Crazy making arrangments with a hiccuping baby.

Whew! A lot has happened today... Let me first start off with the good news. I went to the doctor this morning, and my blood pressure was 109/79 ( do the happy dance (_]_) ... (_/_). ..(_\_).. )  Maggie is still here with us today, and her heart rate was great 159 ! The doctor did answer some important questions for me today. 1) Are there lungs showing up on the ultra sounds, and if so can we put the baby on a ventilator? Answer: There are no lungs and with out lungs or lung tissue it would be pointless to vent. 2) Does the baby have any organs that we can donate for organ transplants? Answer: Yes, right now that baby does have organs that we can donate to save other babies, but we would talk more about this the closer to delivery date. My next appointment is in a couple of weeks for another check in.


Maggie is still here with us, but we have started to make funeral and cemetery arrangements. With that being said let me start telling you about the bad part of my day.  I was at Memorial gardens right after my OB appointment. I said a prayer on the way there asking God to give me the strength , peace, and grace to make it threw the meeting. Once, I was there is was surprisingly calm and ready to make decisions. My husband and my in-laws met me there. Once, in the meeting I was told to look threw a book of headstones to pick out which one we wanted. I let the lady know that we would look , but there was other things I wanted to talk about first. My father in law started asking questions about his heads stones and where the babies would be placed. I was fine with all of this. The the director told us all the spot where the baby would be placed and that it would be $500 to open and close the grave, plus another $1300 for the head stone. I got really upset !! I said I thought that we were here to discuss where the baby would be placed. She then preceded to say that that was already discussed with my mother in law. Then I hit the roof . I started yelling what the F*ck was I here for if decisions had already been made. Then I broke down started crying , and grabbed my things and left. I was so hurt... I do not have a lot of things that are in my control right now , and the ones that I do have I would like to make decisions for even if they are as small as right, left, top , bottom. I felt like a fool. Here I call this lady make an appointment for the meeting, and behind my back decisions were already made. That as a terrible feeling. I think my mother in law thought that she was helping, but it hurt to have important decisions taken away from not only me, but my husband. I went to my grandmothers house to cool off , give my Hayden a great big bear hug, and speak to my husband about why I stormed out on him when he needed me just as much as I needed him.




After we talked , we decided that we could not use  Memorial Gardens for two reasons 1) Cost .. almost 1,800 was WAY out of our budget even on a payment plan  2) We would never truly feel like we had been the ones to make the decisions about laying our sweet Maggie to rest.  So, we called Mound Grove , and All Saints. We ended up going with All Saints they have a special piece of land set aside called " Baby land". Only babies can buried on this land, and they have special packages to help keep the cost low for families. When we got to the cemetery we went out, and found the plots on the land that were available. We ended up picking a beautiful spot to the right of the monument dedicating the area. Maggie started to hiccup and move so she must have liked the spot as well.  I lost it when I seen the graves with match box cars just resting on top. Not to mention that I was just at the doctors to hear the drumming of a heart beating so perfectly. Next, we went back in to sign paper work , discuss pricing , and what all came in the package. When everything was said and done the total package was $700. We needed 10 % and set up a payment plan. With things being so tough... this financial is going to be a big stretch for us , but a lot easier to digest than 1,800.


We have an appointment next week to finalize arrangements with the funeral home. Now that the day is done... I am at peace with knowing that WE ( my husband and I ) made decisions that we are happy with. When the baby passes our only job will be to grieve and no one will be responsible for decisions making.