Paislee’s Birth Story.

I want to start with a Trigger Warning for this story.

Contains traumatic birth events that may be triggering to some individuals. Please use your own discretion on continuing reading.

I was a fresh 18 when motherhood began for me, I was expecting a little girl and couldn’t wait to start my life with her. I had healthy ultrasounds and blood work, everything was slowly, but surely falling into place.

At 23 weeks, I began having back pain that kept me on the couch, and a week later, the spotting began. My mother could sense something wasn’t right and drove me to a local urgent care, I was the last visitor of the day and being only 24 weeks, it was not yet hospital policy to send me to labor and delivery.

The nurse practitioner that I saw that evening claimed the clinic room was not “sterile enough” to perform a pelvic exam and she refused to send me to labor and delivery because it was so late in the day and I was such an early gestation. Instead she sent me home with “normal pregnancy symtoms”. I didn’t know or understand what was happening at such a ripe age and being my first pregnancy. When I returned to my mother, who did not attend the appointment with me due to my very young (at the time) brother being with us and not wanting to put him through what she thought for sure would be a pelvic exam, she was furious, she felt I had been disregarded and decided we would contact our family doctor the next morning.

Unfortunately, we never made it to that phone call, in the early morning hours of July 19, I woke up to the most excruciating pain I had ever felt to date, I had no idea what was going on but rose from my bed and went to the bathroom as the pain subsided a little. When I got there, I discovered I was covered in my own blood and had also filled the facility with blood. I gathered myself and ventured into her room and as I rounded the end of her bed to get to her side, the pain started again, I cried out for my mom and instantly, she was up. She calmly to me to get dressed and into the vehicle as quickly as I could.

She remained calm the entire time but expressed we would not be returning to the hospital we went to the night before and instead took me to the nearest ER. This hospital did not deliver babies and was completely unprepared for everything that was about to happen.

After a short exam, they determined my mother’s worst fears, I was, in fact, in extreme premature labor.

The ER nurses rapidly got on the phone trying to get me transferred, but ran into the big hospitals in the state telling them I did not have a viable baby at this gestation, calling it a “miscarriage”. But the wonderful ER staff that night were determined to help me save this baby.

Finally, they found a NICU hospital that would try. The med-flight was on it’s way. They explained that I would have to go alone in the med-flight and that my mother and sister (who had arrived by now) would have to make the hour and a half drive themselves.

Shortly before the med-flight was set to arrive, my water broke and full blown active labor had begun. They could no longer transport me and we would be delivering my precious little girl right there in the ER, 16 weeks early.

Everyone’s heart was breaking in this moment but the nurses continued to do their jobs flawlessly, even through my excessive shrills of emotion. Begging for pain relief that was far too late to recieve. They were able to get an on call OB from another local hospital to come and deliver baby.

I remember quite vividly as he walked in the room. He shook my hand, told me his name, gloved up, pelvic exam, and said “ok, now it’s time to push. I need you to push through the next contraction.” Within minutes, even seconds, I felt the delivery of my baby happen. They immediately scooped her up and took her to the other side of the room.

As I heard her cries, that sounded like the smallest baby kitten, I arose from the bed and went to her. The OB returned me to my cot multiple times, explaining to me that I had just given birth and needed to take it easy, but all I wanted were my eyes on that baby.

They helped her breath manually and worked on her until the NICU bus arrived. He told me she was the smallest baby he had ever delivered at a tiny ONE POUND, but that he was going to do everything he could to save her life. They explained to me that I would now be separated from her for transfer because the NICU team needed all the space they could get to work on her while they traveled the distance back to the NICU.

Shortly after, an ambulance arrived to transfer me, the paramedics encouraged me to get some sleep because I would have a very long few months ahead of me. Somehow, I was able to fall into sleep, I can’t remember if they gave me something to help or not, the beginning of the transfer is quite blurry for me because I was still so shook from being separated from my baby for the first time and the traumatic occurance I had just endured.

I woke about 30 min before arriving at the hospital in sheer panic. I thought I was waking up from the worst pregnancy nightmare a person could experience, little did I know, this was only the beginning of what would change me forever. As I made eye contact with the paramedic and quickly realized I was in an ambulance, it all came flooding back. I shot up, crying out, for God, anyone, to make it stop, to give me back the baby I enjoyed moving inside me and just give us a little more time. They did their best to calm me and assured me I would be returned to her shortly and that they were in contact. She had arrived at the NICU and was doing great despite the circumstances.

They wheeled me into the ER feeling extremely dizzy and overly confused about everything. I was admitted and given a room, they then took me to see my beautiful little girl. She was so tiny and I could touch her through holes in the incubator but I was not able to hold her.

It was 3 days later when a nurse finally told me I could hold my baby girl, it was the happiest moment in my life. My mother captured photos and I enjoyed skin to skin time with her as long as she tolerated. They explained to me that without her outer layers of skin, touch was excruciatingly painful to her and probably felt like being stabbed with a million needles.

I spent nine days refusing to leave her side and things looked up and up. But on that ninth day, we began to notice a change in her, she was starting to look unfamiliar and very sick, very rapidly. On that evening, a NICU specialist came into my room and told me she was septic with staph infection and she would not make it through the night. I heavily disagreed as my family poured in. She was a fighter, she had been since she breathed on her own momentarily at birth. And what they were telling me just was not possible.

I couldn’t lose my child. That couldn’t happen to me. She would fight through it and come out stronger than ever. How wrong I was… in the early morning hours of that night, nurses and doctors rushed in and pushed everyone out as they called a code blue and asked me if I would like to hold her.

One very last time.

They handed me my beautiful precious child and I held her in my arms, soaking up every last micro second as her heart stopped beating and she stopped breathing. She had left the world right there in my arms.

I never felt more powerless.

I was so lost and scared in utter disbelief and had no idea what to do or where to go from here. I feared for my own life and how would I ever cope with it being her and not me. They had to take her from myself and my family eventually and I will never forget the emotion and feeling in that room as we cherished the last few moments we had with her vessel.

My mother and I went to the Ronald McDonald house near by and slept out the rest of the night, we were both exhausted from the previous ten days and that horrible night.

I woke early that morning, with once again, the feeling that I was waking up from the worst possible nightmare. Only to quickly realize, this was no nightmare, this was real life, my true reality, as much as I wanted it to be anything but.

I crawled into my mothers bed and she held me as we bawled. I couldn’t believe I had said good-bye to my daughter forever and she couldn’t believe she had to watch her daughter go through the most horrible thing a person could endure. At the same time, she had said good-bye to her first born grandchild forever.

It all felt surreal and going home for the first time since I left so abruptly the night of her birth felt wrong and guilty in every way. We now had a funeral to plan. I look back now, and wonder how I managed to get through this. Here I was, a baby myself, just barely a child, laying my own child to rest, how could this be possible? How could this happen to me? What had I done to deserve this, was I a terrible person and didn’t even realize it?

As the next couple weeks went by, I had to continue to pump my breast milk until I dried up. This did not go well for me and created an extremely unhealthy relationship with the breast pump. My mother tried desperately to keep me grounded as I fell into a whirlwind of self sabotage and hatred. It took me the next year, plus, to come out of my grief and begin to live a normal life again.

Micah and I got together when our beautiful, mutual niece was born early and spent her days in the NICU, in the room RIGHT NEXT to the one Paislee and I had spent those fateful days and nights in.

I still wonder why he gave the young, crazy, grieving mother the chance he did. But we quickly fell deeply in love with eacother and both of our longing to bring children into our empty arms.

Paislee is remembered and cherished in all of our lives regularly. I’ve seen things with our children, I have felt and even smelled her near. We have the best guardian angel and have been blessed with the best siblings for her to watch over.

I have never written this story in such great detail until now. It broke my heart to do so.

Not every NICU story has such a terrifying ending, but mine did.

I believe her life deserves to be cherished as well as shared. She made an incredible impact during her time here. She made me a mother. She taught me more than any book, teacher, or common life experience could ever teach. My experience made me the loving, overly grateful mother I am today. I am forever grateful for the time I was given with her and would accept more in a heartbeat. I know she is well and no longer suffers from pain. I will hold her again someday.