Colleen O'Gara - Kyle

I remember the day I found out I was pregnant. Timmy, our first son, wasn't even a year old yet. We enjoyed and loved him so much that we wanted to have another. When the nurse came into the room and told me the results I was ecstatic. I couldn't stop smiling and told Timmy, who was with me, with excitement, that he was going to have a brother or a sister.

As I read through my medical records from that day, the nurse had written "patient overjoyed". As I made it past the first 12 weeks, I figured everything would be O.K. I had some spotting around 14 weeks and panicked. An ultrasound was ordered and everything appeared to be fine, except that they saw an accessory lobe on the placenta. The radiologist said this wasn't unusual and another ultrasound was scheduled for a few weeks later, at which time the lobe was no longer visible.

From then on everything was fine until 28 weeks when I began to have heavy bright red bleeding. I immediately called the doctor hysterical and the nurse told me to lie down, elevate my legs and feel for movement while she got the doctor. I did and I felt him moving around. I was relieved but still shaking and bleeding. They told me to come right in. When my husband and I arrived they hooked me up to monitors and did an exam. My midwife thought she heard deccels in the babies heart rate which we listened for, like she asked, after she left the room. We didn't hear any and she said she couldn't either when she came back in. We went over to the hospital for an ultrasound and I had been starting to get very crampy. The ultrasound ruled out any placental abruptions. The bleeding, meanwhile, had stopped. After observation and tests I was sent home on bedrest.

Within a couple of days I lost my mucus plug. This scared me but the doctors didn't seem concerned and everything else appeared to be O.K. I had been on bedrest with Timmy for preterm labor from 32 weeks to 36 weeks. I had given birth to him at 37 weeks and he was perfectly healthy. I knew what being on bedrest was all about and wasn't looking forward to doing it again for an even longer period of time and with an 18 month old too. Luckily, my sister took care of us while my husband was at work during the day. The doctors gave me books to read up on about premature babies. I remember being so scared and not wanting to go home without my baby and having to visit him at the hospital.

I went for checkups 2 times a week. At 36 weeks, a Monday, they took me off the Brethine, which was stopping my contractions. My midwife and I were so happy I was finally "in the clear". The baby could come any time and his chance for survival was great. Since I was also taken off the brethine with Timmy at 36 weeks, I knew there was a good possibility that I may have this baby soon.

That Saturday my husband and I went to the store to pick something up. I remember feeling a little crampy and tired. We went home and I sat on the couch feeling extremely exhausted. A couple of days earlier I was cleaning and getting things ready. I wasn't sure if it was "nesting" or the result of being on bedrest for so long but everything was finally ready. That night I woke up around 1 A.M. to go to the bathroom and went back to bed. I fell back to sleep but was awoken around 10 minutes later to a trickle of fluid. I smiled, thinking my water broke, and began to get excited whispering to the baby that I'd see him soon. I grabbed the flashlight next to my bed and lifted the sheet off me. To my shock and horror I was bleeding. I stood up next to the bed and remember saying outloud to myself "I'm bleeding" I said it louder to wake my husband. The blood was gushing and I rushed to the bathroom as my husband called the doctor She told me to meet her at the hospital. After this I noticed the blood was coming out in pulses. My husbands parents were on their way to watch Timmy. They lived 10 minutes away and I got dressed and ready. I went downstairs and laid on the couch to feel for movement and I felt nothing. This is when I really panicked. I yelled to my husband to grab Timmy, that we had to go because I didn't feel anything. We were on the way out the door when his parents pulled in. It seemed like everything was in slow motion.

When we arrived at the hospital they couldn't get a fetal heartrate. They did an immediate ultrasound and the doctor could see some slight heart movements so they rushed me in for an emergency c-section. It was such an emotional rollor-coaster. I held on to that slight movement with so much hope.

When I woke up from the anestesia my sister was on one side and my husband on the other. My midwife was next to my head. I asked what I had and they said it was a boy. My midwife told me he was very sick and I remember feeling so relieved because I thought that as long as he was alive, we could get him well. The neonatologist came in and asked what his name was. My husband, John, and I hadn't decided between two names yet but I said "Kyle Patrick". It was the perfect Irish name. My husband agreed. Then the doctor preceeded to tell me how sick Kyle was. I felt like someone had just hit me with a brick.

They wheeled me in to see him in NICU. As we passed a baby crying I remember looking around wondering which baby was mine. They brought me to the back of the NICU where Kyle lay so still and limp. His coloring was grayish-pink and he had so many tubes and IV's coming from everywhere. Reality started to settle in.

A priest came to baptize him and I waited anxiously for the Neonatal Neurologist to come and let us know what his chances were. I still had so much hope until she told us that he was 99% brain-dead and that he might live till the next day. Also, he hadn't urineated yet and his organs would begin to fail one after the other.

We cried so hard. Everything had happened so fast and now we had to make the hardest decision anyone could ever possibly face. We decided to remove the life support and hold Kyle for however long he could hold on. His tiny body had already been through so much and we couldn't let him go through any more. The nurses removed the IV's and tubes and handed him to me right away. He took 3-4 labored breaths on his own as they wheeled me back to my room. He took his last breath just as we got to my bedside. My husband and I held him close, kissed him, and told him we loved him. I hope he was able to feel our warmth and our love. We didn't want him to go alone on those cold machines. Our entire family was there and they each held Kyle and said there hello's and their goodbye's.

The nurses took several pictures and gave us a keepsake box for his things. We bathed him and dressed him and I combed his hair for the first and last time. We clipped a little bit of his hair and they took his footprints for us. He was so perfect and beautiful.

The doctors had told me I had an abruption but I was not in any pain at all so I wasn't convinced, especially with all the bleeding I had. I went to the bookstore just weeks after Kyle's death and came across a book with a small section on something called Vasa Previa. I knew it was what had happened to Kyle. A few months later we met with a renowned high-risk obstetrician at Massachusettes General Hospital who confirmed my beliefs. He called it a classic case of Vasa Previa and said it is so rare that an obstetrician may see it once in his whole career. The mortality rate is around 50%-70% with membranes intact and about 90%-100% when the membranes rupture. We had determined from the amount of fluid I lost, that my membranes did rupture. I have not been able to find anyone who has had this happen to them which makes me feel that much more alone.

It's been two years now, on November 3rd, since Kyle died. Although time has helped to dull our pain I still have very difficult times. It's hard to see two-year-olds and realize how much we've missed out on already and to know we have a whole lifetime of lost memories ahead of us.

We had a daughter last year, our "Rainbow Baby", who has brought us so much happiness. We also recently found out we're expecting another baby in April. We love our children so deeply and Kyle will forever be in our hearts. No one could ever take his place or make us forget our precious angel. We have his picture displayed with Timmy and McKayla's. His Certificate of Life, which contains his footprints and lock of hair, hangs in our livingroom for everyone to see and remember that our son did exist and will always be alive in our hearts.