FEATURES

WAS I GOING TO LOSE STILL ANOTHER BABY?
by Mary Anne Sharbaugh

A cool , bright spring day beckoned my girlfriend, Barbara Johnson Hennequin, and me out into shell country. That's what we called Key Largo because of its plethora of shells shops. Our hobby was making little trinkets and gifts out of shells.

After lunch, we hoped into her car to head South. The day was only slightly cool, so we had brought sweat shirts with us. All the way down U.S. 1 I chirped about my baby, due in two months. I was exceptionally excited about this pregnancy. The reason is that I have had an unbelievable obstetrical history.

The was my fourth pregnancy. But none of them had given my husband and me a child. This pregnancy had gone well, and the baby was due in two months. We had three losses: one in each trimester. I miscarried one pregnancy at six weeks. Then, my husband and I had lost a daughter at five months gestation--she had just stopped growing. A little more than a year later, a beautiful son, Christopher, was born to us. He was brought into the world at seven months gestation because he had a malformed vein in his head. The doctors planned to shunt liquid out of his unusually large head, and rushed him to Miami Children's Hospital immediately after birth. But the malformation was inoperable. Our baby boy died four days after birth. We had never even heard him cry.

His death threw me into a depression. It made me want to cast away the desire to try for more children. There was another reason I despaired of ever having children--during Christopher's birth, my doctor had discovered I had a double uterus. Maybe this was a sign that I wasn't supposed to have children. And my husband did not want to adopt. So I was preparing to have my tubes tied, to shut out the possibility of ever hearing a baby's cry in my home.

It was my girlfriend, Addy Melendez, of North Miami, who had picked me up by my bootstraps and practically carried me to a Bible study at her brother-in-law's house. It was during a reading of the Book of John that the Spirit had taken over my life. And filled it with joy.

I told my friend Addy that I still didn't know if I wanted to try for more children. Addy had said to me: "I think you should try to have a baby again. I really feel the Lord has something good in store for you."

Everything looked good for this pregnancy, and I was really excited. As Barbara and I tooled our way South to Key Largo, I mused over a project to make some tiny shell candles and maybe pile some shells into shapes and glue them together. Then I'd put the shell structure in the baby's room.

We were probably only a few miles from Key Largo when I felt a huge cramp. I remembered my doctor talking about labor pains which were not the real thing. I thought that 's what this was. I asked Barbara, who was a nurse, whether I should get out and walk to see if this cramp would go away. She agreed, and pulled the car onto the side of the two-lane highway.

When I got out I glanced down the road. All I could see were rows of telephone poles and swaying grass, the kind you only see when you are near the ocean. I walked a few steps, soaking in the cool breeze, smelling the sea air. After I had waddled about four steps, I felt a whoosh and looked down. To my horror, I saw a stream of thick blood dripping steadily past my shorts and down my leg. A pool of blood already lay on the ground between my feet. I was hemorrhaging!

I went numb.

"Barbara", I started calling. I kept repeating her name, my voice steadily growing more hysterical. She took my sweatshirt from my shoulders and put it between my legs. Then, she guided me, laying me down on the back seat, all the while holding the sweat shirt between my legs. She kept repeating "It'll be okay, baby. Don't worry."

I was numb and in shock, and I felt nauseous. I could hardly believe that I was going to lose another baby. I had become born again in the Lord. How could this happen to me?

Barbara drove the car wildly even though she outwardly remained calm. I watched the telephone poles go by. I couldn't think at all. I was simply amazed that I could still feel the baby moving inside me. At this point, blood was slowly dripping out of me onto the sweatshirt.

I couldn't even pray. Even though my mind was numb, I kept trying to will the baby to keep on moving. I used every ounce of strength to will it to live. On the edge of my mind was the thought that I was going to experience still another loss.

"Everything will be okay, baby," Barbara continued repeating in an almost chant-like, soothing voice. After what seemed like forever, the car stopped at the Mutineer Restaurant in Florida City. I laid there in silence while she made phone calls I couldn't hear.

After more silence that went on forever, a siren pierced the afternoon. I hardly heard it, amazed that my baby was still moving. Then I was lifted and placed on a stretcher and into an ambulance. An attendant sat by me for the ride to the hospital. Seeing his frightened look brought to the surface feelings and fears I couldn't face in the car ride with Barbara. I finally started praying. I told the Lord I couldn't do anymore than give my life over to Him.

"I am yours, Lord," I prayed. "Whatever the outcome, it is up to you. I can't do any more than that. I surrender", I said to the Lord.

I turned to the attendant and asked him if he believed in God.

He replied "yes". Then I told him this was my fourth pregnancy, that I had lost three babies. I really wanted this baby to survive.

"Would you please pray for me and this baby," I asked him. I wasn't even crying. I was in too much shock.

A single tear rolled down the attendant's cheek. I put my hand on his. Amazingly, I still wasn't crying. I was going to accept whatever the Lord would make happen.

When the ambulance came to a stop, it seemed like in a split second there were at least six nurses washing and preparing me for what I knew would be an emergency Cesarean section birth. They attached a monitor to me. The baby was still moving and didn't seem to be in any kind of trauma. But no one said anything to me. I was still numb. I couldn't even think. I spoke not a word.

My obstetrician, Dr. Glenn Salkind, walked in and looked at me. At first , he didn't say anything. He just looked at me. Then, slowly he started to tell me about the success doctors have with babies born this early.

As if to avert any blame he wanted to place on me, I blurted out " I was going to Key Largo to collect shells". He nodded that it was okay, vaguely trying to reassure me. He said he was going to do an emergency C-Section.

The anesthesiologist, a male, looked down into my face. He asked me if I had anything to eat and I replied in the affirmative. Before heading to Key Largo, I had eaten a chicken sandwich.

"If we don't get this tube down into your stomach in time, you could die," the anesthesiologist said in a very serious tone. I didn't respond. He repeated this again, probably thinking I had not heard and that he needed to prepare me for possible death.

I had heard him. There was nothing I could do or say. I told myself that if the Lord wanted to take me and my baby, I was ready because I had already given my life over to Him.

Then there was blackness.

Someone was tugging on my hand. It was my husband, Michael. He leaned over to kiss me and tell me we had a beautiful, healthy, blond baby girl, born at 4:30 that sunny afternoon. The announcement gushed from him, he was so thrilled. And he had heard her cry--a nice, loud wail.

What had happened to me on the way to Key Largo was Abruptio Placenta: my placenta had separated from my womb. Had this "separation" been any worse, or had I not made it to the hospital in time, I could have died along with my baby who could have been deprived of life-giving oxygen.

We named our baby Kathryn Addy Marie. Her middle name, Addy, was given her so it would always remind her of her Aunt Addy Melendez--without whom her mother never would have come to know the Lord.

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