Oliver’s Story, Part One

Oliver Maxwell Sass
b. February 16, 2006
d. February 16, 2006

Oliver was the name we had decided on the night before. We were eleven and a half weeks along. We felt all along he was a boy, and although we have no actual evidence, he will always be a boy for us.

The day started with a beautiful sunrise. I went back and forth between the couch watching the day begin and the bathroom feeling a brand new life end. Zoey was blissfully sleeping in her room. Evan was with me the whole time. I lost a lot of blood. We ended up going to see Dr. Tracy in the morning because I had passed out in Evan’s arms. Not a good sign. I passed out again in Dr. Tracy’s arms. They called 911. I really don’t like all the drama with the firefighter guys and the medic guys. Thank goodness I didn’t have to ride in an ambulance with the lights and sirens. It was just the medic van that drove me there. The medic kept asking me all these questions, I guess to make sure I was still coherent. The only one I didn’t know was what the date was. I generally don’t know the date until I write it down for the first time anyway. Oh well.

Then, the day in the ER at the UW Hospital began. So many people, so many nurses and doctors. Dr. Tracy and Dr. Erica showed up. I was grateful! Then, Evan and Zoey showed up. I was happy! They had me on an IV of saline and kept taking blood draws and kept taking my blood pressure. I guess it was pretty low. I passed out again there. They paged the OB GYN doc on call. She was cool. Dr. Mitchell. She did an ultrasound. She said with a tear in her eye, “There is no more pregnancy in there.” I knew that. But there was a lot of blood and clotting and so that is what the rest of the day and night was all about. My Dad was hanging out with us in the afternoon. He and Barb spent the night with Zoey that night. I spent 7 hours in the ER until there was a bed in the ER Observation Unit. I saw Dr. Mitchell again a couple more times. All I wanted to do was go home. But, my BP was still quite low (80-90 over 40-50), my hematocrit was down to 21 (they normally do blood transfusions at 25), and I had a fever of 101.5.

Over the night and the next day, they kept checking the blood pressure and my temp which was starting to normalize…