Rychner family time Ross and Mary Rychner along with their two sons, Mason (10) and Haiden (4), spent time with baby Keigan after he was stillborn due to placental abruption on Nov. 1. The Rychner family will be walking in the March of Dimes, March for Babies on May 1, to help fund preventative measures for conditions like a placental abruption. (Submitted photo) Nine months.

The amount of time a mother has to become attached to her developing child before meeting him for the first time.

Nine months.

Enough time for Ross and Mary Rychner to give their expected son a name: Keigan.

Just south of Staples, the Rychner family was preparing for the arrival of baby Keigan, due to be born on Nov. 2, 2009. Leading up to Keigan’s arrival, Ross and Mary were submerged in daily life. On Halloween, Mary took her two sons Mason (10) and Haiden (4) trick-or-treating just like every year before. The next morning, Mary was scheduled for a pre-op appointment at Lakewood Health System (LHS) for her scheduled c-section.

“I was a little nervous before my appointment because I hadn’t felt Keigan move all day. On my way to pre-op, I kept thinking, ‘Oh, great, I’m going to go into labor before my c-section.’”

But Mary’s worrying mind urged her to have Keigan’s heartbeat checked, just in case. Mary’s miscarriage only a year earlier gave her lingering thoughts that something might have went wrong.

“I ran into the on-call doctor, Dr. David Freeman, just before my appointment. He tried to find a heartbeat, but failed, along with a lot of nurses. After the first try, I knew something was wrong because Keigan had a strong heartbeat throughout my entire pregnancy, even the Thursday before, his heartbeat was extremely strong.”

Mary immediat e ly called her husband into the hospital when Dr. Freeman couldn’t find a heartbeat. With Ross by her side, Kelly Thompson, nurse practitioner specializing in women’s health and obstetrics at LHS made one last attempt to find Keigan’s heartbeat.

“Kelly has been a longtime friend of the family, so it wasn’t like a total stranger telling me my baby was gone. She just sat there and cried with me.”

By then, Mary’s physician, Dr. Sarah Israelson, arrived at the hospital. “Israelson came in and Ross and I were both sitting on the bed. She didn’t say anything; she just jumped in with us and hugged us both. We just stayed on the bed together, all three of us and didn’t talk for a few minutes.” Dr. Israelson was Mary’s physician for her first child and knew the family well. The shock of the loss of her baby was dulled by the compassion of Dr. Israelson, Thompson, Dr. Freeman and LHS’s nursing staff.

The cause of Keigan’s death is one that’s still misunderstood. Mary had a silent placental abruption, which caused the placenta to pull away from the uterine wall and cause baby Keigan to lose his flow of oxygen. In Mary’s case, there were no signs or symptoms because she didn’t have pain or bleeding—

one or both are typical

in placental abruption. “I had neither. I had nothing.

It was just something that had happened. There’s no explanation.”

A c-section was scheduled right away to deliver baby Keigan. Mary’s pastor was called in to be with the family.

“They (LHS staff) lined everything up. I was so amazed and so grateful,” said Mary of LHS’s tenderness for her loss. “They told me about the Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep Foundation in Brainerd and asked if they could come in and take photos for my family.”

Keigan Ross Rychner was born at 3:25 p.m. on Nov. 1. While in the recovery room, Mary and her family cuddled Keigan, cried together and held each other. Although it was hard for her to face family and friends waiting for her in the hospital, she found comfort in the LHS staff, her pastor and the Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep photographers.

Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep took over 100 photos of Keigan and his family, made a video and even gave the family gifts to remember him by. “They made an amazing experience out of such a traumatic time,” said Mary.

Only a day later, Mary and Ross had to start making funeral plans for their son instead of making plans for taking him home.

“At that point it kind of hit me. I was still in shock. It was a whirlwind.”

During the three days Mary spent at the hospital, one of her nurses was Heidi Storry. Heidi’s help during the process still stands out in Mary’s mind.

“It makes me tear up to this point. I couldn’t get up after my c-section to give Keigan to the funeral people, so Heidi asked if it would be okay to put Keigan in his car seat so they could take him,” said Mary with a weak and trembling voice. “That, still to this day, really stands out. I was so glad I had the nurses there for me.”

Three days after her csection, Mary was ready to go home and be with her two sons, husband and shiatsu puppy.

“Before I left, one of the nurses, Allison, told me they all took turns sitting with Keigan so he wouldn’t be alone. How precious. It was amazing, they could make me feel so… okay.”

Mary’s transition to normal life was a difficult one.

“When I got home, that was hard. That’s when it really hit me. Completely hit me.” Keigan’s changing table and all of his clothes are still perched in Mary’s room, waiting for Keigan to come home. It took weeks for Mary to

put all the toys away she

had ready for his arrival. “I had the swing sitting out,

the bouncy chair. It took a couple weeks, but I finally put it all away.”

There were days where

Mary said she didn’t know

if she was coming or going. “I felt like I was on autopilot.

I would get my kids ready for school and send them off, then just sit there in the living room. Even if the house was a complete mess, it didn’t even cross my mind to get up and clean.”

The feeling of simply existing and not really living for Mary went on for weeks. The crippling pain she was going through stopped her life in its tracks. “The pain was a little less every day. But it was hard; it’s something you go through.”

Mary and her family are walking for the March of Dimes, March for Babies walk on May 1 to help fund preventative measures for conditions like placental abruption. Today, only six months after Keigan’s death, Mary is doing better, but wants to spread the word about placental abruption and share the fact that it happens more than we think.

“One in every 100 babies born is a still birth. I’ve done research and learned so much about it, but it’s not talked about,” said Mary. Before her own experience, Mary had never heard of a placental abruption.

“I never once thought I would have a stillborn baby. You always think it won’t happen to you. It’s the beginning of the road for me. It’s not a road I’d like anyone to have to go down.”

The March for Babies will be held on May 1 at Forestview Middle School in Baxter. Registration begins at 9 a.m.

To learn more, visit http://www.marchofdimes. com/aboutus.asp.