Update for the past several months

It has been a while. I have had many thoughts and feeling that past several months, but did not quite feel ready to write them down. But I am now ready to share my experiences again. And sorry again, but this is going to be novel, as I was writing it, I never could quit find the right stopping point to break this up between multiple posts. Also, I want to include a picture in this post, hopefully it will not be hard to see.

Last October, after a morning blood draw, I got the call from my fertility doctor's office at 5:30 pm October 25^th – I was finally pregnant. I was so excited, I could hardly contain my excitement. But I knew we were still very early in the pregnancy, I was only 3 1/2 weeks at the time. So other than my husband, I did not want to tell anyone yet. But my husband and I were so excited, finally we were going to be parents and have all that comes with that, and we were ready to face whatever would come our way on the parent front.

We anxiously anticipated our first ultrasound, at 7 weeks, with our fertility doctor. We wanted to make sure our precious baby was healthy and strong. Our little baby was so beautiful and loved moving, doing somersaults and kicking and punching the whole time. After the ultrasound, my doctor told us that she was going to move the due date up 3 days because our baby was measuring big. We, but mostly me with my husband’s support, decided we did not want to tell anyone yet, even family, since the change of miscarriage is still so high. So we kept it our little secret.

Over that time, my taste buds changed and evolved. Things I used to love, no longer tasted good, or made me feel sick, while others, helped settle my upset stomach. It was weird, so I ate many pickles and bananas, not as a craving, but just because it helped me not feel sick. Luckily I never threw up though. We decided we would tell our families on my mom's birthday, which was two days after we reached 10 weeks. Our families could not have been more excited for us. Their excitement almost beat ours. But we still did not tell the general public, because miscarriage can still happen up to 13 weeks, which was three days after Christmas.

On Christmas day, we announced our pregnancy on facebook. Here are our posts:

-We got the best Christmas present ever...we successfully made it to the end of our first trimester! We are so excited to announce that we are expecting a baby due in early July!

-Who has got two thumbs and his wife is pregnant? This guy!

Within hours, we both had multiple likes and comments on our posts. We could not be more elated. We were expecting and now our friends and family could publicly celebrate with us! After a little over 5 long years of trying, we were going to be parents! We had desired long and hard, and done everything we could possibly think of to get ready for our family to grow, and now it was happening.

We went to AZ to visit with my family over Christmas, we were there for two and a half weeks. It was such a fun break from life and great to celebrate, Christmas and the baby, with my family. My mom and sister wanted to go buy maternity clothes and baby supplies. They both had wonderful words of advice for about what to buy, what to get new and used, what to avoid. It was great. Most of the time we were there we talked about baby. The excitement was so thick in the house, you could almost touch it.

I was sad when it came time for us to go home, but it was ok, we were coming back in 10 weeks for spring break. And in the middle, we were going to find out the sex. We were so excited. We came home and started thinking about how we would change our house around to fit all the baby stuff, and started thinking about all things baby.

Friday, January 24th, we went to dinner with my brother in law. It was an all you can eat, but I don’t think I ate much, but I drank a ton. We went back to our house after dinner, and planned on watching a movie, or maybe playing games with my brother in law. However, shortly after returning home, my water broke. As a nurse, once I realized my water broke, I knew my baby was not going to make it, I was still too early. I was not quite half way, and before 20 weeks, medically they will not ever try to save the baby. I started grieving the loss of my baby that I had anticipated for years and had finally been able to welcome into my heart and family.

Since I was not yet 20 weeks, I knew Labor and Delivery would just send me to the ER, so that is where I headed. Unfortunately, it was early in the evening on a Friday night, so I knew it would be a crazy night. When I got there, every nurse I talked to scoffed at me when I told them my water broke. One even asked if I was sure I did not just pee my pants. I told all of them I was certain my water broke, and they once again scoffed. After about 3 hours, I finally got back to a room. The doctor came in shortly after, I told him what happened, and he was the first person that admitted it sounded suspiciously like my water did in fact broke. But he wanted to do an ultrasound first to see what my fluid level in my uterus looked like. We had to wait about an hour for the ultrasound tech to come in. She did not say much, but verified she saw our baby moving and the heart was still fluttering away. She explained that it would be about an hour or so for the radiologist to read the ultrasound and write a report. So we waited some more, and a little over an hour later the ER doc comes back and said my fluid level is lower than my last ultrasound I had, and is waiting for an OB consult.

It was about 30 minutes for the OB resident to get there. She came in and started talking to us about a few more tests she would run to verify if my water had broken, since fluid level in the uterus can decrease for many reasons. There were a total of three test she needed to run, but I can only remember one specifically - a litmus test. It checks the vaginal pH, since it is usually acidic, and amniotic fluid is basic. However, before running the tests, she wanted to explain some options we had. She explained that some women will choose to try to remain pregnant after their water breaks prematurely, which is possible she explained, as long as the cervix does not start dilating on its own. She explained they do so in hopes of remaining pregnancy at least to where they can save the baby after deliver. She explained the risks choosing to remain pregnant after your water breaks, and if we chose to do that, potentially, the "water" or amniotic fluid could build back up, but until then I would have to be especially careful since I did not have the cushion of protection for my baby...we were starting to get hopeful that maybe we would not lose our baby after all. Once she explained all this, she proceeded to do the last few checks to see if my water had in fact broken, even though I already knew it had. She did the litmus test and explained, “I really don’t need to do the other tests because you are already dilated to almost 3 cm and I can see your baby’s foot. But legally I need do the last two tests to verify.” And with a few words, all the hope I had gained in the last few minutes was dashed. After the last two tests also verified my water had broken, she explained they would admit me to Labor and Delivery, as I would have to deliver my baby. It was about another 20-30 minutes before I was transferred. By this point it is about 3 am Saturday morning.

Once I was admitted,  I was given some medication to help induce labor. In between doses, my husband and I slept. About 8am, we decided to call and let me parents know what was going on, since I decided not to call them in the middle of the night when we found out. My mom said she would be leaving shortly to come be with us. I was looking forward to having my mom come help me heal from my loss.

Shortly after 8am, I delivered my precious baby, he was stillborn. After delivery we found out it was a boy. We named him Adam Michael, the name we had picked for our first son many years prior. He was named after my brother, his uncle, Adam Michael, always with the intent that we would call him Michael. The ironic part is that my brother Adam was also born prematurely and only lived for a few minutes after delivery. 

Anyway, back to our story, the nurse got the on-call doctor, who came in and cut the cord and began to encourage me to push to get the placenta delivered. After about 15 minutes, we were told sometimes in premature deliveries the placenta takes longer to come out as your body tries to figure out what happened, since you should not be delivering yet. So they said they would return in a little bit to check on me. As we waited, we had the great privileged to hold, cuddle and love our son. He remained with us as we took picture and admired how absolutely perfect his body looked. He was perfect in every way! Our son has eyelashes, fingernails and toenails, and muscle definition -- at 17 weeks gestation. As I looked at my beautiful, perfect son, it saddened me that abortion is legalized, and they can continue to get abortions at the stage of pregnancy I was at, especially now seeing how perfectly formed these precious babies are even so early in pregnancy. About an hour after delivery, my brother-in-law came by for a visit. As all three of us admired, we started noticing features he favored from me and my husband – my hands, my husband’s shoulders, my nose, my husband’s feet. It was so fun to get the time to notice those things! The nurse would return about every 10-15 minutes and check on me. My placenta did not want to release from my uterus, in the meantime I continued to bleed with some pretty big clots. After about an hour and a half or longer of waiting for the placenta, the doctor came in and explained that I was losing too much blood and needed to have a d&c to remove the placenta and get the bleeding to stop. I agreed and signed the consent form. I left my precious baby in the capable hands of his father and was wheeled away to the OR.

About 2 or so hours later, I woke up in my room again. My brother in law had left, but had told my husband he would probably be back, and my grandma was in the room talking to my husband and admiring my beautiful son. My husband told me that the procedure took longer than anticipated because even after removing the placenta, they could not get me to stop bleeding and tried various means to get the bleeding to stop. The nurse then explained, they ended up using a bakri balloon, which basically inflates and applies direct pressure on the inside of the uterus to get the bleeding to stop. From my rotation in nursing school, I know that the bakri balloon is used as a last resort to stop hemorrhage, which told me I had lost a lot of blood and they could not get the bleeding to stop any other way, later I found out that I had and estimated blood loss of about 1.5 liters. As I was being told all this, I start to feel aweful contractions and NEEDED pain meds NOW. The nurse was very prompt, but while I waited I looked to my husband and told him if this is what labor feels like I am definitely getting an epidural next time. The nurse returned with some pain medication, and promptly fell asleep for about one hour. When I woke up the pain was gone. And I promptly requested to hold Michael again. I continued to admire and love this little guy, and he was just as perfect as I had remembered. As I held him, I chatted with my grandma. I was so grateful for her loving and peaceful presence.

My grandma left about the same time my husband’s other brother came. I could tell he was visibly shook up over the loss. We talked to him and helped calm his emotions, because as sad as it was, there was a peace that it would all be alright and that God was watching over us. And I knew that if God was watching over us, then everything was happening just the wait it was supposed to, according to His great plan for us. Just after he has been there for about 20 minutes, my sister and niece came for a visit. It was so nice to have so much family support. We all passed Michael around, all admiring how beautiful and perfect he was. My husband and I pointed out all the things we had noticed that Michael had inherited from his parents, and they all agreed.

As their visits ended, I was told my my nurse, that I was stable enough after the surgery that I could not be transferred to the maternity unit. So we were transferred and with no visitors decided to catch some sleep, since neither of us slept more than a few hours the night before. Then one of our dear friends, Karen, came by for a visit and stayed for about 30 minutes and left shortly after my parents arrived.

Once again, my parents admired with us how absolutely perfect our son looked. How his little body was so perfectly formed was and pointed out all the similarities we had noticed. IT was fun to once again share with those we loved our precious Michael. As we admired and talked, our other good friends, Matt and Emilie stopped by. We all sat and talked and admired. It was so great to have so much support during this time of trial and sadness. Having so much support definitely helped my husband and me cope with the loss of something we had so looked forward to for years. Our final visitors left around 11pm. My husband and I finally got more than just some quick cat naps. Early in the morning, the nurse came in and removed the Bakri balloon and said she would keep watching for bleeding. Fortunately, I no longer had any serious bleeding occur. After the balloon was removed, I began to walk around the hall. As I was walking, I ran into one of the OB residence that had worked with me yesterday, and he was shocked I was walking since I had so much blood loss the day before. Honestly, I felt fine, maybe a little weak, but fine to walk. I took the time to ask him a few questions and was grateful for the time to talk to him.

After walking, I returned to my room and woke my husband up enough to convince him to join me in my bed. We fell back a sleep for a bit and then my parents returned to the hospital about the same time the doctor came and told us I would be leaving later that morning. And surely we were able to go home just before lunch. When we finally were heading home, a flood of sadness overwhelmed us because I delivered my baby, but had to go home without him. But that sadness did not last long as we had another slew of people come visit the whole afternoon. And our dear friend Emilie brought us delicious homemade lasagna and went to bed early that night.

As I fell asleep that night, I was so grateful for all the support and love we had received throughout the whole weekend. We are truly fortunate for all the wonderful people that have been there to support and love us throughout our journey of infertility, pregnancy and loss.