Sis's Journey

This is a long one.

On July 27, 2013, we found out that I was pregnant again! We spent the morning at the zoo, then in the afternoon went to visit our horse, then stopped at Lowe's to look at some kitchen appliances.

While shopping, I was famished and told Jay I was starving. He immediately said, 'Are you pregnant?' Given that we'd only been trying for a month, the thought really hadn't even entered my mind. My husband, however, clearly remembered 'bear mode' from my pregnancy with Loop- I would hit points of suddenly being famished and would be a nightmare for everyone until I ate. Bear mode. We went through a drive through on the way home for some fries and picked up a pregnancy test. I didn't even follow all the instructions of waiting until morning, etc. I just took the test. Yep, pregnant! I took another one the next day just to be sure, but it was positive too. We were elated. We also immediately started talking about baby as though it was a girl, though it would be many weeks before that was confirmed.

At our 12 week appointment, the ultrasound tech said she has a 95% accuracy rate of identifying the gender. So, we asked her for her guess. Girl. She said, 'Don't go buying anything. We will confirm at your next appointment, but I'm pretty sure it's a girl.' We didn't completely follow her advice- we went and bought a stuffed pink bunny and just knew it was a girl. That was confirmed at my 14week ultrasound.

At that time, we also discussed with my doctor whether I would need to go back to the high risk doctors due to my possible cervical incompetence, which you can read more about here. My doctor didn't think it was necessary, as everything looked good. I, however, said that I did not mind and would rather be safe than sorry. Accordingly, she referred me over and I had my first ultrasound over there at 18 weeks.

At 18 weeks my cervix was a tiny bit shorter.  The doctor wasn't overly concerned, but decided that I should come back in one week rather than two just to be safe. I went on that week, business as usual. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. No pain. Nothing that alarmed me.

On November 12, we went in for another ultrasound. Because of the concern the week before, I brought Jay. I was a little nervous and thought maybe they would tell us that I needed to schedule a cerclage to stitch my cervix and keep it from getting shorter.  The moment the ultrasound began, the tech looked concerned and rushed out of the room. The doctor came in immediately and did the ultrasound. What she said didn't make sense at first. "Your cervix is down to nothing," she said. I didn't understand. I was in shock. She asked what kind of car we had. What? Why? She said that we needed to go to the hospital immediately and wanted to make sure that I could lie down the entire way. If I could not do it in our car, she was calling an ambulance. I lost control a bit at that moment. She checked me and I was dilated 5cm and effaced. That is what you hear when you are in full on labor. I was at 19 weeks. My baby girl was not even close to viable. She was the size of a tomato or a mango. I was feeling her move and kick and flip. This could not be happening. The doctor did an emergency amnio to confirm whether that was any infection. If there was an infection, they would induce me and we would lose our little girl. If there was no infection, they would do an emergency cerclage and pray.

I was hysterical. Inconsolable. How could this be happening?  They wheeled me down to our car and Jay drove us to the hospital as fast as he could. Meanwhile, he also made the calls that I couldn't. He called my mom and my boss. I cried the entire way. The doctor we met at the hospital was wonderful. She was upbeat, cheerful even and in a time of pure fear and desperation made me feel like this was going to be okay. The amnio came back clean, so we had the go ahead for surgery to put in a cerclage. Unfortunately, we'd stopped for lunch before going to the doctor, so I had to wait until the evening before anesthesiology would okay the procedure. We waited. And waited. And worried. And waited. At shift change, a new doctor introduced herself and told us our anticipated surgery time. Jay then ran out to pick up Loop, get him home and meet his sister who would stay with him so that Jay could be at the hospital.

After Jay left, the doctor came back. She told me the really bad, scary odds of how this would turn out. This type of cerclage, called a "rescue cerclage" usually gave moms about 4 weeks. That would put Sis at 23 weeks. Maybe viable, probably not. The procedure had a high likelihood of breaking my water. If that happens, baby is induced and we lose her. Any hope that Happy Doctor had instilled was now dashed. I clutched my little belly and cried. Pessimist Doctor asked me the question that I never considered. "Do you want to terminate." I looked at her, I looked at my nurse sitting quietly beside me, and I looked down at my little belly. Baby Sis was moving. She was alive and I loved her. I said no. I didn't need to ask Jay. I didn't need to think about it. This little girl wanted me to know that she was a fighter and I was going to give her any chance I could. Even if it failed. Even if we lost her. I couldn't just give up. I am still bothered by this conversation. I don't know if she purposely waited for Jay to leave. Maybe she did this a courtesy. Maybe some people want this option but are too afraid to ask. Maybe she wants to be sure that a mom isn't pressured by her husband or anyone else. To say the least, it was extremely upsetting and led to a tear filled call to my mom, and an angry husband when he returned to find his wife in shambles.

I got it together and around 9:00pm we went in for surgery. I'll leave out the details, but everything went as well as it could have. My water did not break. I did not go into labor. The nurse practitioner could see Baby Sis's foot during the procedure. I still can't believe that. Two stitches were places to secure my cervix and they were able to close it.

Long story short, I spent a week in the hospital laying in bed away from Loop.  

Loop brought me flowers when he came to visit at the hospital

Some treasured snuggles with my boy in my hospital bed.

I spent another two weeks on bed rest, another two or three weeks on modified bed rest and then was cleared for normal life again once we were well into the third trimester. Those stitches stayed put! We are still so incredibly grateful that, despite her conversation with me, Pessimistic Doctor did her job and did it well. She saved Sis. 

Loop giving Sis some love at 34 weeks

On Friday, March 14, the cerclage was removed. We had reached 37 weeks and Sis was cleared for arrival.

On Wednesday, March 19, I went in for a normal check up, found out I was 5cm dilated and 80% effaced! A short seven hours and easy (and I mean EASY) delivery later, we met our sweet baby girl!

 At 6 pounds, 15 ounces and 19.5 inches long, Sis was perfect, healthy and doing great. Though she was early, everything was perfect and we took her home two days later, thankful for our little miracle and glad to be a success story that can be told to the next mom arriving in tears, scared to death. 

 

My beautiful baby girl!

Summer 2013

I doubt anyone is still reading this, given that I've so thoroughly neglected it, but I will continue to write, even if it is just for me...

I left out an important detail of our life in my last post. Well, really two important details that coincide a little bit. 

On June 9, 2013 a car crashed into Loop's bedroom.

Yes, we were home. Yes, Loop was in his room. It was the scariest thing that has ever happened to me and I will never fully get over it.

Thankfully, all that could have gone horrifically wrong did not.

Loop stayed safely in his crib, though it was hit by his changing table, which was hit by the car. Had we been changing his diaper or rocking him to sleep, this story could have been very different. The driver was not injured or killed. Though I still hold a lot of anger toward this man and would like a sincere apology, I am thankful that my house did not kill him. The next few days were a wake-up call. A freak accident nearly turned our world inside out. A stupid mistake could have taken my baby away and there was nothing I could do about it.

















Besides a near mental break on my part, a few weeks living out of hotels, and a lot of hassles, everything was okay and we all came out of it unscathed. We quickly had a realization that life is not a promise, we can't control everything, and sometimes you just have to take a chance. This led to our decision to try for Baby #2. We'd been discussing when it would be right, what we wanted to accomplish first, etc., but on June 10 decided that we needed to just give it a chance and hope that everything would be okay. I didn't want to wait and miss an opportunity at another amazing gift.

Hence, our second big detail left out of my prior post- I found out that I was pregnant on July 27.

Though a bit shocked at how quickly that happened (it took over 8 months to conceive Loop), we were ecstatic and both thought immediately that this time it was a girl. Our ultrasound tech guessed 'girl' at our 12 week appointment, and her guess was confirmed at our 16 week visit- we were expecting a GIRL! We were thrilled and couldn't wait to meet Jack's baby sister. I will share more details about my pregnancy in my next post, as it was a bit more of a roller coaster than Loop's!