The following is my account of what happened when Sophia was born.
Monday, May 21st - I had my second interview at LaBrae Schools with the superintendent. At this point, I was finishing my fifth year at Liberty High School (both in Trumbull County). I originally interviewed for a science position, but the superintendent had a technology position not yet posted that he thought I might be a good fit for.
Wednesday, May 23rd - I received a phone call and was officially offered the position of Technology Teacher at LaBrae. I was beyond elated. I was about to begin a new adventure in my field, my wife was 9 months pregnant with our second child. For both of our children, we declined to find out the sex and looked forward to the surprise. Our first daughter was born in September of 2010, and we were both really anxious to see if our prediction of a boy was correct or not.
Friday, May 25th - I called the superintendent at LaBrae back and accepted the position. This was also my last day of school (I had taken the last week of school off). My wife went to the doctor this day, everything looked normal, she heard the heartbeat, and we officially had a date: May 29th. My wife had had a Cesarean with our first daughter, and at the suggestion of her OB, she should have another to alleviate any risks of bleeding.
Saturday, May 26th - My wife, daughter, and I celebrate her 27th birthday with a cookout and some time with her family.
Monday, May 28th - Memorial Day. This was going to be Sophia's due date, but because of the holiday, we'd have to wait one more day to see our little baby. We both could hardly sleep. I remember lying in bed and placing my hand on my wife's stomach and being so excited to hold my baby.
Tuesday, May 29th
4:30 AM - We both wake up, shower and prepare to leave for the hospital. Her mom and dad came spent the night before at our house to watch our daughter and bring her up later in the day.
5:30 AM - Both showered, we stand in our living room taking pictures. We grab Charlie (our dog) and stand in the same positions, wearing the same clothes that morning we wore two years prior.
6:15 AM - We arrive at the hospital (slightly late) and proceed to the seventh floor to the Mom/Baby Unit.
6:25 AM - They are quite busy this morning. So much so, we didn't have a room to get prepped in, so they have us in the recovery area of the Labor and Delivery wing. We wait patiently for our nurse to come and get us checked in and hooked up to the monitor.
7:45 AM - The nurses finally start asking the check-in questions and prepping us for the surgery. They eventually hook her up with the waistband fetal monitor. The nurse seems to be having a bit of trouble finding the baby's heat beat. She is new to the floor, so we don't think much of it. After five or six minutes of this, the more seasoned nurse came over to try. After two attempts, we thought she had it. She said, "I'll be right back," and returned with a handheld Doppler to try and find the heartbeat that way. When that didn't work, she left again to get the doctor. At this point, I had that hot, heavy feeling in my arms and flutters in my stomach. I looked down at my wife, trying to stay calm as she looked up at me quite scared. The doctor comes back in with an ultrasound machine. He puts the gel on her belly and looks for the baby. He scans over the head and goes down further. I see the neck and shoulders, and her gets to the chest and my hands went cold and my wife started crying. There is no blip of light, no movement on the screen, no noise. What happened next I'm sure only took seconds, but it felt like hours. He slowly turned his head over his left shoulder and speaks with a flat tone, a pale shock on his face as he delivers the news that no expectant parent ever has nightmares of hearing, "I can't find a heart beat." My wife cries, "No. No. Please save my baby." We both burst in to tears as everyone starts moving. I can't go in to the room with her, they have to perform an emergency c-section. I grab my wife's hand and tell her, "Everything is going to be just fine. I love you. We're gonna be ok. I love you." They rush her back to the surgery room and all of a sudden I am alone. There is no one in the room, I am there by myself, and all of a sudden, I need someone. I walk down the hall, lost in a hospital I know quite well. I walk out of the doors and find no one. I walk over to the elevators and look into the waiting room and meet eyes with my mom. I instantly burst into tears and look away. She runs out of the room and asks what's wrong...I blurt out "They can't find a heart beat," and sink to the floor. She gets on the phone and calls my dad. I hear her say to him, "You need to get down here. They can't find a heart beat." After I don't know how long, my dad gets there and wraps me up in his arms as I cry again. Never in my life have I been more scared. My wife's parents show up with Izzie and see me crying as soon as they get off the elevator and know something isn't right. A nurse comes out, looking for me, and tells me I need to stay back there for when the doctors come out. I bring my dad with me.
Around 8:20 - At this point, I have no recollection of the time, so I might be a bit off. I walk back to where we were in the morning with my dad. A doctor I'd never seen before, a blond woman, pulls me in to the hall and closes the door and explains what is going to on. The first thing she says is, "Does your daughter have a name?" I burst into tears and fell to the ground. We had a little girl! Isabella has a baby sister! I stammer out, "Sophia" "Sophia didn't have a heartbeat when we pulled her out of your wife. We are working on her right now, doing everything we can. We are massaging her heart, pushing medicine through her tummy. We're doing everything we can." She asked me some other questions and explained more things to me, but I cannot recall much of what she was saying. She leaves to go back to tend to my wife and new daughter and my dad and I go back to the recovery room. I grabbed the chair and threw myself into it. I had to physically hold my head up with both of my hands. "Dad, what am I going to do? How are we going to survive this? Why did this happen? What can I do?" I ramble off questions, knowing he can't answer, but it seems the only way to cope with all this fear I have inside me. My dad says to me: "You pray. The only thing you can do right now is pray and trust Him." That coming from my dad was a bit of a shock, as he's not much of a religious guy.
8:25ish (again, I have no idea of the time) - I shot up as the blond doctor comes back in, this time with the nurses who were checking us in. The younger one is weeping. I knew what they were going to say before they said it...They could not get her heart to beat. I collapsed in the chair and lost it. I remember asking if they used the paddles, but I don't remember what they said. At that moment, my wife and I became grieving parents. Our child had died before us. The doctor asked me what I wanted to do about telling everyone in the waiting room. She said she would go with me, and she would talk to everyone if I couldn't. My dad, the doctor, and I all walk out to see all of the nervous and scared faces of our family and friends who were waiting for an update. The doctor asks everyone to come with us as we walk in to an empty conference room at the end of the hall. Everyone gathers in and is seemingly holding their breath, staring at me. I am crying, they start crying. I start to speak, but they words can't come. Finally, "We had a little girl, but her heart..." I couldn't finish. The doctor takes over and explains as I stare at the floor. I hear their cries louder now. My wife's grandfather speaks up, "I don't understand. How can everything be fine three days ago and now your telling us this?" Her grabs his handkerchief and storms out of the room, not mad at the doctors, but devastated like the rest of us.
8:35 - I go back to the recovery room with my dad and mother-in-law. My wife is out of surgery and waking up. I am afraid to go and see her. I know that when I do, this will be a reality for the both of us...that our daughter was stillborn and she will not be coming home with us. A million thoughts raced through my mind as I walked down the hall, all dissolved when I turned the corner and saw the look on my wife's face and heard her crying like I never have before. They bring our daughter to us, and she is beautiful. She weighs 8 lbs 11 oz and is 21 inches long. Sophia Marie was born at 8:01 and the doctors stopped trying to revive her at 8:20. She looks exactly like her sister. We hold her and each other and cry. Then, the nurse starts taking pictures. I wanted to jump up and slam the camera into the ground. She asked me to turn toward her (I'm assuming so she can get a better shot), and it took everything I had in me not to scream at her. In hindsight, I am ever so grateful for those pictures and wish I could have gotten more. The nurses remove her swaddling blanket to show us how beautiful she is. Her skin is cold and has a purplish hue. Aside from her color, she looks just like any other little baby. She is our daughter, born sleeping, and changed our lives without taking a single breath.
