times in prior years, thinking it would help the kids with Santa fears that are common around that age. This time, they both did great. Chris ran up just as we were getting ready to have our turn, and the kids were both adorable talking to Santa. We love that Santa. Aaron has seen the same one every year since he was born and he is the genuine article. Aaron talked to him about his favorite kind of cookie that he puts out every year, pixies, and Santa went right along with it and told him how much he likes them too.

Here’s Aaron and I right before we left the mall.

After Cameron and Aaron both had turns with Santa, we said goodbye and went on to our next set of plans, meeting Ashley and Christina and Nathan for our annual dinner at Shane's Rib Shack followed by Collingwood Christmas Light viewing. Aaron and I were in my car following Chris in his car and Chris and I were talking to each other on the phone for the entire drive because we wanted to make sure we knew where we were going. I began having contractions around 4:30, while we were driving to dinner. I talked to Chris about them on the phone, telling him they kept coming, but they weren't intense or painful yet. I had so many fake contractions with this pregnancy, for weeks, which I never had with Aaron, so I wasn't sure if these were going to be the real thing, but I was hopeful.

We got to dinner and met with our friends and Ashley. Part of the dinner included exchanging gifts, but I had completely forgotten to grab Christina's gift before we left home for Col and Cam's house. They brought TONS of gifts for our family. They bought Aaron three sets of Prince of Persia Legos, which he has been begging for for at least a year. He was really excited, and not very well-behaved at dinner either. Ashley got jewelry, and they brought lots of gifts for our baby girl. A humidifier, two toys I had on the baby registry, and a pink glittery tutu that Christina had made. She said she knew it was kinda early for such a gift, but I just loved it and immediately thought of how I would put it around her tiny self and prop her bottom up while she was sleeping for an adorable photo. After we left dinner, Aaron got a stern scolding in the car for his behavior at dinner and we combined cars so we could be together for the light viewing. These lights are really something else, animated and set to music that you tune into on a radio station in your car while you watch from the road. Everyone piled into the Durango so we could watch together. We loved them, as usual.

I was still having tight contractions off and on at that point, but they still weren't painful, and they weren't getting stronger.

After watching the lights for a while, we split up into our own cars again and Ashley headed out to her faculty Christmas party while Chris and Aaron and I drove home. I think we got home somewhere in the 8:30 time frame. Aaron had fallen asleep on the way home, so we got him into bed. Chris got on his computer for a bit, and I got on facetime with my parents, who were preparing for the family to arrive at their house for their annual Christmas gathering. I remember that I was having contractions during that time, but I didn't want to say anything just yet in case they ended up not being the real thing. Cameron wanted to talk to Aaron, but he was already asleep. He was walking around NanaGrampy's house in a cute Christmas outfit playing with the marching penguin toy. I can't remember how long we stayed on the facetime call, but they were getting ready for their party and I made myself a molten lava cake from the freezer while we talked. Chris and I wanted to get some rest in case this did end up being the real thing, because we had both gotten such crummy sleep and had long busy days and were really exhausted. By 9:30, my contractions had begun increasing in intensity, hurting a bit, and coming closer together. Chris and I thought this really could be the night! Following lessons learned during Aaron's labor, I took some Tylenol, drank a lot of water and laid down to see if that lessened the contractions in any way. I felt my baby girl move at 9:40, just like I felt her every hour of every day for the past 4 months. She was a mover, this little lady. The contractions did not lessen, and at 9:45, while I was laying on my side in bed, I felt a sensation that I thought must have been my water breaking. That didn't happen when I was in labor with Aaron, so I didn't know what to expect. Chris was with me in bed, and I said, "Oh! I think my water broke!" and quickly went to the bathroom. When I got there, though, I found that I was bleeding. I didn't have any bleeding when I was in labor with Aaron either, so it was hard for me to gauge how much was normal. It wasn't rushing out, but I still felt concerned, so we called Labor and Delivery to ask. The nurse we spoke to talked to us about the kind and amount of bleeding that would be considered normal and we thanked her and hung up. While I was sitting there, I tried my best to calm myself down. I told myself that I had just felt her, that we had been at an OB appointment the day before and heard her healthy heartbeat, and that I needed to keep myself from getting too anxious. The nurse said that if we really felt worried, we should go ahead and come in. We were unfamiliar with any bleeding parts of labor, and I was still bleeding and feeling worried, and Chris called back and said we were coming in right then. As we gathered a few last minute items and I got dressed, I felt worried, but I didn't feel scared. Before we went into the hospital to have Aaron I took a shower and got myself all comfortable and ready, and I had been planning to do that this time too, but when it came down it, we just wanted to go. I'm glad that's what we did. We were not able to get in touch with anyone to come to the house to be with Aaron, and we knew that if we called any of our friends and asked them to come down it would be at least 30 minutes before anyone could get there, so we got him out of bed and took him with us. I took this picture with his iPod after we got him out of bed, because like so many other small details I photographed that seem so silly and trivial now, I thought this would be an awesome moment for him and his sister to look back on some day.

Taking him with us certainly wasn't part of our plan, and we really didn't want him there under the best of circumstances, let alone having him there the way things turned out. But we didn't want to wait, and he was so tired that he slept on the way there. We called my parents to tell them we were going to the hospital because I was pretty sure I was in labor, but we didn't mention the bleeding, because for all we knew, it could still have been really normal. At this point my contractions were getting quite painful and intense, the way they felt when we drove to the hospital to have Aaron. I still felt a little worried, but because I had felt her move at 9:40 and was actually in labor, I still believed everything was fine and that we were going to have our baby. I did not have any idea or hint or fear in my mind that she was not okay.

We left home between 10:30 and 11, and the drive to the hospital was about 25 minutes. We asked Ashley to meet us there so she could pick up Aaron and take him home. Chris dropped me off at the front door and got me in a wheel chair and then went to park the car. While I was waiting for them to come in, I took a moment to document my cute pregnant pedicure.

When he and Aaron came in, we went up to the Labor and Delivery floor and I was wheeled right into the screening area where they put expectant moms on the monitors to check everything before admitting you and taking you back to a room. Initially, I was laying down and getting external monitors on my belly and Aaron was sitting at the edge of the room with his iPod while Chris stood at the end of the bed. The first nurse that came in then started to look for a heartbeat with the external monitor and kept moving it around trying to find out how she was positioned. That had happened at a couple of prenatal appointments so I still felt comfortable with what was going on. After a few minutes, she said she was going to get someone else to come in and try to help. I started to become very scared at this point, and Chris came up on my left side to hold my hand. I felt panic starting to set in very quickly and things became a bit hazy. The second person to come in went to get an ultrasound machine and after a few moments of still not being able to find the heartbeat, they called a doctor. She came in quickly and efficiently and said she was going to try to find the heartbeat. She asked when I had last felt her move. I was staring at the ultrasound screen and started to clutch at the doctor's jacket as my panic quickly became hysterical sobbing and talking. I know I was saying, "No, no, we just heard her yesterday, I just felt her, no" and crying. The doctor told us she thought she had seen a little flutter but she didn't think the baby was still alive. She told us she was going to take me back for an emergency c-section to get our baby out as quickly as possible and try everything they could to help her. At this point I calmed down slightly, but I was sick to my stomach with fear for our baby and myself, and I said that I wanted Aaron to be taken out of the room. He had been in the small room with us, but on the other side of a drawn curtain playing on his iPod. A nurse started to walk out with him and I remember hearing her ask him if he liked a certain cartoon as the other nurses quickly undressed me, saw my bleeding, and put a cap over my hair while they covered me with a gown. I was having painful contractions through all of it.

From that point forward, everything moved extremely quickly. No one around me acted panicked, everyone was just very fast and focused. Chris was still on my left side and he kissed me right before I was wheeled through the surgery doors. I told him I loved him and thought in that moment that I had been able to kiss Chris and tell him I loved him, but I hadn't been able to do that with Aaron. I became very scared for my own health and safety and was so afraid that I hadn't kissed Aaron. I actually wondered if I was going to die without telling him I loved him one more time. I started to sob loudly as I was taken into a brightly lit and freezing cold surgery room. I was lifted and put on the surgical table and then turned on my side by an anesthesiologist who was going to give me an epidural, but I heard my doctor's voice say over all the noisy preparation in the room, "We do not have time for that. This baby has no heartbeat while we're speaking. Get a mask on her NOW." My God I was scared. I don't know how many people were there, but I can remember four. I could not stop shaking and sobbing. A nurse put a mask on me, but it fell to one side as my arms and legs were strapped down. I took deep breaths trying to get what the mask was supposed to be giving me because I was scared to be awake. My doctor put her face right over my face, and looked directly into my eyes while I was moving like a frightened animal and she said, "I'm going to cut you now. You're going to be awake, you're going to feel it, and it's going to hurt like hell, but I'm going to try everything I can to save your baby's life." The mask was put back on my face correctly and I took huge deep breaths, desperate to be put under. But she was right, I was still awake, and I did feel her cut, and it did hurt like hell, and I screamed. I screamed and said, "I'm still awake, I can feel that, I can feel it, help me!" I felt her cut, and I felt her dig, and then I was out. Our daughter was delivered at 11:55pm.

After I was taken back, Chris went into the front waiting area and sat with Aaron for a while until Ashley showed up to take Aaron home. Chris told Ashley what happening and after she left he called my parents and gave them a brief description of what had happened. He said that I had been taken back for an emergency c-section and that they didn't think the baby was alive. When he made this call, just like when we had called on our way to the hospital, the entire family was there at my parent's house. Then Chris sat and waited for news. Some time later a nurse came out and said, "You're wanted in the nursery." Chris asked, "Is she alive?" and the nurse just said, "Let me just show you the way," and he knew then that our baby had died. He carried all of our things back to the nursery and a doctor came out to talk to Chris. He told Chris that they had worked for over 30 minutes to try to resuscitate her, and told him all the things they had tried, but that they had not been able to revive her. They did apgar readings on her and she scored zero on all of them each time and had no signs of life at any time after she was delivered. She was born without a heartbeat. Chris said he wanted to see her and he was taken over to where she was on a warming table. He asked to have time alone with her and he sat next to her on the table and held her hand and spoke to her. He was in there with her for maybe about an hour. Every few minutes someone would come in and ask him if he was okay and provide him with updates on me. Chris asked for the baby to be cleaned up and the nurses came and gave her a bath and swaddled her. He noticed her full head of dark brown hair and her small size. He didn't want to leave her and just waited there with her until someone came to tell him he could come back and see me. At some point during that time Chris called my parents again and spoke to my dad. He remembers telling my dad that the baby didn't make it, and my dad said, "I'm so sorry" and neither of them could manage to get out much more than that.

At some time between 1:00 and 2:00am, closer to 2:00, Chris was told he could come into recovery to see me. I was starting to wake up a little and Chris was on the right side of my bed and a nurse, the primary nurse that cared for me while I was still on the L&D floor, was on my left. My eyes were very heavy, it was hard to shake it off and fully wake up. I felt Chris holding my hand and I heard him say, "I want to tell her." That's when I knew that our baby had died. I knew that if she was alive he would have been right in my face joyfully making sure it was the first thing I heard. Since I already knew, I asked other things first, with my slow, dry mouth. I seem to remember moving my head back and forth trying to wake up. I still had a mask on while Chris started talking to me. I asked if I was okay, I asked if I needed a blood transfusion and I asked where Aaron was and if he was okay. After Chris answered all my questions, he said, "Our baby girl didn't make it. She died." The nurse asked if we wanted to see her and I looked at Chris and said yes. It would be the next day before I learned about the time he had spent with her while I was still asleep from surgery. The nurse went to go get her, and I asked Chris if we wanted to start using her name. That was a pivotal moment and decision. Chris said he wanted to, and we said Mara together softly. I think this might have been when I started to cry. Using Mara's name from that point forward has been an absolutely defining part of the grieving process. Everyone at the hospital used her name when they spoke about her. She was real, she was ours, we knew her. She has a name. She was there. Mara.

The nurse brought her to us swaddled and wearing the traditional hospital cap. I couldn't move very much but I could bend my arms enough to hold her in my hands. She was small to me, long and skinny. I held her and looked at her face while Chris stood next to me. At first, I didn't want to disturb her small body, but then I asked Chris if he knew whether or not she had hair, and he said, "Yes, let's take off her hat." It hadn't even occurred to me to do that before he suggested it. We took off her hat and I saw her full head of dark brown hair. We also unwrapped her so I could see the rest of her body, her little hands and feet. I rubbed her cheeks and her back, held her hands and feet and we talked about how perfect she looked. Just like a sleeping baby. She seemed perfectly fine and normal, but she was cold. It was unbelievable that she would be there in my arms so perfect, but not be alive. It wasn't sinking in, I know now that I was in quiet numb shock. We took pictures with her. I wish I had my camera at that time so we could have taken more pictures that would have been better quality, but we had what we had. Chris used his phone to take a few pictures and we truly treasure them. The nursery staff took pictures of Mara a few hours later, but she had really begun to look different by then so those are not the pictures we love to look at. Our small cell phone pictures are what we cling to. We had her for about 30 minutes, from about 2:00 to 2:30 in the morning. After we had been with her for a while, I felt that she was beginning to look different, so we asked the nurse to take her back to the nursery. Her lips had a deep plum color when she was brought to me, but her cheeks became increasingly red while we held her, and I felt very strongly that I didn't want to remember an image of her that I found disturbing. I wanted to remember that precious perfect face, that looked like it was sleeping, as I felt her tiny weight against my chest and in my arms for the first and only time.

After Mara had been taken back, our doctor, the one who searched for her heartbeat and performed the c-section, a person we had never met before, but who instantly became a major figure in Mara’s life, came to talk to us. We could see the deep grief she felt as she struggled to give us information without crying herself. Right away, we declined to have an autopsy done on Mara. It was the first of many awful decisions we would have to arrive at in the coming days. Our doctor told me about trying to resuscitate Mara and that they had done everything they could but that she had been born without a heartbeat and had never shown any signs of life. She said that based on my bleeding she suspected a placental abruption and there were some visible problems with the placenta and cord, but that more information would come in a few weeks after pathology results on the placenta came back. What we did learn was that the cord was thin and lacking in protective jelly. The placenta also suffered from marginal cord insertion, which meant that there was not a full blood and oxygen supply to Mara through the placenta. The placenta was strong enough to sustain Mara throughout my pregnancy, as evidenced by her healthy heartbeat and normal growth rate, but when the placenta abrupted, whenever that took place, it basically didn't have enough of a reserve to support her for very long. It is not known if the abruption occurred or the labor began first, because each one of those can cause the other. Because of the mysteries of labor and delivery and because we did not want an autopsy done, there are some things we will never know or understand. The doctor also told us that during standard post-natal blood tests, she found that Mara was anemic and had low blood counts. Not low enough to be harmful to her development, but evidence that she was slightly undernourished by the placenta all along.

After our doctor left, Chris stayed with me for a while. We were told that I would be moved off of Labor and Delivery to a surgical recovery unit. At some point, we decided that Chris should go home to be with Ashley and Aaron and that he would need to tell Aaron about Mara in the morning when he woke up. I hated for him to leave, but knew that he needed rest and I would be fine with my nurse. Sometime in the 5 o'clock hour, I was moved up to the surgical recovery floor, by way of a stop at the nursery. My sweet, sweet nurse wheeled me by the nursery and the nursery staff came out to see me and give me their condolences. One nurse in particular, that I remembered from our hospital tour, told me they were taking good care of Mara, and had brushed her hair, dressed her, and taken pictures that she would email me if I wanted them. They also did several foot and hand prints for us and prepared a beautiful box with a lock of her hair and a swatch of fabric made from the same gown they dressed her in. They also prepared a bassinette card with her name and birth stats, just like any other baby would have in their bassinette while they are still in the hospital. I received a handmade bag full of items prepared by a mother who had also lost her baby and a number of books and pamphlets about grieving and decision making after the loss of a child. I was very touched and grateful for these gifts. Although I did not look at them until the next day, I was so impressed, but not surprised, at their ability to provide comfort and support right away. They had thought of everything they could possibly do for us and every gesture truly helped. Each nurse came to the side of the bed and hugged me and told me how beautiful and perfect Mara was. After they were finished, my nurse took me on down the hallway and to my new room on a new floor, far away from the fortunate mothers on L&D that were holding their babies.