Walk To Remember

October 16, 2020
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My name is Cate Ross. On December 8th I woke up in the middle of the night to what I thought were contractions. I woke my boyfriend DJ up telling him it was time to go! We were so excited! Him-being the more level headed, said we needed to time contractions, drink water and walk around. So I did, I drank water, I walked around, and I was in so much pain. We counted what we thought were contractions, but DJ and I were both new to this so when they started coming one right after the other and almost no time in-between we both thought it was a fluke. So we didn’t call our doctor.

We fell back asleep, woke up about an hour or so later, I showered, got our bag ready for the hospital and called the doctor. She asked me when the last time I had felt our son Hunter move, and in all honesty I couldn’t give her an answer, her response to that was to come in, and they would check me out but not to worry because he didn’t have a lot of room left anyways. 

Now at this point I was 37 weeks. I had been going in for stress tests every other day and as far as the ultrasounds and fetal monitor were concerned, everything was perfect. They had diagnosed me with preeclampsia, gestational diabetes and I was supposed to be on bed rest.

If anyone knows me, they know I can only sit still for so long and I like to do everything myself. So the night before I had gone into nesting, I was cleaning, moving things around in the nursery (not heavy things) and washing all of Hunters clothes. I had bent down to grab the laundry out of the dryer and something in back started hurting. I’ve had lower back problems my whole life so I chalked it up to my back is just acting up, not thinking a thing of it. I went and got in bed, couldn’t get comfortable but then again, my back was hurting me, Hunter had been moving around and kicking me so I knew he was fine.

I had a doctor’s appointment the following day so I had no reason to panic.

Fast-forward to the next day, we get to the hospital, sign in, everyone including ourselves were so excited, we had called our families and told them we would let them know when they should start heading our way and what room we would be in (we lived about 2 hours away from everyone at this point).

We get up to our room and they did all the necessary things like me getting changed and talked to the nurse. She brings the fetal monitor over and hooks it up, puts it on my belly and at that moment I knew something was wrong. I told her he had been sitting on my lower right side so try again. She said sometimes she had a hard time finding the heartbeat but nothing to worry about she was just going to get a doctor and they sometimes can do it better.

But at that moment- I knew, our son no longer had a heartbeat.

I didn’t say anything, but my heart sank. I didn’t start to cry. They brought in a ultrasound machine, and until I saw my son, with no heartbeat did I finally let it sink in that our son had died, that our sweet baby boy would be coming into this world lifeless, all of our hopes and dreams for our Hunter were gone in just a couple words ‘Were sorry, there is no heartbeat’

They told me they were going to induce me and I would have to deliver my son naturally. I didn’t have words- I didn’t understand. Nothing prepared me for any of this, not birthing classes, not the doctors, no one had I ever known had a stillborn child, I didn’t know what to do. And honestly they didn’t either as I was their first stillborn case. The nurses, doctors and other staff were all crying right along with us. Dj called our families and gave them the bad news.

For 2 days- I waited to welcome our angel into this world. The time finally came for me to push. I held out hope that the monitors and the doctors were wrong. That our son was going to be born alive, that he was going to come into this world screaming.

All hopes were lost when at last he was laid to rest on my chest. He was beautiful. He was everything I could have imagined him to be. He was our Hunter.

Dj cut the umbilical cord, the nurse took him away to clean him up and he was given back to us, we asked if they could dress him in his Christmas outfit that we had brought with us, it was supposed to be his coming home outfit. Dj and I held him and gazed at this beautiful little boy we had created.

We cried, our worlds were torn apart. Our family had been there with us since the beginning. I told Dj to get our families so they could meet him.

They warned us we would only be able to have him for an hour or so until Mother Nature took over. We had him for 3. We took pictures, we cried, we gazed in amazement, we had him baptized. And we thanked god for letting us meet an angel.

The next couple days were a blur. But at the end of it all, we never got an answer as to why this happened to us, we were told we might never have one. We had an autopsy done and that was inconclusive, they did every test possible on me and as far as I was concerned- Everything was fine.

Our son, his story, what happened to us, will leave a life-long impact on our hearts. But I like to think that everything happens for a reason, and that god had a bigger plan for him.

Hunter James Leroy Larnerd was born on December 10th 2015 at 7:45pm weighing 5lbs 15oz and 21’ long, he was perfect, and that’s how we will remember him. Forever. 

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