As I crawl down the cold hospital floor, bleeding out, calling for help, some nurses that are on break look over. “They will help.” I think to myself, but the health care personnel only shake their heads after looking at me, continuing to slurp their coffees. A few minutes ago I made it to the bathroom just in time to experience a gush of blood so strong I thought it to be humanly impossible, now trying to get back to the room I was left to wait in order to see a doctor after the ambulance dropped me off. It’s a German teaching hospital and even though I, as a German, am used to these treatments at these hospitals, I am still shocked about the lack of care. I make it back to the stretcher and experience another too heavy blood flow. My pants are drenched in my daughter’s blood.
I was told by the gynaecologist a few days ago that taking pills for initiating the natural cramping and bleeding for the passing of the tissue would be a safe way to remove any tissue, meaning my baby. How dare those doctors use medical terminology like ’tissue’? My baby was my all, my hope, my life, my dreams, my love – not ’tissue’!
I am desperately trying to reach my husband with my cell phone. I left him with our 13 year old and 8 months old sons. He said he would follow the ambulance. He worked as an EMT and Firefighter in the US decades ago. He has seen a lot, but seeing his own wife bleeding out, losing their baby girl, is too much for him.
It surely is too much for our boys. Since there is no cell phone reception I try the landline in the doctor’s office, but outgoing calls are blocked. I feel like fainting again but reach the door on the opposite side of the room in time to see what’s behind it.
As I open the door, I spot my husband. It’s the waiting room! Chris sees the horrendous condition I am in. Since nobody is there to help me, he, while holding our Samuel baby, puts me back on the stretcher. Chris is tall and strong and works in construction for the fair in Munich at the time. He can lift me without problems. My husband then swears and curses having moved from the US to Germany and shouts: “Who do I have to sue to get help? My wife needs an emergency surgery!”. He is gone for what feels like hours to find a doctor. When he comes back he literally is dragging a very scared med student on his white coat to the examination room, threatening him to sue him for negligence if I am not being moved to surgery immediately. The doctor-to-be starts arguing about how my vitals wouldn’t be suggesting that it’s an emergency and I should go home. Therefore, I try exactly to do this, get up and leave and collapse immediately. When I come to, there’s a lot of commotion. Nurses running around, the doctor-to-be is on the phone getting a room ready for me, an infusion is being rolled over to the stretcher and my husband Chris is lifting me up once more. He caught me in mid air, making sure I wouldn’t hit my head on the floor.
A few minutes later I fade away into the darkness of narcotics.
When I come to, Chris is already there, with baby Samuel on his arm. He wants to put him on my bed so that I can hold at least this one baby for comfort, but Samuel refuses. He is in shock and won’t start speaking until about two years later. Our oldest son, Moses, ran home after I passed out saying repeatedly: “It is too much!”
I feel responsible. My body, that still nurtured this baby on my husband’s arm, is a grave. A baby that should have developed in my body, just died, a few weeks after the pregnancy was confirmed. The heart stopped; so did mine that day.
Even though I understand that death is a part of this life, I am a firm believer in resurrection. The resurrection of dreams, hopes and even life.
Only three months after we lost our Gracie in such a dreadful way, we were pregnant again. We named our baby girl “Phoenix”, like the mythical bird that resurrects out of his own ashes, as a reminder that no hope, no dream, no wish is ever lost. It can resurrect-so can you!
