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*WARNING: If you are sensitive some parts of
this story may be hard to read*
The Beginning
To start from the beginning I have
to take you back to the summer between my Junior and
Senior year of high school. That summer I worked as a waitress. I guy started working there and we became friends. Although I do take some of the blame for my actions I must say, he was much older and knew much better. I was only 16, just turning 17 and young and very dumb. After a very short time I became pregnant. The guy
wanted nothing to do with our situation from then on. He has not been in our lives since.
I do not look down upon
women who choose to have an abortion but personally I
could not do it. I choose to keep my pregnancy and try
to finish my last year of high school. At 20 weeks into
my pregnancy, I went in for a routine ultrasound and
found out that I was carrying twins. I was very scared
for the
future but had great family support and knew everything
would be ok. The same day that I found out about the
twins I found out something was very wrong with one of
them. Twin A, was a girl and Twin B was a boy. Twin A
had Turner's Syndrome (a chromosomal defect) and hydrops which was 100% fatal.
It was just a matter of time before that twin died. All
we could do was wait.
I went home and hoped and
prayed that things would turn out ok. At 24 weeks my
pregnancy turned tragic. The night that Twin A died I
went into pre-term labor. I was in and out of the
hospital for 3 weeks trying to carry my pregnancy as far
as possible for the surviving twin. Being pregnant with
two babies, one alive and one not, was such a mixture of
feelings. It was hard getting up each day knowing that
one of my babies was gone. I was terrified of what was
going to happen. At 27 weeks I could not carry my
pregnancy any farther. I was forced to deliver 13 weeks
too soon.
If this story couldn’t be
bad enough the day of my delivery turn my world upside
down forever. I delivered at a resident teaching
hospital and I truly believe because of my age I didn’t
get the best of care. A doctor did not deliver my babies
and was not present for the delivery. My mom had taken
me to a high-risk hospital, the one that delivers the
most babies in the state to get the best medical care
but what happened was awful.
The Delivery
I went in at
1:00am and
was admitted in labor. The high risk doctor who had been
in charge of my care was not on call. The hospital was
also a resident teaching hospital. I did not realize it
at the time but that night the person in charge of my
care was an upper resident. She has never seen me before
and choose to deliver my
babies vaginally which should not have been done. I was
already high risk and was delivering twins even though
one was deceased. The safest way would have been by
c-section because babies this small and premature don't
do well with the stress of labor. I didn't know. I just
trusted the doctors because I thought they knew what was
best. I was so drained emotionally and physically to
even question it.
Twin A, the stillborn, was
the first to deliver. She was very
tiny because she had stopped growing at 19 weeks. Then
she proceeded to break Twin B's water. He then flipped
and became a double footling breech. She said, 'Oh no, I
feel feet' at that exact moment I thought they were
going to take me for a c-section. She told me to push so
I tried as hard as I could. His body delivered
fine but his head got stuck in my cervix. I had a nurse
jump on top of my bed and was pushing REALLY hard on my
stomach as the resident proceeded
to pull and twist his body to try to get him free. The
room started filling up with people. This lasted for 7 minutes.
They kept yelling at me to push and I did as much as I
could. She
finally had to cut my cervix to get him out. This is
very rare thing to do and most experienced doctors with
20+ years practicing have only done it once or not at
all. Blayne came out
gray and limp and had to be resituated. The actual
OB-GYN was being paged through the entire delivery and
he never came until 15 minutes after everything was
done. He was in the shower and did not hear the page. An
ER nurse had to come help. Even after he came in he
wasn't concerned at all and didn't even examine me.
At age 17 you can't imagine what
the birth of a baby is going to be like. Nothing, and I
mean nothing, can prepare you for the birth of your
stillborn baby at any age. I kept focusing on the
healthy twin. When he was born I really thought he had
died too. It was like a terrible dream. The image that
day of my tiny, fragile baby being pulled on for 7
minutes is an image I will never get out of my mind. It
was so traumatic.
We are currently trying to pursue
legal action against the hospital with not much success.
It is very complicated and frustrating. I feel so
helpless. I try not to be bitter but I am very angry. I
will never know how things might have been if he had a
normal delivery.
Between Blayne's early birth and
rough start into the world he faced my battles since.
Despite all odds and although he does have some
challenges he is doing wonderful today. He is a
true miracle and a blessing in my life
Please visit our everyday blog to
catch up on the recent happenings of Blayne!
http://blayneferguson.blogspot.com/ |
