James and I will be praying and fasting this week regarding the adoption of an orphan from Rwanda. We would appreciate anyone else who would like to join us in this journey as we prayerfully seek what the Lord would have of us.

So it was, officially, a terrible day.

First of all, they left me sitting in the waiting room for like 50 minutes. I finally went to the desk and said, "Look, I just had a stillbirth and I don't think I can handle the whole 'waiting room baby talk thing' any more so I am just gonna go." The secretary said she would check to see if I was next, which I was. So they move me back to a room where I wait another 15 minutes. By this time Judah is highly irritated (Halle went to work with daddy) and wants nothing more than to crawl around on the nasty medical floor.

Dr A. comes in (whom I've never met before). She was nice but it was strange since I'd never met her before. She asked me how I was doing and we went over that for awhile. She also told me that my initial blood work came back fine. Then, she told me that she had the autopsy results, which I WAS NOT prepared for. If I had known the autopsy results were in I would have made James come.

Anyway.

Two things came back on the autopsy. First, there was a stricture in the umbilical cord, close to where it's connected to the baby. I guess a stricture is an extreme narrowing in the umbilical cord. I looked this up online and came across a site that said MOST babies with strictures will be stillborn. Also, it seems like they may have familial recurrence. Nice.

Second. The cord was excessively long for Jeremiah's gestational age. It measured 57cm (30cm is normal for that age) and was very twisted.

The summary of the autopsy read like this:

"The excessively long cord, with increased twisting, as well as the stricture near the fetal insertion site at the umbilicus, are all likely interrelated and all of these would contribute significantly to impeded venous return of oxygen and nutrients through the umbilical vein, from the mother/placenta to the fetus. This aggregate of findings most likely explain intrauterine fetal demise occurring in this case. There appears to be some recurrence risk for excessively long cords and excessive twisting of the cord; genetic counseling is recommended."

Basically, they are still going to do a full blood workup on me 6 wks post delivery and are also referring me to a genetic counselor to talk about the likelihood of recurrence and any possible genetic reasons for what's happening. Who knows.

This is the worst day I've had since the hospital. I feel like the things that came back on the autopsy are not preventable, nor even evident, during pregnancy, which makes me feel like I won't have any more babies. And I just wasn't prepared for that result. James says it's just "NO for now. And we'll re-evaluate our options when we're ready to start considering it again." I'm mostly just angry, guilty, and unbelievably sad.

Headed to the OB today for my one week-ish checkup. Interested to see if some of my bloodwork and the autopsy results are back. Also going to ask when I can start exercising. Think it would be good for my spirit to lose the baby weight as soon as possible. My wonderful husband was kind enough to purchase me a gym membership for Mother's Day (and yes, it was ASKED for)!!! True, unsolicited gym memberships as presents do not always send the right message. ;)

For those of you who don't know, we have delivered our second stillborn son.

Jeremiah David Smith was silently born at 1:27am this morning, May 9. He weighed 13 ounces. We held him, we love him, and our hearts are breaking.

Thank you for your prayers. We will post more as we are able.
Blessings.
James, Kelly, Halle and Judah