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"I wasn&amp;amp;#8217;t even conscious for the worst of it. My husband, Chad, told me the details later. How he was outside the X-ray room when our obstetrician started shouting, &amp;amp;#8220;Kate? Kate?! Can you hear me?&amp;amp;#8221; How he took my already-clammy hand as I was rolled to the emergency department, 16 floors below my office at the very same hospital, as I moaned mechanically, repeatedly, completely unresponsive. How he watched as several doctors surrounded my stretcher and exclaimed, &amp;amp;#8220;Oh my God, is that Dr. White?&amp;amp;#8221; And how he stood just behind the drawn curtain, brushing off an insistent nurse who wanted him to pray, and tried desperately to listen: They had a few lines in&amp;amp;#8230;. They were squeezing the blood bags to get it into me faster&amp;amp;#8230;. One doctor called frantically for a scalpel&amp;amp;#8230;. Minutes went by. He began to wonder whether he&amp;amp;#8217;d missed our baby&amp;amp;#8217;s first cry amid all the noise. And then a doctor came out and said they had to move me to an operating room. My husband followed the gurney as it rolled through three buildings, up two elevators and across a skyway. Along the way, he said nothing, but he exchanged glances with our OB, who had one hand reaching up inside my abdomen and squeezing my aorta while blood dripped in a trail on the floor. My feet were cadaver-white, and while my stomach was swollen, it was clear to my husband that our baby was gone. I&amp;amp;#8217;m a worrier, always have been. My baby book says my first word was dada, but I bet my first sentence was &amp;amp;#8220;But what if&amp;amp;#8230;?&amp;amp;#8221; Over time, I&amp;amp;#8217;ve turned this habit into a protective mechanism against bad things, as if perpetually picturing the worst&amp;amp;#8212;What if my parents get divorced? What if I get a C?&amp;amp;#8212;would prevent it from happening. This tendency has, for the most part, served me well. It&amp;amp;#8217;s made me really attentive to details and a world-class list-maker. And it&amp;amp;#8217;s made me want to take care of people, to keep bad things from happening to them. So becoming a doctor was almost predestined. OK, I made it through med school. Breathe. From the first day I wore my white coat, being a doctor was more than what I do for a living. It quickly became a part of my identity. I&amp;amp;#8217;ve taken great comfort and, to be honest, great pride in being a good ob-gyn and being strong. &amp;amp;#8220;Being strong&amp;amp;#8221; is the highest compliment you can give an M.D. It means she&amp;amp;#8212;I&amp;amp;#8212;can calmly handle the chaos in the ER, the terrified patients, the uncertain staff. In the middle of great stress, I get to tell patients and their families, &amp;amp;#8220;You&amp;amp;#8217;re fine.&amp;amp;#8221; If I have doubt, I can&amp;amp;#8217;t show it, but that&amp;amp;#8217;s the point. It&amp;amp;#8217;s the armor, it&amp;amp;#8217;s the retaining wall, it&amp;amp;#8217;s the sandbags. You&amp;amp;#8217;re fine. But behind all that, I&amp;amp;#8217;m still a worrier. I worried about getting married&amp;amp;#8212;or, more specifically, about not finding my soulmate. Like most things, this too worked itself out with time; with a little help from eHarmony, I found Chad. My blue-eyed boy from Texas shares my values and my love of red meat. From flat tires to financial hardships, he takes life&amp;amp;#8217;s conflicts and mishaps in stride. OK, I&amp;amp;#8217;ve found The One. Breathe. I worried about having a baby: I&amp;amp;#8217;ve put off pregnancy for so long&amp;amp;#8212;is it going to happen? But we got pregnant on the first try, four months after we got married. On the day of my positive pregnancy test, I went shopping. I showed Chad my new white hoodie. Him: &amp;amp;#8220;That&amp;amp;#8217;s nice.&amp;amp;#8221; And then I pulled out a pair of infant overalls. Him: &amp;amp;#8220;Those won&amp;amp;#8217;t fit you.&amp;amp;#8221; Me: &amp;amp;#8220;I know&amp;amp;#8230;.&amp;amp;#8221; Him, complete puzzlement becoming wide-eyed recognition: &amp;amp;#8220;Really? Shazam!&amp;amp;#8221; Wearing the hoodie wrapped me in the feeling of being a new mom. And I hung the overalls on my closet door, a daily reminder for us of the little life on the way. I worried constantly about the baby-to-be. My friends and family tried to help, mostly by laughing at me and saying, &amp;amp;#8220;Don&amp;amp;#8217;t worry, everything&amp;amp;#8217;s going to be fine.&amp;amp;#8221; (Note to those who love a worrier: Saying &amp;amp;#8220;don&amp;amp;#8217;t worry&amp;amp;#8221; not only doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t help but royally pisses us off.) But even I dared to believe them when I crossed over the twenty-fourth week of pregnancy, when the fetus becomes viable and could survive outside of me. Samantha, I told the baby kicking and rolling inside my belly, you&amp;amp;#8217;ve made it. Being pregnant was never out of my thoughts. How could it be, when I took care of pregnant women almost daily? Each time I performed an ultrasound for a patient, I&amp;amp;#8217;d find my hand unconsciously moving to my own belly. Hi there, little one. I wanted her to have my curly hair, her dad&amp;amp;#8217;s lanky frame, my love of books. I couldn&amp;amp;#8217;t wait to introduce her to mint chocolate-chip ice cream, Labrador retrievers and the feeling of being loved by my big Irish-Italian family. On February 22, 2007, I was in my 29th week and giving a lecture, 10 blocks from the hospital. At the end of the speech, I started to feel faint. Then my fingers began to tingle, and the world turned black. I woke up on the floor, surrounded by stunned residents. &amp;amp;#8220;Well, if you&amp;amp;#8217;re going to pass out, do it in a roomful of doctors,&amp;amp;#8221; I said. We all laughed, but then I gasped with pain. It ripped across my entire stomach, as if I was being twisted in half. They whisked me downstairs on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance. Chad soon appeared in Labor and Delivery, gripping my hand and watching the baby monitor with me. I was examined and injected with steroids in case I delivered early. The baby&amp;amp;#8217;s heart rate dipped down, and there was talk of a C-section, but then she recovered. My doctor, one of the smartest I&amp;amp;#8217;ve ever known, my own Dr. House, stayed at my side, trying to figure out what was wrong. I toggled between being a doctor&amp;amp;#8212;It&amp;amp;#8217;s not my appendix; is it the placenta?&amp;amp;#8212;and being a patient&amp;amp;#8212;Will Samantha be OK? There were no answers. After six hours, we went down to Radiology for more tests. There, I got up from the stretcher and&amp;amp;#8230;nothingness. I&amp;amp;#8217;d learn later what happened next: The team rushed me to the emergency department. Twelve people surrounded my bed, working to get me stable and the baby out. Two more OBs arrived&amp;amp;#8212;my colleagues and friends. They pushed Chad behind the curtain and cut me open, not waiting for anesthesia. Once they began the C-section, all they saw was blood. I was bleeding internally, and they couldn&amp;amp;#8217;t tell why. They got the baby out in 60 seconds, but she showed no signs of life. Perhaps because she was my baby, the pediatric team tried to resuscitate her for 30 minutes; they should have accepted the obvious after 10. But it was no longer just about the baby. They needed to get me to an OR. Blood was coming out faster than they could replace it, so my doctor reached through my belly and used his hand to put pressure on my aorta and keep blood going to my brain. He is the reason that I don&amp;amp;#8217;t have brain damage, that I&amp;amp;#8217;m able to tell my own story today, in these pages. In the OR the surgeon cut me open wider. He found the incredibly rare cause of all of this: The pregnancy had caused an undiagnosed aneurysm on the artery to my spleen to rupture. A splenic artery aneurysm has a 75 percent maternal mortality rate and a 95 percent fetal mortality rate. Samantha never really stood a chance. The only way my doctor might have saved her&amp;amp;#8212;though with certain brain damage&amp;amp;#8212;would have been by doing a C-section earlier. But I would have most likely bled out and died. It was me or the baby. A Sophie&amp;amp;#8217;s choice I blessedly didn&amp;amp;#8217;t have to make. The first thing that I re member is the doctors&amp;amp;#8217; talking over my bed: &amp;amp;#8220;&amp;amp;#8230;ruptured splenic artery aneurysm&amp;amp;#8230;.&amp;amp;#8221; The doctor part of me thought, Cool&amp;amp;#8212;what a great case this is. The patient part of me was suddenly aware that I was tubed. I had seen many patients on the ventilator, and it was just as bad as I imagined it would be. I was suffocating. &amp;amp;#8220;Are you in pain?&amp;amp;#8221; the nurse asked. &amp;amp;#8221; What&amp;amp;#8217;s your pain on a scale of 1 to 10?&amp;amp;#8221; I wrote with a marker on a piece of paper, &amp;amp;#8220;11/10.&amp;amp;#8221; But no one could read my writing. I wrote the letters P-A-N-I-C on Chad&amp;amp;#8217;s palm with my finger over and over. It wasn&amp;amp;#8217;t until I grabbed the tube and tried to pull it out myself that they finally removed it. With the tube out, eyes closed, I asked Chad, &amp;amp;#8220;Did the baby make it?&amp;amp;#8221; He whispered, &amp;amp;#8220;No.&amp;amp;#8221; Somehow I already knew. &amp;amp;#8220;Do I have my uterus?&amp;amp;#8221; &amp;amp;#8220;Yes.&amp;amp;#8221; Then I&amp;amp;#8217;m going to be OK. Choking back tears, Chad said, &amp;amp;#8220;I need you to have babies with.&amp;amp;#8221; Then we&amp;amp;#8217;re going to be OK. Then that feeling passed and was replaced by crushing grief. The sun came up the next day. I had more pain, and no wonder: I&amp;amp;#8217;d been cut open from chest bone to pubic bone and again across my bikini line. Thank God for the IV drip. I kept hitting the button for more, but no amount of fentanyl could touch the real agony. She&amp;amp;#8217;s gone. I&amp;amp;#8217;m here, but she&amp;amp;#8217;s gone. I felt her kicking two days ago, and now she&amp;amp;#8217;s gone. I had a revolving door of visitors&amp;amp;#8212;the chair of my department, crying; the office staff, awkward; my medical partners, shell-shocked. &amp;amp;#8220;I&amp;amp;#8217;m fine,&amp;amp;#8221; I heard myself say again and again. I wouldn&amp;amp;#8217;t let them see my grief. I comforted people until I was exhausted. &amp;amp;#8220;We&amp;amp;#8217;re done,&amp;amp;#8221; said Chad. He spread the word: no more visitors. Later in the day, we got to see our baby. Chad on my bed with me, they brought over a tiny flannel-wrapped dumpling. I held my breath till I glimpsed her face. She looked like a sleeping china doll. We started the new-parent inventory. Tons of dark hair already. Dad&amp;amp;#8217;s fingers, really long. Mom&amp;amp;#8217;s nose. Dad&amp;amp;#8217;s toes. Keep counting, keep looking, notice everything. Eventually we ran out of things to list, and out of excuses to keep holding her. I&amp;amp;#8217;m sorry, Samantha. I was supposed to keep you safe. I&amp;amp;#8217;m so sorry. It&amp;amp;#8217;s different, being in the hospital bed instead of at the foot of it with a chart in my hand. I made suggestions to the surgical residents about tests and treatments, and argued about which things were really important. Twice-a-day blood draws? Once is enough. Another CT scan? OK. But I learned, too: that when your bowels shut down from shock and so much blood loss, you&amp;amp;#8217;ll vomit everything you eat, in spectacular, horror-movie fashion. That there is no way to sleep when your monitors beep with every change in your vital signs. That there&amp;amp;#8217;s no way to sleep when your heart is broken. I also learned about the man I married. Chad cocooned me away from visitors and carried my Foley bag of urine when I walked. He held my basin when I vomited and held me close when I crumpled in tears. We hadn&amp;amp;#8217;t been married a year yet. So this is what &amp;amp;#8220;in sickness and health&amp;amp;#8221; really means. He spent his nights with me on a creaky foldout chair, because I was too terrified to be alone. When daylight came, he&amp;amp;#8217;d go home to clear out the nursery&amp;amp;#8212;the newborn diapers, the bottles, the breast pump. He wasn&amp;amp;#8217;t the one in the hospital bed, but he was in no less pain than I was. I was in the hospital for 12 days. On the last day, the surgery intern removed all 53 staples from my T-shaped incision. Multiple people offered me counseling. I&amp;amp;#8217;m fine. I went home with Chad and showered for the first time in two weeks. When I reached for my robe in my closet, I saw that the tiny overalls were missing from their hanger. Oh God, oh God, oh God, she&amp;amp;#8217;s gone. I bought new pajamas online, since I&amp;amp;#8217;d be spending the next two months at home&amp;amp;#8212;I wanted something new. In fact, I wanted everything new, nothing that reminded me of Before. Before was when I had my baby&amp;amp;#8212;before I &amp;amp;#8220;broke,&amp;amp;#8221; as my husband put it, because saying I almost died was just too much. I was prepared for flowers and sympathies. I was prepared for weeks of physical pain and Percocet. I wasn&amp;amp;#8217;t prepared for being afraid: of leaving the apartment and entering the New York City crowds. Of closing my eyes, because all I saw was Samantha. Of feeling dizzy and thinking it meant I would pass out again. Of going to bed at night and not falling asleep, but instead replaying the images of that day over and over in my mind. Chad had to go back to work, so he reclaimed some normalcy before I could. But he remained shaken: If I was reading in the next room at night and was quiet for too long, he would come check on me, to make sure I was still breathing. After a two-month &amp;amp;#8220;maternity leave,&amp;amp;#8221; I went back to work. In truth, I couldn&amp;amp;#8217;t wait; I was going crazy at home. I needed to get that part of my identity back, to not be the patient, but the doctor. I had no problem with my patients, even the pregnant ones, because they didn&amp;amp;#8217;t Know. It was the looks of pity, the ones with the tilted head, from everyone else that I couldn&amp;amp;#8217;t take. I found myself hugging people to comfort them. I saw where I had my ultrasounds Before, and I routinely crossed the path my stretcher took to the OR, where the trail of my blood once stained the carpet. I hate going to work, I realized for the first time in my life. Which convinced me: I&amp;amp;#8217;m not fine. I&amp;amp;#8217;m not fine at all. I decided to see a therapist. In her office I gave myself permission to lose it. I couldn&amp;amp;#8217;t breathe for the survivor&amp;amp;#8217;s guilt. I became unglued at the sight of i (heart) ny onesies. I thought about how I had failed my daughter in the most basic way possible. I couldn&amp;amp;#8217;t think about anything else, and yet Chad was moving on. It wasn&amp;amp;#8217;t his body; he wasn&amp;amp;#8217;t the one who almost died. I hated him, and envied him, for being OK. I wanted to be that strong. After six months, a posse of specialists and multiple MRIs and CT scans deemed me in near-perfect health. I could try again for pregnancy, but they thought it would be best if I waited a little longer. But I want to be pregnant now. When I &amp;amp;#8220;broke,&amp;amp;#8221; I lost two things: my daughter, and the chance to be a mother. I couldn&amp;amp;#8217;t bring Samantha back, but I still hoped I hadn&amp;amp;#8217;t lost my chance to have a child. The doctor side of me knew that I was no more high-risk than before. But the worrier side thought, If I do get pregnant, how do I know I&amp;amp;#8217;m not going to die? Or lose the baby again? Then, when I couldn&amp;amp;#8217;t get pregnant after six months of trying: What if I don&amp;amp;#8217;t ever get to be a mother? The day I lost Samantha, all my worst what-ifs came to life. Before, I could never think past the fear, the storm, to what happens when the rain finally stops and the floodwaters recede. In the ICU, the tube came out of my throat, and I could breathe. The physical pain was overwhelming, but it subsided. And so it would go for every what-if I could now think of. How do you find strength in the face of tragedy? The honest answer is you don&amp;amp;#8217;t. You take a breath, then another. You simply keep going. After four months of fertility assistance (thank you, Menopur), I was pregnant again. I couldn&amp;amp;#8217;t take the same joy in it this time&amp;amp;#8212;no gifts, no shower, no talking about the baby. Patients would congratulate me; I&amp;amp;#8217;d say thanks and change the subject. I touched my belly vigilantly, not to bond but for reassurance: Is he moving? Is he OK? Chad had a confidence that eluded me. Him: &amp;amp;#8220;You&amp;amp;#8217;re going to be fine.&amp;amp;#8221; Me: &amp;amp;#8220;But how do you know?&amp;amp;#8221; Him: &amp;amp;#8220;Because I can&amp;amp;#8217;t believe anything else.&amp;amp;#8221; The pregnancy was completely uncomplicated, but the ultrasound the day before the scheduled C-section showed no fluid around the baby, putting him at risk of rolling onto the umbilical cord and suffocating. The ultrasound doctor looked at me and said, &amp;amp;#8220;You&amp;amp;#8217;re having your baby right now.&amp;amp;#8221; And for the first time, I broke down in public, thinking it all might happen again. As they prepped me for an urgent C-section, I kept my eyes glued to the fetal monitor, every tock-tock sound of his heartbeat reassuring me that he was still alive. It wasn&amp;amp;#8217;t until I held my son in the recovery room that I really believed everything was OK. Watch him breathe. Count his fingers and toes. Hello, Zachary. People find out that I have a healthy 18-month-old and say, &amp;amp;#8220;So everything turned out fine.&amp;amp;#8221; I&amp;amp;#8217;m glad people can be happy for me, but it&amp;amp;#8217;s not that simple. Yes, I watch Zach chortle as he chases his father around the house, and I&amp;amp;#8217;m overcome with bliss when he buries his face in my shoulder. And yes, thoughts of Samantha are no longer part of my daily life. But she&amp;amp;#8217;s a part of me, and of our family; I don&amp;amp;#8217;t choose between my grief and my joy. My life is about &amp;amp;#8220;and,&amp;amp;#8221; not &amp;amp;#8220;or.&amp;amp;#8221; Samantha&amp;amp;#8217;s memory box and Zach&amp;amp;#8217;s baby book share a shelf. I read to Zach, wearing the white hoodie I bought when pregnant with Samantha. My pain will never fully go away, and I am still happy. I&amp;amp;#8217;m not fine the old way: the knee-jerk &amp;amp;#8220;I&amp;amp;#8217;m fine&amp;amp;#8221; that won&amp;amp;#8217;t allow doubt or fear. But I am, actually, in a deeper, truer way, fine. Katharine O&amp;amp;#8217;Connell White, M.D., is an ob-gyn at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts, and a contributing editor for Glamour. &amp;amp;#8220;I Tried to Be Strong for My Wife&amp;amp;#8221; How does the tragic loss of a baby feel to a man? Different, say these men who lived through it&amp;amp;#8212;but no less wrenching. &amp;amp;#8220;We lost our twins at 23 weeks, when my wife developed preeclampsia. They died in the palms of my hands, and there was nothing I could do. The feeling of helplessness was the most painful part. I found myself feeling guilty at the torture my wife was going through, and selfish for just wanting it to all be over. You never get back to normal; with some time and distance you just find a different place.&amp;amp;#8221; &amp;amp;#8212;Jesse McBryan, 33, Edmonton, Alberta &amp;amp;#8220;My daughter Destiny suffered heart failure during delivery and was stillborn. I felt I had to be the strong one for my wife. Even though I wasn&amp;amp;#8217;t the person carrying our baby, I was still connected. Saying goodbye without seeing her cry or laugh; never being able to play with her; burying her; and having no friends to talk to who&amp;amp;#8217;d gone through the same thing&amp;amp;#8212;it was devastating.&amp;amp;#8221; &amp;amp;#8212;Shamond Brooks, 32, Oakland, Calif. &amp;amp;#8220;My son Ezra died of a placental abruption at 34 weeks. It felt as if all the wind had been knocked out of me. I&amp;amp;#8217;m glad I was there for my wife, and we have been there for each other. At the same time, it feels like men are expected to suck it up and get over it. We found a community of &amp;amp;#8216;baby lost&amp;amp;#8217; parents, as we&amp;amp;#8217;re called, and shared our thoughts, and that has helped us heal. There is support out there&amp;amp;#8212;such as glowinthewoods.com and missfoundation.org&amp;amp;#8212;if you need it.&amp;amp;#8221; &amp;amp;#8212;David A. Love, 42, Philadelphia"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/health-fitness/2010/08/recovering-after-a-miscarriage-the-baby-i-lost-and-the-life-she-gave-me>