Our Angel. Our Star in the Sky.

Hunter Charles Webb









On Saturday January 14, 2012 I woke up feeling good and was off to embark on a day of errands and pampering. The week before had been a long hard week and full of moments and incidents I go back over and over in my head. I question everything about the week- its painful and still leads us to no answers. I am sure I will expand more on the week prior to Hunter's arrival in the future. Right now there is nothing about that hard week that medically has been linked to Hunter's passing and going back over and over everything is just more of the grieving process for us Angel Moms and Dads.

So after a wonderful manicure and pedicure and trip to the post office, I got home to have lunch with Ryan and Samantha. I realized that I hadn't felt a kick in a little bit so I had lemonade and a cookie and still no kicks. Panic. I called the Dr's exchange and sat in bed waiting for his call back. We researched things online and convinced ourselves that likely our baby boy was sleeping or had little room to kick since we were so far along (over 39 weeks- in fact just 3 days before my scheduled csection date). While I waited for the Dr, I also called Mercy Hospital's Labor and Delivery Dept and they said to come in. So I started to walk around to figure out what to do, what to bring, what to wear. . .to bring the whole hospital bag- I mean we were just going to hear the heartbeat and make sure everything was alright, right? Or were we delivering our baby? So confusing. So scary. We brought the bag and we brought Samantha with us as we didn't want to alarm anyone and try to find care for her. Plus I didn't know that we had time to chase down someone to take care of her. The Dr called back and confirmed that we needed to go to the hospital. On that drive over I started to realize that something was really wrong- I was numb inside. We were numb and hardly talked on the way over. We were scared.

This is painful to go back over. I also don't want to give all the details, otherwise this blog posting will be a book. So I will keep it more straightforward for now, maybe. We got to the hospital and the nurses hooked me up to the monitors. Samantha played in the corner with the bag of toys we brought. Nothing. No heartbeat. Panic on the nurses face. Then they brought in a resident and then more goop and ultrasound checking and they still thought they were missing something. No heartbeats again. Then a chief resident who confirmed no heartbeat. Then our OB came in to the hospital to take the final look. No heartbeat. At this point the nurses had taken Samantha out to another room to play. Our baby boy was no longer with us, he had passed on. When? How? Why? Shock. Panic. Extreme pain.

What happened after that is all a bit of a blur. We called our families. My aunt came to take Samantha. My Dad and Sister came to be by our side (and my Mom was there in spirit from her bedside continuing a battle with terminal cancer) and we called Ryan's parents. The hospital called our Church. We had to decide to labor or to do a csection as was planned. We had to finalize our name for him, although we were 90% already. We had to think about so many things and to hear words we never ever imagined. Fetal demise. Autopsy.

We quickly decided on his name. Hunter Charles- for sure, no question. Hunter for our love for the name and for the dreams we had for him- to hunt, fish and love the outdoors just like his Daddy. Charles for Ryan's Dad's family- Ryan's dad is Harry Charles and thus they share the same initials now. Charles was Harry's Dad who passed away far too young as well. Ryan's brother also has Charles as his middle name. All very fitting. No question, we didn't even need to meet him- we knew for sure this was our Hunter. And now meeting him, he could never be anything else. He is our baby boy Hunter Charles Webb.

So we decided to have the csection for various reasons. But I had eaten lunch so we had to wait. I remember feeling like I wanted him to be born, that I didn't want to be pregnant any more and be carrying my dead son. I wanted to somehow make this all go away. I was scared to see him. I was scared not to see him. I wished I hadn't eaten so we could move forward instead of having these dreadful hours. We had to wait 6 to deliver our baby boy who was not going to arrive screaming. We weren't going to hear this voice. We weren't going to feel his breath. We weren't going to feel a heartbeat. We waited for 6 hours for what was going to be extreme pain. I don't even know what we did those hours, I really don't.

Father Mike came in those 6 hours that I know- he said prayers with us, hugged us and baptized Hunter through my body and blood. He is forever part of God's family.

In the 9 o'clock hour they started to get me ready for the csection. So many things about the process I don't even remember from Samantha's delivery. Everything took so long and hurt. I think this time it was all preparation for what was to come. With Samantha's csection preparation we were excited and gitty and so nothing really mattered. Every step was just leading to a really sad moment. So at 10:03pm Hunter Charles arrived. They kept asking us if we wanted to see him, hold him, get pictures, etc. I couldn't imagine- I said no. Looking back how could I have said that initially? But they talked us through it and reminded us these moments, days etc were all we were going to have and so we did meet him, we did hold him. Ryan went with the nurses to watch them wash him off. He watched them take his footprint. Ryan got to do all the same things he had done with Samantha. I got to look over at my beautiful son, with a gorgeous head of hair. But there were no screams, no voices. It was all very silent.

They examined Hunter, there was some discoloration of the umbilical cord but otherwise he looked great. He was 8lbs and .23 ounces. He was 20 3/4 inches. He had great color and awesome hair. He was adorable, he is adorable. He resembles Samantha in so many ways. He is beautiful and perfect and how could he be dead? He is a gorgeous little man, our little buddy, but he's an angel. He was born asleep. He was born an angel. He was stillborn. We are parents to an angel not to a screaming, hungry newborn. How could someone who looked so perfect and healthy not be alive? Its still so confusing and horrific. It still hurts from the bottom of my stomach. It makes no sense at all. What happened- why? how? what did we miss? why did this happen to us?

Only 1 percent of all births in the US are stillborn. We are part of the 1%. 1%. How? Why? Why did our baby die in the womb- why weren't we allowed to meet him? Why weren't we going to be able to see him grow up? Why?

We were in the hospital for 4 days. We met him, we held him, we had photos taken, we read to him, we prayed with him. We kissed him. We did everything we could for him. He slept in the room with us bundled in the blanket we had with his name on it. We held on to those days. We didn't want to leave. At the time I didn't think I could handle being with him, taking pictures with him, etc but the nurses helped counsel us and I am so grateful that they were so wonderful.

We now at least have 4 days of memories with our son. 4 days. That's all we got and he wasn't alive. We never got to know him, hear him, have him hold our finger, feed him. We got no living days with our son who was born at 39 weeks and full-term. We have no memories of our son alive. We had all sorts of dreams for him. Samantha never got to come in to the room and meet him. We didn't get that photo of her in her Big Sister shirt and Hunter in his Little Brother shirt. The one we dreamed of emailing out and putting on facbeook when he was born. We had none of those moments. But we did have moments and time with him- time we will forever treasure.

I went home from the hospital on January 18th not with a baby in my arms but a box. A box of memories- clothes he wore, prayers, grievance books.

After some tests in the hospital and some tests that have come back since then, we have no answers. Yes there was some discoloration on the cord but not anything where they could conclusively say the umbilical cord caused the problem. My blood work and tests showed no issues. The autopsy has showed some things but nothing conclusive. We go back to see the OB and go over the full autopsy on the 27th of February. We have no answers. Half of all stillborn births have the same results- no answers, no conclusions on why the baby died. Its horrific to not know- was there something that was wrong with him or with me, was there something that could have been done, did we miss something at the last OB appointment just 2 days before his birth? So many questions and no answers. We are left wondering. We are left scared for another pregnancy- could this happen again?

So the journey for answers is not done for us. We hope to learn something, but the reality is that we likely will not. We will always wonder why we never got to meet our son- why we never got to see him grow up. We will never take him to his first little league game, we will never see him at the Father Son Fishing Derby, we will never see him go to college, we will never see him get married. We will never feel him hug us or kiss us. We will never hear him say he loves us. We will never see him playing in the front yard with Samantha. We will never document in his baby book when he first sat up, rolled over, said his first word, took his first step. We have been robbed.

Every year on January 14th instead of celebrating with him, we will be wondering if he was here what would he be like, what would he like, what would he look like, what he would be doing? Would he like Elmo and Sesame like Samantha? Would he like to play outside? Would he like to play with Sophie the Giraffe? Would he like a binkie? Would he be talking? Would he will walking? Will he be in to sports or music? Will he have a girlfriend? Will he be learning to fish, hunt, ski? Will he love to follow his sister around? Will he color on our walls with crayon? Will he have ear infections all the time? Will he have decided on a college? Will he be a momma's boy? We will never know. Every day, every year, every moment we will wonder.

We love him. We will always love him. He will always be our son. He will always be Samantha's brother. We will never forget him.

He is our angel. He is our star in the sky.