Thread by @nsags

On Tuesday I found out that my baby was dead. I’ve never done a thread before, but I’m doing one because I think it’s important to spread this message. I’ll use some local hashtags #yeg #ableg #abhealth #AHS #yegcc #oilers #covid19 to show that I'm a real person in Edmonton, AB.

Who knows, maybe this will be therapeutic for me. I could sure use some therapy right now.

I need to start somewhere so I’ll start with March 27. That was the day we started to show symptoms. They weren’t severe but we knew something wasn’t right. My head felt cloudy, I was tired, it wasn’t a typical Saturday for me.

Sunday, March 28th my wife started to feel very sick. She had a massive headache, fever, and overall felt crummy. She was also 16+ weeks pregnant, so we thought maybe that was the reason. As the night went on she felt worse and decided to book a COVID test.

We have been quite diligent over the past year but she is an educator and even though kids supposedly can’t pass on the virus(???!) and that teachers are all young and can’t catch it; she wanted to be safe.

On Monday she got her test. She came home and went straight to bed. About an hour later she came to our home office (I was working) and told me that one of her students who she had contact with had tested positive. After that we knew. I booked a test immediately.

A couple of hours before I went to get my test my wife got a text from AHS verifying her positive result. I would also test positive about 10 hours later. Variant strain.

We spent the next week in rough shape. It really sucked. My wife was much worse than me. Every message I received sending well wishes I replied with “I don’t care about me, so long as the baby is ok”.

In hindsight I was such an idiot. The thought never crossed my mind that this would affect us now. I was thinking long term affects. After all we were past 3 months. We were in the clear! Such an idiot.

My wife had to cancel her regular OBGYN appointment because of quarantine so she rebooked for April 13th. I hadn’t been able to attend any appointments because of COVID which really sucked for me. At 10:30 am she called me in tears. They couldn’t find a heartbeat.

I quickly drove over to the clinic and they ushered me in right away. She was alone, sobbing uncontrollably. Our Doctor came in and told us she wasn’t sure what had happened. We were almost 19 weeks and that this was very rare, she was baffled.

All of our testing had been perfect. We even got additional testing done (NIPT) just to be safe. Everything was smooth. We were past 3 months without a single blip.

Our Doctor set up an appointment for a proper ultrasound. We drove there praying that this was just a big mistake. I hadn’t been able to attend any ultrasounds but was able to see videos that my wife recorded. Within 30 seconds I knew it wasn’t a mistake.

The radiologist came in and confirmed our baby girl was gone. Worst day of my life. Now what? Well because we were 19 weeks we had to get her out. Our Doctor called and said the safest way to do this was to do a full birth. Huh? Are you kidding me?!?!

We met her at the Grey Nuns at 6:00 pm. She told us she went over the ultrasound and said our baby passed at 16 weeks 5 days. A quick look at my phone and that day was March 29th. The exact day we tested positive.

The next two days were awful. Think of the worst news you’ll ever hear followed up by the worst procedure you’ll ever go through, add to that you’re on a maternity ward where 11 of the 12 rooms are filled with crying babies and happy mommas. The absolute worst.

I spent those 2 days being very angry playing the “what if” game. What if we went to the emergency when she started showing symptoms? What if she didn’t interact with that poor kid?

What if we had better political parties running our country/province. Would she have received the vaccine sooner?

After 2 of the longest days of my life we finally got to meet our daughter. She was beautiful. I won’t get into more details because that’s private. I will say that my wife is the strongest person I have ever met, and I never wish what she experienced on anyone.

We won’t get our testing results for a few weeks, but I think it’s pretty obvious where this is going.

I’ll end off with the reason I wanted to do this in the first place. We need our educators to be vaccinated NOW. Just because the original strain wasn’t easily passed from student to teacher it doesn’t mean the variant is the same. It is not. We are proof of this.

Also, this virus is very REAL. It doesn’t care how old you are, how much money you make, or how innocent you are. Follow the rules, get your vaccine, and eliminate any idiots from your life who say COVID is fake.

I just wanted to take a moment to say how incredibly overwhelmed my wife and I are right now. We have tried to read every reply out loud to each other and you all have helped us so much.

We are also lucky to have amazing support from our families and friends.

Thank you ❤️