Debbie
Mom to Addy
August 11, 2017
Eau Claire, Wisconsin
My husband, Matt, and I found out we were pregnant right after the New Year this past January. We were thrilled, as were our families. We’ve been together a decade, and this was the first grandchild on both sides.
We had what everyone thought was a very normal, healthy pregnancy, regular check-ups included. We had an appointment on a Friday in August, and everything was normal as usual. Then, that following Wednesday, I had terrible stomach pains and left work early. We wondered if it was early labor at first (because she was our first, I wasn’t sure what it was supposed to feel like), but it was constant and pretty unbearable. I remember thinking it couldn’t be normal because I had a month to go and it hurt too much to be something livable for another entire month (I was 35/36 weeks), so I went in to the hospital. And that’s how we found ourselves watching our baby girl on the ultrasound machine, no movement, no sound.
Our daughter’s heart stopped beating at eight months as a result of preeclampsia/HELLP syndrome, which was the cause of my stomach pains too. My blood pressure, which has been normal to low my entire life and, we all thought, my entire pregnancy, had gone up from 120/70 at my Friday appointment to nearly 200/120 by that following Wednesday. We nearly lost me too.
Our baby girl, Adeline Kelly Campbell, named mostly in honor of my mom, after Madeline, the books my mom loved to read to me when I was a little girl, and Kelly, my mom’s maiden name, was born sleeping on August 11th of this year, her other grandmother’s birthday, after three days of labor and fighting for my life. She weighed 3 lbs 1.9 ounces. She had a messy mop of beautiful brown hair, her dad’s nose, and my lips, and loved to move, especially whenever we ate at Babb’s, a coffee shop in North Dakota we regulared the month my grandfather passed away. Her nursery is our wedding colors – blue, yellow, and grey – because our love is her love too. And she was born an angel on a drizzly August morning, as the sun began to rise.
Dear fellow loss mum, you are not alone. I stand beside you in support, and I’m sending you love from the depths of my heart to yours.
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You can find Debbie on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/dear.adeline/ or by email here.
