Category: Dandy Walker Syndrome

Dandy Walker Syndrome

The Soundtrack on Repeat

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By Vanessa There are moments of your life that are burned onto your retina, and the script from the narrative lives within your mind; it’s quality, pristine. That’s how July 23, 2013 lives within me. It plays in the background, providing soundtrack music that is sometimes soft, sometimes so loud that it overwhelms me, and I think it’s it’s July 23, 2013 all over again. The 19 week anatomy scan at Maternal Fetal Medicine that day took almost three hours. I watched it on the screen until the tears overwhelmed me to the point I could no longer see. I closed my eyes and willed the world […]

Dandy Walker Syndrome

What Kind of Mother … ?

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By Rachel Bertsche When Kate, a 29-year-old mom outside Boston, found out she was pregnant with a second daughter, she was elated. Then, at 36 weeks along, she got the news that is every expecting parent’s worst nightmare: Her baby, who she would later name Rose, had two brain malformations. Kate decided to have abortion, and eventually found solace in a support group on the website Ending a Wanted Pregnancy. The online community is for parents who terminate pregnancies for medical reasons (pregnancies they wanted, but chose to end after a severe prenatal diagnosis or maternal health issue) and who often feel alone or ashamed, and […]

Dandy Walker Syndrome

My Third-Trimester Abortion

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By Kate C. This article is based on a talk the author gave to OBs and medical students at her diagnosing hospital. I am here today to tell you about my third trimester abortion. Before I begin, I want to make two things very clear: First, I am here to speak with you because I want to share my experience. I am not afraid to share, and you shouldn’t be afraid to ask questions if you have them. I think people often hold back to protect me, but they needn’t bother. I live with these memories every day. There is no angle from which I haven’t looked […]

Artistic Expressions

It’s Always, Always Up

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By Kate C. They don’t want to remind me of her. Don’t want to say her name. Don’t want to bring it up. But it is up. It is up in the morning. It is up in the afternoon. It is up in the evening. When I’m laughing, When I’m running, When I’m resting, On her birthday, On Christmas, Every day, It is up. To remind me of my daughter, To surprise me with my grief, To bring up my dead baby girl, Implies that I ever could forget. It is always, always up.   Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Articles

The Gulf Between Grief & The Regular World

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By Kate C. It has been two years since my husband and I left our home, eldest daughter, and entire support network behind on a last-minute flight to the Rocky Mountains. There, there was a doctor who would help us let our baby girl go. With a single injection, he released her spirit from its broken body, then, over the course of several days, safely, carefully, he released her body from mine, so that I didn’t have to follow my baby into the abyss. I birthed her, still and whole, exactly one week after an MRI shattered our world. People sometimes ask me what that was […]