Maisie Ofsthun

1) Please introduce your family

Parents: Ryan andChelsieOfsthun of Mound, MN
Children: Isla (4) and Lachlan (2)

2) Name of your baby and date of birth/ date of death

Maisie Martha Ofsthun

December 14, 2020

Stillborn, but still born

3) Can you share your story of how you found out about the loss of your baby?

Chelsie, already a mother of 2 beautiful and healthy babies, was pregnant with her third child - this time a surprise gender! Successfully passing the ominous 12 week mark, everything looking perfect at the 20 week ultrasound, Chelsie was in the homestretch of the 3rd trimester, 29 weeks pregnant and counting...

Saturday December 12th I had a nagging thought in the back of my mind. “I don’t think I’ve felt baby move in a little while?” I can’t remember when - bedtime Thursday? I just figured it had become so second nature I may have not noticed it. But I was pretty certain I didn’t feel baby move last night as I went to sleep. I went about my day with it being on my mind and paid extra special attention to my belly. No movements, but I figured when I laid down to bed that evening baby would move as normal and all my worries would go away. That was my plan.

Sunday December 13thI woke up and was upset I hadn’t felt baby move last night as I went to sleep. I was tired of worrying about this when I was sure baby had just moved into some sort of position where I wasn’t feeling baby as usual, or maybe was just having a few lazy days. But I knew now this was time to start taking some action. So of course I hit up Google, asked for some prayers, and did all the tricks to provoke movement.
Ryan got home around 4pm (I finally queued him in on my concern when he was almost home) and immediately got down to my stomach and was poking and prodding and singing some of our silly songs. Ryan was pushing harder than I had and I started to get a sinking feeling…. Baby really should have moved in some way in response to that. Now that I had Ryan home I was ready to call in hopes of just finally getting some peace of mind so I could stop worrying.

 I got connected with my midwife Shawn who happened to be the one on call and it was deemed I needed to come in. I was ready to get rid of the stress, so I obliged.  

I got into the room to get checked. My nurse had the heart monitor ready, so we got prepared to take a listen. Back and forth she went 8 times before she decided, “Okay, let’s get the ultrasound in here!” So she went to fetch the machine and I was thinking… of course, this just cant be easy. It wasn’t a good sign she couldn’t just find the heartbeat quickly, but I still was not convinced the worst was yet to come. I ripped my mask off my face as I started to feel breathing was becoming more difficult.

After wheeling the ultrasound machine in, we then had to wait for the system to boot up. Once it finally turned on, my nurse, Kim, started to take a look. When she first put the probe down we saw baby’s head to start. I knew right then something wasn’t right. This wasn’t good. Babies are always moving, turning, twitching, etc. when you see them on an ultrasound. All I could see was stillness. She moved over to the chest to find the heartbeat. I know what a heartbeat looks like. I saw it with Isla. I saw it with Lachlan. I saw it with Maisie just 10 weeks earlier at the big 20-week ultrasound, where every part of her body was perfect. I heard it just a week and a half ago at my 28-week appointment. I know to look for the 4 chambers of the heart pulsating. On the screen now, we saw nothing. Still, it didn’t fully hit me until Kim uttered, “I’m so sorry, there is no heartbeat.”

 “No, no, no, no.” over and over again I cried as my arm went to my face to cover my eyes. This wasn’t real. This couldn’t be real. This isn’t happening to me right now. This is my baby!

Phone call to my mom…

“Mom, I need you to babysit. You need to get to my house right now. You need to leave now, the roads are slippery.”

I don’t even think I said anything else… but my mom knew my voice, knew something was wrong, and knew to just go.

 Call to Ryan…

I’m not even sure what I said to be honest. I think it started like, “My parents are on their way to babysit. You’re going to need to come to the hospital.” I don’t think I ever said the actual words “The baby is dead.” Or “There is no heartbeat.” I think I just cried. Who knows… I just knew I now had to wait for my husband to get to me.

 With a box of Kleenex in hand… we moved from the small intake room to a labor and delivery room. Shawn had also been called and was en route to the hospital. At some point she arrived. And some point Ryan arrived. I was clutching a teddy bear Kim gave me. We started discussions on the next steps… which was to deliver the baby. Obviously I was going to need to be induced since I was only (but still) 30 weeks/7 months pregnant. My body didn’t know the baby was dead either and it had no plans to evacuate.

So we got some induction methods started, and I went home to pack a bag, get my kids settled for bed, allow my parents to get situated for an undetermined and unexpected stay.

 We got home. After we did all the things, around 11 or so we were en route to the hospital to spend the night before the next steps of the journey would start in the morning.

4) Can you share the birth story of your baby?

Monday, December 14th, 2020This day was long. It has a lot of little details. Some I feel might be missing because they are already forgotten, but the most important pieces are still remembered.

 We started after a night of very little, if any, sleep. At 7:30am my new nurse, Debi, and new midwife, Katelyn, came in. Pitocin started and lots, and lots of info given and things to consider as I started labor.

 I prayed I would be able to deliver this baby without complication. I prayed nothing would go wrong because I was still a mom to 2 children at home. I prayed I would get to complete this vaginal delivery, something I mourned never getting to experience (and I never thought I would get the chance to, since I was supposed to have a 3rd C-section). These prayers were answered.

 Sometime around 2pm they broke my water. For some reason, it was excruciatingly painful. I tried breathing the nitrous oxide, but it did little to relieve the discomfort. I started sobbing once it was complete, not only because it was very uncomfortable, but because I was SO SAD! Everything hit me again like a ton of bricks in that moment. “I’m sorry,” I apologized to Katelyn, “It wasn’t that bad, I’m just crying because this is so sad.”

 After my water was broken, my contractions became next level. I couldn’t recover after that. My nurse kept suggesting the epidural and I kept delaying. Finally I gave in. I was trying to delay as long as I could manage because in the past my epidurals wore off after 2 hours or so… and I was hoping to make that 2 hours last to the point I needed it the most. Once the anesthesiologist arrived, we were able to get my epidural going between contractions. I didn’t know right away, but I just received the best epidural of my life that would work so well right up to and past birth of baby. This was another answered prayer, as I had prayed “Please let this epidural work so I can continue this process without the physical pain.”

I got to rest and relax for 2 hours in no pain at all, as my contractions did what they needed to do. Around 4pm I had dilated all the way to a 10! The first time I ever accomplished that in 3 births! So… it was time. Baby’s head was in position and it was time to learn how to push, which was something else I never got to experience. My midwife said it might take a bit to figure out how to push exactly, but I got the hang of it pretty quickly.

 Earlier we asked the midwife to announce the gender to us after baby was born. This whole time, keep in mind, we still didn’t know if baby was a boy or girl!

4:21pm – “Good job mama. It’s a girl!”

 This next moment was single-handedly the worst moment of my entire life. I don’t think I can properly explain to you what it feels like to see your lifeless baby born. Her body was so completely still. There were no muscles moving little limbs or even keeping her body taut, there was just a lax body. Her mouth was gaping open… and worst of all, there was no cry coming from this mouth. She had a little cone head from delivery, one that wouldn’t resolve itself after hours, or days. Her stomach was all bruised. Her face and head seemed bruised. Her eyes were stuck shut. In all bluntness, it was not a pretty sight. It was traumatic.

 I held her. I cried. I kept repeating, “Oh baby. Poor baby. Poor, poor baby. What happened? What happened to you? I’m so sorry!”

Ryan held her. He cried.

 After holding her for a while immediately after birth we were ready for her to go get examined. They weighed her and measured her. 2lbs and 15.5 inches, pretty much exactly what a 29-week-old baby would be. They took her into another room to take a graft off her thigh in case we were going to do chromosome testing. But when my midwife came back, Katelyn said, “I think we have an answer. Her cord was wound so tightly it looks like it occluded by her belly button cutting off her oxygen and nutrients.” So our perfect baby had an accident. An accident inside the one place I thought she was perfectly safe, the place she was the safest in life. How could this happen? Who knew this could happen? Poor little stinker seemed to have always turned one direction… never the other. That’s what I imagine. She only turned left… but couldn’t she have just turned right every now and then to unwind her cord? I was relieved in a way to know that we didn’t create a baby who had something wrong. But it didn’t change the fact that my baby was dead.

Baby girl came back dressed in a white hat with a little pink star, a cute little button up shirt with pink and green dots, and some little embroidered flowers, and she had the tiniest little diaper on – one with a safety pin! Then they took her footprints. So many footprints. We noticed right away when admiring her hands and feet that she had the longest feet you could imagine! This is a special memory we will always have.

 Then we held her again. And now I could see past the death and I saw my beautiful, amazing baby girl. I saw she looked just like her brother and sister. I know those long feet she had were from her mama. She had little wisps of blond hair like her dada. She would have had those chunky cheeks my other babies had. She was a complete and full baby and had she been born this early she would have survived. She was adorable. We got some pictures with her. We kissed her. I touched her lips, lips that I ached to nurse. I touched her little toothless gums. I held her hands.

 After this we had to decide on her name still. We had 2 names picked out for if we had a girl… a first pick and a backup. Which one would we use? We still chose our favorite. Maisie Martha Ofsthun. To be honest I struggled a bit giving her this name at first. I love this name. It was my favorite and it is so cute. But in this moment it seemed I was maybe wasting the name? What if we had another girl and I would miss this name? But… what if we didn’t and I held on to this name for no reason. It was the name we were preparing for if we had a girl… it belonged to our Maisie. Of course it was the right decision and I have no regrets. As for her middle name, Martha was my grandma’s name (on my mom’s side). All of our children have the middle name of a grandparent/great-grandparent.

 Meanwhile, during all of this we were still waiting for my placenta to come out. Placentas aren’t as ready to detach and come out at 30 weeks… so it was taking a while. We started to reach the end of the 4-hour time frame they were allowing for it to come out on its own. So it was time to intervene with the last option. The doctor was going to have to come in and get up in there to get it out. So I got another hit to my epidural and my bottom half was completely gone again. Good considering what was supposed to happen next. But right after the dose, my placenta decided to come out! Praise the Lord – my final prayer was answered. Then my blood pressure started dropping. Three different times I became nauseous and kind of out of it. I got dosed with medicine to bring it back up… but it got weird there for a little bit. Nevertheless, we got through.

 My next nurse, Ashlea, came in for the overnight shift. She had picked out some clothes for Maisie. An adorable little gown for her to put on tomorrow after we gave her a bath. And an outfit for burial, a dress made from a donated wedding dress created for little angel babies, along with a hat and blanket. It was precious.

 Then we finally tucked ourselves in for bed for the night… with a “sleeping” baby by our side.

5) Is there something that helped you and continues to help you through the waves of grief involved in losing a baby?

-Connecting with other Loss Mama’s over social media (something about not feeling alone and validated in our waves of grief)

-Chatting with a group of women I found who all lost our babies within a few days of each other… we share the milestones of this life after loss and an unique bond of openness and understanding

-Writing… writing to remember the few memories so that nothing can fade or be forgotten

-Leaning on God - only He has provided me the ultimate comfort and peace

6) Do you have a favorite moment or experience during your pregnancy and/or after delivery with your baby?

I was amazed and blessed by the hospital staff. A special team of nurses who stepped up in these sad cases. Not only did they treat us tenderly, they treated Maisie as the sweet little baby she was. They were game-changers in this awful situation we were put through. They definitely were a bright light that brought the best out of the dark situation. Helping us to spend time with Maisie, feel comfortable to take all the time we needed, get all the pictures we wanted and needed, gifting us special hospital mementos for Maisie, making sure we took home the clothes Maisie got to wear, etc.

7) Can you share a difficult moment or experience during your pregnancy and/or after delivery with your baby?

I felt I had to tell Isla what was going on that same evening we found out, so she would understand why mom and dad were going to be gone for the next few days. This moment ranks in the Top 5 worst parts of this entire saga. Upon telling Isla that our baby died and was now in heaven with Jesus… she grinned & laughed nervously for a second, and then dropped to the floor in a ball and stayed there for an indeterminate amount of time. She didn’t want to talk. She didn’t want to be held. She didn’t want to be moved or touched or anything. She lay there until we finally got her up and she started crying. She completely, totally, understood as a 4 year old girl who was so excited to meet a new sibling, who was hoping so badly for a sister because she "already had a brother”, who wanted to care for and love on and play with this baby. Isla continued crying the rest of the evening as we got ready for bed. We managed to stifle her cries by making the night an exciting sleepover with Mimi in the spare bedroom. After we said our normal prayers for that night, Isla so sweetly asked all on her own accord she could say a prayer for the baby. As she was crying, she prayed, “God, please protect our baby. Amen.”

Overall, watching my children Isla and Lachlan grieve in their own 4yo and 2yo ways is heartbreaking. It is so sad that death has become a part of their life so early on.

8) What is something helpful others can do for someone who experiences a similar loss?
Talk: Don’t back away. Don’t be scared to talk to them. Trust me - your silence to them will speak louder than your words. Ask to hear the birth story. Tell them you are willing to hear about their baby whenever they want. Ask them any questions you have. Personally, I relish any chance I get to talk about Maisie and I don’t want anyone having any lingering questions about it - ask me! I’m happy to share.
Give: If someone has started a meal train, sign up for that. Send them a gift to honor their baby. Don’t forget about the father. Women do great supporting the mother… encourage the men in the fathers life to step up.

9) How could someone honor and remember your baby now that time has passed? Just talk me to me about Maisie. Say her name. Tell me if you randomly just thought about her, as simple as, “Just thought about Maisie! Wanted to let you know.” Include her as part of our family (i.e. if you write out our names on a holiday card - include Maisie too!). Remember her birthday in years to come. Visit her grave, either on your own or with me. Most importantly, don’t forget. A huge fear we face is our child being forgotten.

10) Do you have traditions or ways that you remember and celebrate your baby? Since the loss is still relatively knew, we haven’t set up any traditions yet. But we plan to celebrate her birthday every year. We have pictures up and places in the home with the gifts we have received in honor of Maisie. We talk about her. We visit her grave. We will ALWAYS remember our baby Maisie.