My Miracle – Robyn’s Story

I have difficulty having children. My first pregnancy was a girl. My second ended in miscarriage. My third was a boy. When my son was about 1, I decided I wanted to try one more time. I went to my doctor and he said the two I had were miracles and that  there would come a time that I wouldn’t be able to  have more children.

When I got pregnant with Ryan and heard his heartbeat I thought, “what a miracle!” On January 30, 2009 I went to the hospital for a routine non-stress test. It was the day after my daughter’s 8th birthday. Three days before, we had heard Ryan’s heartbeat. Ryan was scheduled to be delivered in 2 days on Feb.1 ,2009. I was in a wheelchair during the last months of my pregnancy because I couldn’t walk ( I was going home that night to pack our bags for the hospital.)

While I was on the table, I saw Ryan’s face on the ultrasound and thought how lucky I was to be having another baby. The nurse then told me and my husband that their machine was old and she wanted us to go into another room to do the test. She asked if I could walk and I said yes. I started to walk and was slow so she put me back in the wheelchair and said that it would be faster. I never thought that there might be a problem. We got to the other room and she looked for his heartbeat. She then rushed out of the room to find another nurse.

I sat up and held my husband. I kept saying NO, PLEASE NO, PLEASE NO over and over again. The new nurse looked around for a while and then said Ryan had passed away. She said she would get the doctor to see if they could find out why Ryan had passed away. Ryan’s death was caused by a placental abruption. They decided to do an emergency C-section. My husband called my Mom, his Mom and my Aunt flew in from California. All our family was there. It all happened so fast. They let me hold Ryan all night. He weighed 8 lbs. 8 oz. and was 20 1/2 inches long. As I held him I thought how perfect he was and how much he looked like his older brother, but Ryan was born with more hair.

The whole time I thought, “what happened to my miracle?” We buried Ryan on February 4, 2009. He was buried with my great grandparents. I look back at the experience and think I did get my miracle. I got to hear Ryan’s heartbeat, feel him kick, and saw his face on ultrasound so many times. I  bonded with him and I am grateful for the time I had with him. Just the other day we were in the car with my family. I had said something about having 2 children and my 6 yr. old niece said, you have 3 children, Ryan is just in heaven!!

-Robyn
Mother of Ryan T.