I found out I was pregnant with Sydney on October 26, 2008. We were very surprised, but we quickly got excited about the idea of having a new baby. She would be our third child. We also have a son named Christian and a daughter named Hailey. My pregnancy was fairly uneventful.
On February 4, 2009, we went to the hospital for our routine ultrasound and found out that we were having a healthy baby girl. We had already picked out her name--Sydney Alexis. Hailey was the most excited as she'd hoped for a baby sister the whole time.
However, our excitement was short lived. On February 8th, I woke up from a nap and found that I was bleeding a little bit. I called my doctor and he said to get to the hospital and get checked. I loaded up the kids, picked Eric up at work, and headed to the hospital. I got checked in while Eric waited for his mom to pick up the kids. A few minutes after Eric joined me in the room, our world came crashing down.
The nurse and a resident doctor came in to check me. The doctor told me that I was 4 cm dilated and the sac of water was bulging from my cervix. I was only 20 weeks pregnant, so we were still 4 weeks away from the point where the baby could live outside of the womb. My doctor told them to put the head of my bed down and we'd see if gravity would work and pull the bag of waters back inside of my womb so that they could stitch my cervix shut the next day.
However, that never happened. The next morning, I woke up to my water breaking. Eric had gone home with the kids the night before and was on his way to take them to school. That day, February 9th, was also Hailey's 6th birthday. I called him and he rushed the kids to school then rushed to the hospital. My doctor came in to talk to us. He said that some times you can stay pregnant when the water breaks as long as you don't get an infection. They would monitor me closely for signs of infection. If I got one, I would have to deliver immediately.
We prayed all day that I wouldn't get an infection. By the afternoon, it was apparent that I had one. We found out later that I had an infection in the placenta and that is what started labor in the first place. That afternoon, the hospital resident broke the news we didn't want to hear--our baby had to be delivered or she and I would both die. We were devastated.
The induction process was started in the early evening. I was so worried that I would Sydney would be born and die on Hailey's birthday and forever taint her happy day. I watched the clock as the minutes and hours ticked by and at midnight, Eric and I both breathed a sigh of relief. Sydney held out until her big sister's birthday was over.
At 4:30 am, our beautiful little angel was born. Sydney came out kicking and very vigorous. I don't think she was ever so active as she was during my labor. She was put on my chest, then Eric held her a couple of minutes. When he gave her back to me, I laid her on my chest, right up against my skin so that she could hear my heartbeat. She gripped my finger and moved around a little bit. About ten minutes after she was born, she was still. We feared that she had already passed. They'd told us she would probably only live a few minutes. The nurse checked her heartbeat and after a moment, she smiled at us and said, "It's still there." It seemed that Sydney was quite content where she was and settled in on my chest. She lived for just over two hours and peacefully passed away snuggled in my arms.
I miss my angel so much and I wish everyday that she was still here with us. She was a perfect beautiful baby girl, with long fingers and long legs. She looked so much like her daddy and her big brother, with some of her sister's features too. I will forever cherish the memories of her short life, and the time we spent saying good bye to her. We kept her with us for most of the two days we were in the hospital and took so many pictures. We laid her to rest in the baby section of a local cemetery on February 18, 2009.
Sydney, I love you so much and will miss you until the day we are together again in Heaven.
