Part 1: Deafening silence

The entire story of Emerson goes way beyond the few days around her due date. This story focuses on those few days so that I don’t lose the details to my greatest fear: time. Time can wear down memories like a river in a canyon. Time can shape and erode memories to something we may no longer recognize.

I refuse to let time do that to Emerson’s story.

Shawna opened the office door and through tears, she said “we need to go to the hospital.” Emerson hadn’t moved all day. I kept telling myself to stay calm. Be strong. Emerson was a very chill baby and there had been times where she hadn’t kicked for most of the day. I rationalized that she was preparing for birth.

When we arrived at the hospital, a nurse, Krista, immediately took us into a triage room. Little did we know that she was going to be with us way beyond this moment.

Krista started by listening for the baby’s heartbeat using a Doppler microphone. Nothing. The silence was deafening. I held Shawna and reassured her that this was a minor technical issue and not to jump to any conclusions.

We maintained hope of finding a heartbeat while Krista got a portable ultrasound. During the scan she suddenly stopped. She found the baby’s heart but there was nothing. A doctor came in and repeated the procedure. That is when we heard the words that will forever haunt us: your baby has no heartbeat.

I sat on the floor alongside Shawna. A nurse asked if I wanted a chair - I refused. That floor was the only thing that kept me connected with reality.

A technician brought in an advanced ultrasound to double check and they did exactly that. Our baby was full-term and officially dead at 39 weeks.

Everyone left the room to give us privacy. The moment the door shut, I cried physically harder than I have ever done in my life. In the midst of crying, Shawna looked at me and said five words that I will never forget: “This will not break us”.

After about 15 minutes, the doctor and Krista returned and talked us through the next steps. That is when we learned that Shawna still needed to deliver the baby. It sounded cruel to have her go through delivery knowing there was no baby for us to take home. They assured us that it was the safest process for Shawna with the quickest recovery time versus a c-section.

They never used the word stillborn, but I knew that was our reality. The doctor recommended that we go home and come back tomorrow to be induced based on experiences of other loss parents. All of this was extremely overwhelming and we were like deer in headlights. Eventually we decided to go with their recommendation to go home, process what just happened, and grieve.