Sisterhood of Angel Mama’s Magazine | Bereaved Mother’s Day Edition May 2023
Kaokee Stream and Keokee Dream
Written & Photos by Cheyenne Long
I was 19 when I became pregnant with my first daughter and it took 4 months until I realized that I was pregnant. I felt flutters and that’s when I knew for sure, we wasn’t sure exactly because I’ve always had irregular periods, we were excited. My fiancé was like I knew you wasI pregnant when you missed your second period but didn’t want to say anything. Me and our daughter was spoiled beyond belief. My fiancé would get up practically almost every night/morning at 3 or 4 am to fix us homemade french fries. The best part is that nobody knew until his mother looked at him the night I went into full labor and was going to deliver my little girl, if I was pregnant and he told her yes mom she is. She tried to tell us that our little girl was going to be a boy, normally she’s correct on gender of babies not this time . Our little girl was born sleeping June 28, 2020 at 4:26 a.m. due to being breeched. I was at 41+5 weeks when i went into labor with her. When we first got there we got to listen to her heartbeat for the first time because due to this pandemic we couldn’t get to any natal appointments, the doctor told us at first that she was head first when he checked me. When he left to see if any hospital could take me since they don’t deliver any more I took a strong contraction and somehow she flipped when he came back in and checked me he told us she had flipped and tried to turn her back but wasn’t able to. After they got her out they worked code on her for at least 20 some minutes and when the doctor told my boyfriend his lips were starting to turn blue. When he came and told me I knew she wasn’t alive and he told me that he didn’t know why she didn’t make it, there was no fluid in her lungs that she could’ve sucked in. We named her Kaokee Stream (Kay-O-Key).
I’m 23 years old now and we recently lost our rainbow Keokee Dream I was 24wks, we lost her in October last year. My pregnancy had been going really well like my first pregnancy had, this pregnancy I went through a midwife and we got to see Keokee Dream on the ultrasound machine we weren’t able to see her face tho so we would need to have another done at a later date they had me measuring at about 21w5d. October 10th, I had my 24 week appointment when I got there they checked my vitals like they normally did and when it came to my blood pressure they were having a hard time getting my blood pressure to read they finally did the manual blood pressure cuff and got my blood pressure which was a bit high, my midwife told us I was in the beginning stages of preeclampsia they then had me pee in a cup so they could test it and told us that I had +4 proteins in my urine which was a UTI. We got to hear Keokee’s heartbeat and it was strong. Morgan my midwife asked if we were ready and excited for our second ultrasound we said yes and she prescribed me some blood pressure medicine and apparently medicine for the UTI and then we left. I got the blood pressure medicine but never the medicine for the UTI. The day before my ultrasound appointment which was Sunday I barely felt Keokee Dream move around that day didn’t think much of it because I was not feeling good and I figured she wasn’t feeling good either like her mommy later that day I went to the bathroom and got a feeling like I just knew something but I didn’t know what.
The next day Monday, October 17th we went to my ultrasound, the ultrasound tech was looking at everything and talking to us unlike the other ultrasound tech we had, The ultrasound tech didn’t even act like anything was wrong when he got up and he shook my tummy and told us that he was going to give her a moment to move and he would be right back he was going to get my midwife. He came back into the room first I made a joke that my midwife had gotten lost on the way and a few minutes later she came in the room and she had this look on her face that something was wrong and that’s when she told us that Keokee had no heartbeat like I didn’t start crying until I seen Scott break down in tears and my midwife told us that she’d like to induce me right away and I could either go up to labor and delivery or go back home and get stuff and come back. I made the difficult decision to go up and get situated and for them to start my induction. Scott went back to the house and got stuff for us and came back Morgan told us that she most likely passed away recently like 24hrs recently. Morgan told us that she would like to start inducing me right away however we could go home and pack a bag or we could go ahead and go up to labor and delivery and start induction. I chose to go up to labor and delivery and Scott my hubby left and went back to the house to pack us a bag. They started inducing me that day about 3 in the afternoon, they kept telling me that it would start out slow and then when it was time it would be quick they weren’t lying and I delivered her the next day at 2:21 pm which we found out why she had no heartbeat she had her cord wrapped tightly around her neck once and it had basically pinched itself off and she also had a true knot in her cord. However turns out I didn’t actually have a UTI it was preeclampsia all along because when they were running tests one of the nurses told me so because she there was no signs of me having a UTI. And when I finally went to my postpartum appointment it was confirmed that I didn’t actually have a UTI it was preeclampsia.