Naomi Faith Bothur, 3/9/2009
Our first daughter was ten months old when a home pregnancy test confirmed that we were expecting our second child. We were excited and looked forward to sharing the good news with our family over the holidays. We started to think about how life would change with two children in diapers and began looking at the double strollers in the baby stores.
Then early in January, I suddenly had sharp pains one Sunday during my husband's sermon. When they didn't go away, we went to the ER and I was diagnosed with appendicitis. I had an appendectomy, found out the baby was still okay, and I was sent home to recover. The next week, we were given the news that it wasn't appendicitis, but a carcinoid tumor, that caused my pain. Another surgery was recommended to make sure it hadn't spread, but because of the slow growth of this particular kind of tumor, the doctor thought I could wait until the baby was born.
A month or so later, I got the news that our baby's nuchal translucency test results showed a high risk that our baby could have Downs Syndrome. After everything else we had already been through, the possibility of something being wrong with our baby was hard to hear. We talked about having an amniocentesis, and I started doing research about Downs Syndrome. By the end of the month, I had settled in my heart that whatever the Lord brought our way, we could handle with His help, whether our baby had special needs or not. We planned on another ultrasound that would give us more information and maybe an amnio so we could be prepared.
Then one day in early March, I had sharp abdominal pains again. Because I was 18 weeks into my pregnancy, the midwife had me come to labor and delivery to see if it had anything to do with the baby. They checked, and the baby was fine, but I wasn't. I went to the ER, and was admitted to the hospital while they tried to figure out what was wrong. My pain was worse, and my heart rate was sky-rocketing. Because of the baby, everyone was hesitant to do a CT scan until they tried other things, so I had an ultrasound that looked at my abdomen and let us see our baby at the same time. The technician said everything looked fine and asked if we wanted to know if it was a boy or a girl. We asked her to write it down for us to look at later so we could really enjoy finding out.
Two mornings later, I was still in the hospital, with no change in my heart rate or pain. The nurses came and checked the baby's heartbeat and said it was fine. But a half hour later I felt a strange sensation in my pelvic area. I called the nurse, thinking my catheter was coming out. When she arrived, though, she very gently told me that it could be that, but it could also be my baby. All I could think was, "No, it's too early." The rational side of me knew if it was true, nothing could be done to stop it, and that there was no way the baby could live at this age, but the mother part of me begged them to do anything they could, and to call my husband. He was able to be there within a half hour, and by then I had delivered our daughter, who was already gone.
The midwife told me later that the heartbeat they had picked up that morning was mine, not the baby's, and that she had probably died during the night because of all the trauma going on inside me...trauma that wasn't over yet as that afternoon my belly started to swell, and I was vomiting stomach bile every hour or so. They finally diagnosed me with blocked intestines (from what they didn't know), and I had an emergency surgery to fix them. I came out of surgery without my gall bladder, 12 inches of small intestine, and my ascending colon (as they went ahead and at the same time took care of the other surgery that I was waiting for until our baby was born), and with an ileostomy to empty my intestines.
We named our daughter Naomi Faith, for the Biblical Naomi whose name meant pleasant, and yet had experienced so much loss herself; and Faith for the test of our faith that this was sure to be. We held her, and took pictures, and spent as much time as we could looking at her and marveling over the intricate way God had knit her together, even at this age, down to her miniscule fingernails and toenails. I couldn't understand why, after everything she had already survived in this pregnancy, after everything we had already faced in the last two months, it would end this way.
After my surgery, I stayed in the hospital another week, and after going home had one more scare and another trip to the ER, before I finally started to feel like I was getting better. We buried our daughter on Good Friday in a natural cemetery under some trees where you can hear a creek in the background, and had a memorial service at our church a week later. I had another surgery at the end of April to reverse my ileostomy and then needed a D&C at the end of May because I was continuing to bleed. We waited a week for test results (there was some fear it was from a tumor), but finally the first week of June got the good news that all was normal - the bleeding had been from retained placental tissue. Two years later, I've been declared free of carcinoid tumors, and a second cancer scare (in my thyroid) turned out to be benign. We still hope to have more children (and the stories of my other babies in heaven are elsewhere on this site), but Naomi will always be part of our family, the missing piece that we will not fully know until we see her in heaven.
Then early in January, I suddenly had sharp pains one Sunday during my husband's sermon. When they didn't go away, we went to the ER and I was diagnosed with appendicitis. I had an appendectomy, found out the baby was still okay, and I was sent home to recover. The next week, we were given the news that it wasn't appendicitis, but a carcinoid tumor, that caused my pain. Another surgery was recommended to make sure it hadn't spread, but because of the slow growth of this particular kind of tumor, the doctor thought I could wait until the baby was born.
A month or so later, I got the news that our baby's nuchal translucency test results showed a high risk that our baby could have Downs Syndrome. After everything else we had already been through, the possibility of something being wrong with our baby was hard to hear. We talked about having an amniocentesis, and I started doing research about Downs Syndrome. By the end of the month, I had settled in my heart that whatever the Lord brought our way, we could handle with His help, whether our baby had special needs or not. We planned on another ultrasound that would give us more information and maybe an amnio so we could be prepared.
Then one day in early March, I had sharp abdominal pains again. Because I was 18 weeks into my pregnancy, the midwife had me come to labor and delivery to see if it had anything to do with the baby. They checked, and the baby was fine, but I wasn't. I went to the ER, and was admitted to the hospital while they tried to figure out what was wrong. My pain was worse, and my heart rate was sky-rocketing. Because of the baby, everyone was hesitant to do a CT scan until they tried other things, so I had an ultrasound that looked at my abdomen and let us see our baby at the same time. The technician said everything looked fine and asked if we wanted to know if it was a boy or a girl. We asked her to write it down for us to look at later so we could really enjoy finding out.
Two mornings later, I was still in the hospital, with no change in my heart rate or pain. The nurses came and checked the baby's heartbeat and said it was fine. But a half hour later I felt a strange sensation in my pelvic area. I called the nurse, thinking my catheter was coming out. When she arrived, though, she very gently told me that it could be that, but it could also be my baby. All I could think was, "No, it's too early." The rational side of me knew if it was true, nothing could be done to stop it, and that there was no way the baby could live at this age, but the mother part of me begged them to do anything they could, and to call my husband. He was able to be there within a half hour, and by then I had delivered our daughter, who was already gone.
The midwife told me later that the heartbeat they had picked up that morning was mine, not the baby's, and that she had probably died during the night because of all the trauma going on inside me...trauma that wasn't over yet as that afternoon my belly started to swell, and I was vomiting stomach bile every hour or so. They finally diagnosed me with blocked intestines (from what they didn't know), and I had an emergency surgery to fix them. I came out of surgery without my gall bladder, 12 inches of small intestine, and my ascending colon (as they went ahead and at the same time took care of the other surgery that I was waiting for until our baby was born), and with an ileostomy to empty my intestines.
We named our daughter Naomi Faith, for the Biblical Naomi whose name meant pleasant, and yet had experienced so much loss herself; and Faith for the test of our faith that this was sure to be. We held her, and took pictures, and spent as much time as we could looking at her and marveling over the intricate way God had knit her together, even at this age, down to her miniscule fingernails and toenails. I couldn't understand why, after everything she had already survived in this pregnancy, after everything we had already faced in the last two months, it would end this way.
After my surgery, I stayed in the hospital another week, and after going home had one more scare and another trip to the ER, before I finally started to feel like I was getting better. We buried our daughter on Good Friday in a natural cemetery under some trees where you can hear a creek in the background, and had a memorial service at our church a week later. I had another surgery at the end of April to reverse my ileostomy and then needed a D&C at the end of May because I was continuing to bleed. We waited a week for test results (there was some fear it was from a tumor), but finally the first week of June got the good news that all was normal - the bleeding had been from retained placental tissue. Two years later, I've been declared free of carcinoid tumors, and a second cancer scare (in my thyroid) turned out to be benign. We still hope to have more children (and the stories of my other babies in heaven are elsewhere on this site), but Naomi will always be part of our family, the missing piece that we will not fully know until we see her in heaven.