Searching for Answers

When we found out that our daughter had passed away there were so many questions racing through our heads. We were wondering how this could happen and why it would happen. She was due in just a few days. How could she pass away so suddenly after such a healthy pregnancy? My doctor called my pregnancy a “text book” pregnancy. The morning sickness in the first trimester was horrible, then just heartburn, and pregnancy induced carpel tunnel. Besides that I felt great. I remember thinking how great I felt and I couldn’t believe how active I still was even during the last few weeks of pregnancy. I was even joking with my doctor about great I felt at my last appointment on that Monday before we lost Berkley.

We were hoping that we would get some answers why our daughter passed away once she was born. After being thrown into this reality we have learned so much. Stillbirths still happen and some women never get an answer why their child passed away. Right after Berkley was born our doctor could see what happened.

Berkley had a velamentous cord insertion. That is where her umbilical cord inserted on the edge of the placental plate instead of in the center. So it was connected to a weaker spot and the connection ruptured. This is just a random occurrence. Nothing genetic or anything that could have been prevented while she was developing. The frustrating part about this diagnosis is that it is something that they look for at the 20 week anatomy scan. Berkley’s scan came back normal. Umbilical cord insertion was marked as normal. When it wasn’t. If it would have been seen she would have been monitored more. We will never know what the out come would have been if it was seen.

In the beginning this pissed me off more than you could imagine. I couldn’t get over the “What if” and “how did this get missed”. I started researching the diagnosis and the more information I found the more angry I would get. It is something that has a very high survival rate if it is caught and it is highly detectable on an ultrasound. The anger and what if game was consuming me.

I had to let those thoughts go. The answers that I found were not the ones that I wanted. That wasn’t my situation and we can’t bring our daughter back. What happened just happened and it is what it is. We cannot change things that have already happened and we just have to learn to live with the loss of our daughter. Her life was short and it is hard to come to terms with that fact. I am so grateful though, we were able to have our daughter for those 9 months. We grew to love her and will love her until the day we die. Knowing that love is one of the greatest gifts in this life and I will not let her death over shadow the beauty of her life.