A sonogram on
May 18th showed us a beautiful, if stubborn little baby and we never
expected that anything was wrong. She was a little smaller than
expected, but we listened with relief when we were told that it wasn't
anything abnormal and it was nothing to worry about.
On June 9th, we had a follow up sonogram to track the baby's
health. The doctor was quiet as he checked and double checked
her. Then he told us that our baby hadn't grown as much as
expected, and there were problems that didn't show up during the last
sonogram. We opted to have an amniocentesis performed, we needed
to know what was wrong.
The preliminary results came in at lunch time on June 13th. I
don't remember much, just ''trisomy
18',
'Turners syndrome', 'not compatible with life', 'I'm sorry'.
You never think it's going to happen to you, but this time it
did. No matter how low the odds are, it's always 100% for you if
your child is affected.
We chose to say goodbye early, it felt like the right thing to
do. But at the last minute, we couldn't comprehend doing what we
were about to do to our daughter, and chose to carry on until the end
came naturally. We found ourselves at peace with our
decision. The tears slowed and we found strength to get back to
some sense of a normal life while we still had her with us. We
were still devastated at the loss of our dreams, but we chose to enjoy
every last second we had left with her, hoping that we would have a
lot of time before we had to say goodbye.
On the Saturday, which would have been the day I delivered her after
her death, I was woken up early, Arily had hiccups! Even though,
I was groggy and tired from being woken up so early on the weekend, it
felt so good to feel that, to feel her moving inside me and makes me
smile to think about it even now.
We had a follow up check up two weeks later, and we heard her heart
beating strong on the Doppler. Our midwife, Karen, smiled and
told us that she was a fighter. She's made it that far with so
much stacked against her, we were so proud of her!
Two weeks later again, on July 6th, we saw her for the last time on a
sonogram. There was no movement like the last two times, and we
didn't see any sign of her heart beating. The technician said
nothing, but rushed through some basic measurements and told us that
the doctor would be with us shortly. We were left alone in the
room, and we knew that she was gone. He came in and scanned a
little more, and confirmed that she had passed away. We were
devastated, we hoped so much that she'd be one of the lucky ones to
make it to term and maybe even a little longer to open her eyes and
look up at us, but it wasn't to be.
Arily came into this world silently at 12:05am, on Saturday, July 8th,
2006, weighing only 14 oz, and measuring 10.5 inches in length.
At 26 weeks gestation, she measured smaller than a 20 week baby, but
she was perfect in every single way. We spent 12 hours with her
before we said our final goodbyes, but it hurts to know that we'll
never have the opportunity to hold her, feel her soft skin, smell her
beautiful baby soft smell again. There's peace in the knowledge
that she chose her own time to leave us, and we feel lucky to have
known her and to have been chosen to be parents of such a strong,
amazing, beautiful baby girl.
Always in our hearts Arily, we'll never forget you, we promise.
Mummy
