OLIVIA'S STORY

So, where do we begin? It was a normal pregnancy, through the very hot summer months of 1999. We knew that we were having a little girl in June, 1999. We were so happy. I never realized how much I wanted a daughter. I always said, just give me a healthy baby because at my age, I cannot push my luck. Dan, he was happy that we were having another child and that she was healthy. But, when I found out that I was having a little girl, I began to plan. I thought about what she looked like, what kind of clothes I would dress her in, what her bedroom would look like, and of course, was she going to have the same temperament as me! I figured her to be a little girl with a feisty temperament because she was constantly moving. In fact, I felt her moving at 11 weeks. She did not stop moving until that fateful day, when our lives turned upside, forever.

I saw the doctor for my weekly routine visit on September 30, 1999. All was found to be fine. I was 36.5 weeks pregnant but felt about 45 weeks pregnant. I had this horrible feeling that I needed to have Olivia now. I could not wait anymore. The obstetrician passed it off as 36 week jitters that every woman gets. I wanted to deliver that day. We were all prepared at home. The house had been cleaned top to bottom. Olivia’s room was in order. Her clothes were washed, ironed and hanging in the closet. Dan and myself were ready.

I woke up at 7:10 AM on Saturday, October 2, 1999. I did not feel her moving. I lay in bed for 5 minutes. Frankie woke up, and as Dan and I were waiting for his protests to get a little stronger, I told Dan, "I don’t feel her moving." I lay there a little while longer and still did not feel her move. I had to get my haircut that day. So assuming Olivia was getting too big to move as freely, but still concerned, I got up and cleaned myself up. Throughout the next three hours, I concentrated on her movements. I did not feel them! Dan took Frankie to his gymnastics class. I went home after my haircut, choosing not to run errands. I ate a bowl of cereal with sugar on it, thinking that it would increase her movements. I lay down to count the kicks. After 15 minutes, I felt no movements. I called the doctor. He asked me to come in to be checked. His demeanor was such that I thought perhaps I was over reacting but it was better to be safe than sorry. By this time Dan and Frankie were home. We had lunch and brought Frankie with us to the hospital.

I walked in to the Labor and Delivery unit feeling stupid. The nurses knew to expect me. One nurse placed me in a small room and promptly put on the external fetal monitor. Quickly finding Olivia’s heartbeat, at 120 beats a minute, my immediate response was, "okay, I can go home now." The nurses’ response was, "not so fast." My obstetrician came in and reviewed the non-stress test monitor. He told me that her heart rate was non-reactive. I had no idea what that meant. All I knew is that she had a heartbeat. That is what mattered to me, but obviously not to him. He explained that her heart rate was not fluctuating up and down as she moves. So, a sonogram was done. Sound waves were bounced through my belly, and Olivia did not move in response to the sound waves. I was still clueless, like nothing was wrong!! The plan from this point was to put me in a more comfortable bed and watch Olivia more closely. If she did not move in the next 20 minutes, I was to have a stress test with a Pitocin drip and possibly deliver her that day. I got up from the table and followed the nurse. I stopped at the bathroom and while doing so, the external monitor slipped out of place. I got back in to bed, and the nurse placed the probe on my belly. At first, I thought that she could not find Olivia’s heart rate. I was getting "pissy" because I thought that she did not know what she was doing. She called in another nurse who found a heart rate, at 80 beats a minute. At first they thought that it was mine. A sonographer brought in his sonogram machine and placed it on my abdomen. Olivia’s heart was only beating 80 beats a minute!!!!! All of a sudden, cords were ripped off of my belly; the bed cord was ripped out of the wall and down the hall I flew in the bed with nurses and doctors at my side. I always said if one more person was at my side, I would have been airborne. I went down the hall screaming out Dan’s name. He had left the room to call my parents. We needed them!!! Oh yes, Frankie was with us the whole time!!!

It was at this point that I felt as though I was having an out of body experience. I was placed on the operating table where several people approached me. I heard, "Susan, I am going to start an IV, Susan, I am going to put a catheter in your bladder, Susan, I am going to put a blood pressure cuff on this arm, Susan, I am going to put an oxygen mask on you." Then I felt a wet solution on my belly, and at the same time, I heard, "Susan, you are going to feel a cold solution on your belly." Through all of this, my obstetrician said, "Susan, your baby needs to come out now." They let Dan in because I kept screaming his name. When he did come in, I couldn’t talk. I just wanted to see him, to know that he was there, and all I managed to stutter, was "call my parents." I was scared to death. The last thing I remember was hearing the anesthetist, "Susan, you are going to go to sleep now. Take a deep breath in." As I lay on the table falling asleep, I kept saying over and over, "GOD, please let me baby be okay, please let my baby be okay." Olivia was born at 2:09 PM.

I awoke two hours later to the sound of the neonatologist talking in my left ear and Dan on my right. I opened my eyes and immediately heard, "it is not a good situation." I heard the words, "anemic," "very low blood pH," "we need to make a decision." I immediately cried out. I wanted to see her. They wheeled me on the stretcher to the Intensive Care Nursery, where I saw Olivia for the very first time. There she was, monitors, lines and tubes everywhere. She was on a ventilator and a nurse was beside her pushing blood from a large syringe in to her umbilical IV line. Through all of this, I saw the most beautiful little baby girl I had ever seen. I saw her black, curly hair, her long delicate fingers and hands and long skinny feet. She had olive-colored skin and her eyes were slightly opened. They were dark blue. I kept thinking, "they have made a mistake, this is not my baby. My baby is okay." The neonatologist explained in detail what happened, what her lab tests were like and what was the expected outcome. "This is not a good situation," she kept saying over and over. She was gently telling me that Olivia was not going to survive and that her medical condition was going to become worse. She then suggested that if we pull the tubes and the IVs, they would dress Olivia and bring her to us and then take pictures. We could hold her for as long as we wanted. Dan and I agreed to stop all heroic measures. But before we discontinued everything, we wanted her baptized. Olivia’s nurse knew that we were Catholic. She attempted to find a Catholic priest on call in the hospital or one that was available from the church across the street. No priest was available, and the hospital chaplain was one hour away. A respiratory therapist working in the ICN knew of a Catholic priest recovering from open-heart surgery in the hospital. He was medically stable and was getting ready to go home soon. The therapist went down to his room and brought him up. Olivia was baptized, and it was then that she was named Olivia Anne Bevevino, after her maternal great-great-grandmother.

Olivia was dressed and brought to me. Ironically, I brought an outfit from home for her, just in case. They brought her to me wrapped in a quilt donated by the hospital staff; the HOPE quilt. She was still alive when I first held her. She opened her eyes as I spoke to her, then she closed them. I gazed down at her beautiful face. She looked like Dan. I marveled at every feature. Held her little tiny hand, and admired her perfectly formed nail beds. Her hands were so feminine!! She took a few breaths and then stopped. She quietly slipped away at 5:58 PM in my arms.

The next two days were a blur. I kept thinking that this was a dream and I was going to wake up. I could not believe that it was happening. Did this really happen? There I sat in my hospital bed wondering what happened, why did it happen, and where do I go from here? Where is she? Is she really with GOD? Is she watching us? Can she come back to us one more time? Did she know that I loved her with all of my being? What did I do to her? I don't want to go home. I am afraid to go home.

I was discharged very early to go home and make funeral arrangements. There was a quiet service and Olivia was buried in a Catholic cemetery nearby so that I could visit her as often as I wanted. One month after her burial, she was moved to our back yard, so that we can see her every day, and we can say good morning as we look out of our kitchen window.

Many people have been reluctant to ask us, what did happen? This is an incomprehensible event that most people cannot imagine that it would EVER happen to them.

There was much speculation as to what exactly was the cause of death. There was discussion of an underlying heart disease that was not picked up on the sonogram, that caused the anemia. There was discussion of exposure to a virus, the most likely cause, that suppresssed her bone marrow and caused anemia. The anemia,in turn, caused the congestive heart failure and the fluid acumulation (hydrops). In any event, nobody knew for sure what exactly happened. Over the next two days , while still hospitalized, the doctors encouraged us to do an autopsy. At first, we were against it, but as we discussed it more with others, it was best to find all of the facts, as much as we could. We agreed to a chest autopsy, only. Viral cultures were done on me. Then the waiting began.

For one month following Olivia's death, we did nothing but cry and feel heavy hearted, morning through night. Dan and I did not sleep a whole night. We would wake up and just lay there, tossing and turning, sometimes crying, sometimes just feeling the pain and the emptiness inside tear us apart. We would wonder what happened, did it really happen, what did we do, and could we have stopped it were constantly on our minds. Was she watching us, did she know who we were, is she with GOD, is she an angel, or is she a saint? SOMEBODY, PLEASE GIVE US ANSWERS TO MAKE SENSE OF THIS GUT WRENCHING NIGHTMARE!!!!!!

One month later we met with a high risk obstetrician, who was consulted shortly after Olivia's death. He was to put everything together as the events of that day unfolded by reviewing the results of my lab tests and Olivia's lab tests, including her autopsy. The results: my placenta was fine, all cultures from me and Olivia came back normal. Olivia's autopsy was NORMAL. GREAT, we still don't know anything, except that Olivia was normal in every way. She was perfect. So the reason that Olivia died came from me. And as the obstetrician put it, "Olivia will give us the answers."

One week later, we hear from the obstetrician. Well, it turns out that there was special lab test that was done that calculated the number of fetal cells found in my circulation shortly after the delivery. There was a suspicion that my placenta was damaged. Why? The only explanation was a genetic inheritance that caused the damage. I ended up having 10 tubes of blood removed, looking for Lupus and different types of clotting disorders that I possibly inherited from either my mother and/or father. There again, another wait of 3-4 weeks before the results were to come back. When is it going to end?!

Well, we finally had the results five days before Christmas. I have inherited a genetic mutation which causes the mineral folic acid to NOT be broken down properly. Because of this mutation, high levels of a protein, called homocysteine, may build up in my blood. This protein has been associated with premature heart and vascular arteriosclerosis. Because of this clotting disorder, it is believed that there was a poor attachment of my placenta to the uterus, in the beginning. The blood flow eventually stopped (just like when you have a heart attack) as I progressed through the later months of my pregnancy causing damage to the interface of the placenta. This area is responsible for filtering Olivia's blood as it flowed from her to the placenta and back. (The damage could not be picked up on a routine pathology report). Because the placenta was damaged, Olivia's blood was not returned to her after being filtered. Instead, her blood went across the damaged placenta and was picked up in my blood circulation. The final calculations done determined that approximately 1/3 of Olivia's blood cells were in my circulation. Olivia had hemmorrhaged to death.

What I find comfort in knowing is that when a red blood cell breaks down after it has completed its life cycle, the iron is saved by the body for the next production of red blood cells. The iron that was in Olivia's blood cells was saved and used when my body manufactured new red blood cells. I now have blood cells that include some of the iron that was saved from Olivia's red blood cells. So, truly, Olivia will be a part of me, forever.

When Olivia died, a part of us died with her. The depth of the pain is unbelievable. We still cannot believe that it has happened to us. There are good days and there are bad days. We miss her so much. We would do anything to hold her, and see that sweet little face again. Life is so, so precious.

So, here we are, almost ten years later. I see Olivia running down the hallway after her brother Frankie, fighting over toys, and going to fourth grade. She would have dark wavy hair and blue eyes. After all these years, we still struggle with her death. It is hard to believe that it has been this long. It only seems like yesterday. She is and always will be a part of us, a part of our family. Catherine, Anthony and Frankie all know about Olivia. They know that they have a sister in heaven with Jesus. To not talk about her, is unimaginable. She existed, she is real, and I am her mommmy, forever. We are her family, forever.

We wanted to have another child, in spite of the risk. A new son, Anthony James, came in to our lives, November 1, 2000. He is the joy and the peace that we had been searching for. Although, he will NEVER replace Olivia, we feel as though, without Olivia, we would never have had Anthony. As we look at him and feel the joy new parents feel, it is a bittersweet moment for us as we experience the milestones we will never get to have with Olivia. But, still we wanted more children and decided once more to have another. On November 21, 2001, Catherine Olivia, Olivia's little sister, was born. Although our family will never be complete, we have decided to call it quits in having any more children. We have been blessed with four beautiful children, and we have the opportunity to raise three of them. That is okay.