Complete Medical Records Came

Alanna's Medical Records came this week from the hospital. I requested them few weeks back hoping some of my questions to be answered. I am glad that I did, having no autopsy done, I didn't know where to get answers. I know it won’t change anything but it gives me information on what occurred that day—(August 19th, 2012) on the last 2 hours and 3 minutes of my daughter’s life.

I know the doctors and nurses did their very best but it’s nice to know what happen and what they did. I was not there in the NICU. It has been bothering me not knowing any information. I was not even aware that my baby was having problem breathing. One minute you thought everything is fine, next thing you know death comes.

When the mail came, I wanted to open it right away but decided to wait and open it in the evening. I admit, I did stare at it for awhile and prayed that I will find answers and peace of mind.

Evening came; I opened the envelope, lots of pages, stapled into 2 sets. One has my name and one has Alanna's name. I decided to read my file first, nothing really interesting, I guess all the information I got from my file doesn't really interest me but it did gave me sadness when I read "Postpartum, unfortunately, the baby died neonatally." 

There were many words that most of it I can not understand.  Some of the pages were handwritten, some were typed electronically. I guess the medical terms they used were too alien to me to understand. Some words I had to google and look up.

Second set, Alanna’s medical file, it’s a thick set of paper. Started reading it, First few sentences I can handle...

"heart rate was above 120 both by monitors and auscultation" then

 "Other vitals were difficult to assess on monitoring available"

Few more sentences, I cried… all I can do is imagine. It’s been unpredictable because there are times when they were getting good results and there were times when her breathing decreases…

"decision was made to intubate the baby given no respiratory effort"

"baby was bagged again"

"baby was put into ventilator"

There are notes that made me smile because I knew Alanna tried her best to fight… to survive…

"baby's respiratory effort increased and she was taking occasional spontaneous breaths"

“the frequency of baby’s spontaneous breaths increased”

cap gas and chest xray were done…

"There was no Pneumothorax"

 

When I was reading that sentence, it felt like she was drowning and I was drowning with her. I thought of breathing for her, if only I can… I would've helped her breathe... I would've breath for her… I would've given her my lungs. If only those things are possible. But then life does not work like that... unfortunately.

I kept on reading while crying...

"heart rate started to decrease... dropped to less than 60"

"no heart rate was heard..."

"compressions had been performed for 30 minutes with no improvement in baby's status and no audible heart rate or palpable pulse. It was then decided to stop efforts. Death was pronounced at 0503 hours."

I stopped reading. I cried and I cried and I cried... I had to read the rest of the page the next day.

Reading her medical record broke my already broken heart. It brings me back when these were all happening, and I’m there in a different room… smiling, laughing, even planning for our future not knowing that there will be no future of us together. But I would recommend every parent to get a copy from the hospital. I know it did not change anything, my Alanna is still gone but it's nice to have this information especially in our case where we did not have any autopsy done for her. Maybe not all questions were answered but atleast I got few answered.