I lost my son Neel on Feb 27th at 5:56pm at 22 weeks 2 days stillborn.

Please let me tell you my story, as I don’t know what else to do.

On Feb 23rd we had to go to a follow-up ultrasound as my first ultrasound on Feb 8th wasn’t quite sufficient as my son was a wiggly worm. The tech couldn’t capture a few images. So we go for the ultrasound, oblivious to what comes next.
The tech asks to do an intervaginal Ultrasound, as they want to view my cervix. I say ok, and then the worried look on his face. I knew something was wrong. I could see my son’s hand near my cervix. We got rushed to the hospital because my cervix was short at 10mm.

The doc comes in and does a cervical check and informs me that I am 3cm dilated. Presents my husband and I with choices, we of course opted for the emergency cerclage. The next morning on the 24th, my procedure was at 9am. I get the spinal tap they double-check my dilation and now I’m at 3.5cm dilated. My OBS/GYN doctor said we will put the cerclage in, you have good length but your membranes are quite low. The surgery went well and we were extremely hopeful.

I have bladder distress at noon, thinking the water had broken, but grateful it was just bladder distress as my lower body regained feeling. I was determined to walk out of the hospital and keep my baby inside me as soon as I got feelings in my leg, I went pee. This allowed me to be discharged 24th at 5pm.

We come home, I am on bed rest, nervous whenever I go pee or have a bowel movement. Friday the 25th, I notice this mucous substance in the toilet, looks like a mucous plug. I think maybe not, as I just had surgery. Saturday the 26th, I shower and sure enough there is a lot of mucous coming out, again I chalk it up to my cervix healing.

I felt fine and our baby had a 168 heartbeat, I checked it with our doppler. I was so happy and relieved. Had some Tylenol for my back pain and went to sleep.

Sunday morning the 27th, I wake up and feel extremely wet, check my sheets and sure enough, there is a wet patch the size of my husband’s palm on the sheet. I hope that I lost control of my bladder once again. We rush to the hospital.

The Nurse ran some tests, and the doc came in confirming my worst nightmare. My water broke, and now I had 2 choices. Go home, to wait into going into active labor which might be a few hours or days, risk infection of my uterus and therefore affect my future chance of pregnancy or go ahead with inducing labor knowing my baby will most likely not make it either way.

We made the toughest choice in our life we decided to induce labor. Once again I hoped though, I requested before my cerclage was taken out, could they double-check the cervix and membrane to see if I ruptured. Sure enough though, once again my hopes died, membranes were ruptured. My cerclage was taken out at 2pm, there was some difficulty taking it out as there was pressure on the cervix. They also induced labor by inserting misoprostol into my cervix.

At 3pm the doc came again and went over what will happen and to just support me. Again another huge water gush and she checked my cervix, within 1hr my cervix was 3.5cm dilated already. I remember thinking I will have time, I won’t go into active labor I’ll have another day of him being inside me.

I started having contractions around 4:50pm, took some Tylenol and told them I really had to go for a bowel movement. My contractions were now coming more frequently than at 4:55pm, I asked for an epidural. Around 5:10, I went and had a bowel movement with the help of my contractions.

By 5:15 pm, I am in so much pain but due to my veins and my previous IV blowing out, the anesthesiologist had to come in to set up my IV for the epidural. At 5:20, he was ready to do the epidural, and they tried to move my body to sit up. I couldn’t do it.

I was having contractions every few seconds, and my cervix was burning. Luckily the Doc came in and asked me to open my legs and sure enough I was crowning.

Within minutes the room was full, they didn’t have a chance to do the epidural, and I only was on laughing gas, Tylenol, and got given 10mg of fentanyl. I asked for some more and got given while they asked me to push.

I went through labour, my son was born at 5:56pm on Feb 27th. He was just perfect, a perfect mix of us. He passed away during birth as he was warm when he was on my chest. Neel, is/was the perfect baby boy, I held him while I was asked to push out the placenta. My husband and I held him through the night, praying/hoping for a miracle that this was all a nightmare.

The 28th morning was one of the hardest days, we decided on his funeral arrangements but most importantly, we also had to give him up. I couldn’t understand why this was happening, I gave birth to him, he should be alive, he should be in my arms. Many times in the night I swaddled him, I wanted to ensure my son was swaddled before being taken away. My husband and I undressed him, swaddled him in a blanket and then gave up our child.

I got up so fast to run after my son, my husband had to stop me. We had just let him go. Decided to leave the hospital right away, as soon as I came home, I put his feet, hands on the mantle including his clothes.

We decided we didn’t want him cold and in a dark room any longer than needed, so on March 4th at 11am, we saw our son again, we gave him a teddy bear with love, kissed him, read our letter aloud to him and just held on to him till the last minute.
We wanted to honor him, so we decided we would be there for his cremation, one of the hardest damn things we have ever done. His ashes are on my mantle, we wish him good morning/goodnight each day.

We are parents, we love him so much and yet we can’t hold onto him, it’s all memories now. I miss him being inside me, I wish my cervix was checked earlier, I wish my body didn’t fail me. Each day I think of him, wishing him to be inside me, he would be due on July 2nd.