4 1/2 year after losing her

I have three girls at home and one in heaven.  My oldest is now 7, the second is my angel, third is now 3 years old, and my last is 20 months.  They keep me busy, and I like it.  I enjoy mothering them and counting my blessings.  It's better than drowning my sorrows.  

I choose to be happy. 

(Of course, I'll never get that old ignorant happiness back.  That happy go lucky, bad things happen to other people happiness.  It's a wiser happiness.)

I have my moments every day, when things are not okay.  I imagine it will always be like that.  But mostly they're okay.  

The fact is that death is a part of life.  And everyone will come to terms with it eventually.  I just learned earlier and harder than most of the other people in my life.

What brought me back to wanting to write was questioning why we lost Charlotte.  Right after her death I tried to do online research using the results of her autopsy and my blood tests results.  I had a general idea of why she passed.  Basically signs pointed to CMV (cytomegalovirus) but it couldn't be confirmed.  

So I brought out all the old paperwork again, researched all the results, googled everything possible -- and yeah, pretty sure it was CMV with another possible separate infection that came up from the vagina to the placenta and cord.  With my new research came all the old feelings -- why me? how did this happen?  blaming myself, more blame on doctors.  

Did  you know there's actually a treatment in place to prevent the effects of CMV on the fetus?  There is.  I imagine Charlotte could be here if that first doctor actually listened to me complain of how tired I was.  If only she had made a connection and tested.  Of course, there's a possibility of that second infection that could also cause stillbirth.  Freakin' won the lottery with things that could go wrong, didn't I?

December 21, 2010

On 12/21/10, I wrote this (edited) post to my blog.  For a long time after Charlotte's death I needed to connect with other mothers who lost a child and felt empassioned to make all people understand what that loss is like.  I was truthful.  Almost too truthful.  I started to regret letting all those feelings and information out into public domain.   I ended up removing my entire blog.  And now I'm back to thinking Charlotte's story could help others.  With less raw emotion.  So here we go...

After finding out that Charlotte had no heartbeat, the perinatologist did his scan quickly, took measurements, and confirmed there was no heartbeat. He told me there was fluid around her heart and liver, and that she only measured 30 weeks (his guess was 3 pounds 15 ounces, which was pretty close to her actual weight of 4 pounds 1 ounce.) 

Some time later, two ladies came to take my blood for the tests that could determine why Charlotte had passed away. They took a lot, I'm not even sure how many vials they took but the next morning someone else came and took some more. The perinatologist also wanted to get some amniotic fluid to test. The nurses and doctor seemed confused and didn't know how to get a sample of the fluid. They said that to me over and over again.  They never did get it.  (My online research tells me this could have been helpful with the determination in her death.)

Charlotte was born at 3:54 PM on November 13, 2010, weighing 4 pounds, 1 ounce, and 17 inches long.