Leighann Durgan
Crisis Essay-Responding to a Crisis

It seems like my life has been one crisis after another, but the one that stays in my memory the most is when I lost my son. It was around February 1998 when I found out I was pregnant, I was 16 years old and terrified. Yes, I was on birth control but for whatever reason (most likely my lack of remembering them!) they failed. My boyfriend was with me when I took the test so he already knew, the next step was telling our parents. When I told my mom she was obviously angry and upset, but in the end said that her and my father would be there no matter what. I went to my first appointment, they did an ultrasound and realized that I had an abnormal uterus, I had what they call a uterine septum. My uterus was divided, down the middle, tissue. This is apparently common in this area. I was told that it wouldn’t affect my baby and everything should go smoothly, which it did for a little bit. I was sent to Burlington at about 21 weeks, the doctors wanted to make sure the baby was getting enough oxygen/blood flow/ nutrients through the umbilical cord because they saw in a previous ultrasound that the placenta was growing on the septum (the part that divided my uterus) and they weren’t sure if this would cause a problem. I went to my appointment in Burlington on May 22, it was a Thursday and Memorial Day weekend was coming up. The doctors there said everything was going great, the baby was doing well and the umbilical cord and placenta weren’t compromised. This news was a great relief to us, and we also found out we were going to have a baby boy and his name would be Nikolas William Durgan. Since it was Memorial Day weekend, we planned to go camping at Loon Lake, which is about 45 minutes to an hour away. We left on Saturday morning (May 24). While on our way I had to pee, since we were on a trail in the middle of the woods, I peed on the ground and had to drip dry! (I know…gross!). I got back in the truck and looked down, I was wearing white shorts I noticed right away that there was some spotting of pink. I yelled to my boyfriend right away and he drove as fast as he could to the first house with a phone (no cells back then!). An ambulance picked me up and brought me to the closest hospital in Saranac Lake. They did some test, put me on bed rest and tried to control the bleeding. I stayed in Saranac Lake overnight and then I was transported to CVPH. It was now Sunday the 25, the doctors talked to me told me they were trying to control the bleeding, but I had a placental abruption, the placenta was tearing away from the uterus (or in my case the septum). I was crushed, the doctors in Burlington had just reassured me that everything was ok and now here I was 2 days later, only 24 weeks pregnant, and having complications. I was also told that if the baby was born this early his chances of survival were very slim. Monday morning my boyfriend went to work, things were the same, me and the baby were stable and sitting around wasn’t helping him. The nurse came in around 9 to listen for the baby’s heartbeat, something they were doing every couple hours. However,