Thursday, November 5, 2009

Ryleigh Elizabeth Hope 3~17~2009

So here is Ryleigh's story as promised. I didn't feel like typing it out again so I copied and pasted it from my initial writing that I put on my Myspace page and babycenter.
 
 
 
On the morning of Monday March 16, 2009 I wasn’t feeling our baby girl moving. I called Eric to come home from work and called the clinic to let them know I was coming in. We saw the nurse practitioner and then my doctor. The nightmare began when we were told our baby girl no longer had a heartbeat. Our precious miracle baby was gone and our lives forever changed. She was fine just a week previous so even now it’s hard to believe how in that bit of time something could have gone wrong with absolutely no warning. We are angry and sad at the loss of our precious miracle. We say miracle because it took us forever and a day to conceive after having suffered an early miscarriage with our first pregnancy in September 2006. Once we started trying again it took us a little over a year and a half to conceive Ryleigh.
On March 17th, 2009 our precious and beautiful baby girl entered this world perfectly sound asleep. Her name was Ryleigh Elizabeth Hope. She never made a sound, never opened her eyes and never took a breath of air from this Earth. Instead she fell asleep in her mama’s womb and awoke in the arms of Angels. She will be forever remembered by all that loved her. Everyone will miss our precious angel~ Mommy, Daddy, Big Sister Whisper, Grandma Lu, Grandpa Mike, Grandma Linda, Grandpa Robert, Uncle’s Chris, Casey, Todd and Justin, Aunties Amy, Julie and Kerry, cousin Breanna, and so many more. You were loved by a whole village of people!

Here are some thoughts and words written by Eric followed by a letter he wrote from us to Ryleigh. We included the letter in with some special items we gave her during our private moment with her at the funeral home the day before her burial service:

You are our Jellybean. That's what daddy called you when you were starting to develop inside mommy. We knew we loved you before we even saw you. After your first pictures we loved you even more. On the night you were born, your mother did a wonderful job bringing you into the world so we could meet you. When you were placed on mommy's chest our hearts swelled with love, and our tears were as much from love as they were from s0rrow. We knew we would do anything to take care of you and make sure you would be honored with everything we did for you.


Letter:

Ryleigh,You are our Jellybean.We have always loved you, even from the beginning.We will always love you and remember you.We send this love with you into Heaven.Even your big sister Whisper sends her love with you.Our love will guide you in Heaven.And when we are ready, our souls will join you.Until then we will be strong, do not worry about us Ryleigh.Our love for you will make us stronger.We will miss you, but you will be in our thoughtsand prayers forever.All of our loveMommy and Daddy.


We probably will never know for sure what went wrong. We are having all testing done and some results have come back but it will never be enough. Nothing can bring our baby girl back and right now that is all that we want. At my 2 week visit, April 1st 2009, after giving birth to our angel we did get answers on what has been ruled out. They were able to tell us there were no viruses, nothing wrong with me and that Ryleigh was perfect in every way, therefore, there is no reason to do genetic testing on Eric nor myself. As comforting as that should be it isn’t. All this information is helpful for future pregnancies, if and when we decide to try again. It cannot change what has already happened. Our life as we knew it is forever changed. We will never be the same and finding a new “normal” seems far out of reach. My doctor had told us the day before Ryleigh was born that he was pretty sure it would be a cord related accident. When she was born the cord was loosely wrapped around her neck once so it’s not a definite answer as to whether that was the cause or not but my doctor said it was possible that during the birthing process and him helping get her out, she was breech, that he may have loosened the cord. Part of the autopsy results showed that she had a slightly elevated red blood cell count, which he said is indicative of a cord accident. That is all the information they have for us now and after doing some research I don’t suspect they will have any more answers for us. In about 50% of all cases a definite cause is not found.
If and when we decide to try again we will all be on pins and needles…..the doctor’s words exactly. Right now I cannot say those are the correct words. Whether we try now or later it’s going to be a stress filled 36 to 40 weeks with little to no sleep I‘m sure. A time we should be able to enjoy and will try to with every ounce of our being but I think any future pregnancies, even one after a good outcome, will be anxiety filled at best. My doctor has promised that there will be very close monitoring starting sometime between week 26 and week 28, when he said there is a great enough connection between the fetal heart rate and brain. Something like that………….my visit honestly was somewhat of a blur. I was listening but not all there.
I will be doing religious kick counts at home and going in at least twice a week for various stress tests, extra ultrasounds, etc. My doctor said I will be sick of seeing everyone. We don’t care as long as we have a happy outcome. I will live at the clinic or hospital if that is what it takes!