Advocate

I've been thinking a lot about Virginia lately--it's crazy that a year ago we were so excited to be pregnant and a lot of those memories are coming back. As I reflect on her life and look back on my journal entries, I realize that I should have done more. I look back on all of my OB appointments with her and at EVERY appointment something went wrong. My first appt. with Dr. S. she had said that she did not need to do an u/s unless something was wrong--well, she did an u/s. The next couple of appointments, they had trouble finding the heartbeat at each one of them and usually ended up doing an ultrasound.

If I could go back to any time in my life I would go back to April 8, 2010 and have clarity of thought. April 8 was the day that we received the news that Virginia had no chance of survival. We had an hour long ultrasound (where we still had no idea that anything was seriously wrong). Afterwards we met with the genetic counselor. This is where I would love to go back to. I would have demanded that I speak with a Maternal Fetal OB. That person would have walked us through the ultrasound and showed us exactly what they were seeing with our baby. I would have requested the ultrasound pictures along with the ultrasound video. I would have asked for a second opinion with a OB who has specialized with this condition.

I feel like as a mother my greatest job is to be an advocate for my children and I know that I advocated for Virginia but I know that we were just so overwhelmed by all of this that we could have done things differently.

I wish too that I would have kept my care with a Maternal Fetal Physician as opposed to my OB. My greatest desire was to be able to hold my baby and touch her skin, count her fingers, her toes, etc. I was able to hold her but it was sooo hard to look at her body. I wasn't able to count her fingers or her toes. In fact, I didn't even look at her belly or her arms. I could not even differentiate between the different aspects of her face.