My Story

Today has been nine months since my son died.  I realized I hadn't shared my story yet so here it is......

I was admitted to hospital at 24 weeks from Pregnancy Induced Hypertension (PIH) and Intrauterine Growth Restriction (IUGR) straight from a doctor’s appointment to monitor my blood pressure.  There weren’t any rooms for me so I waited in this tiny little room with a tiny little TV watching the cooking channel.  I thought I was going to explode from anxiety.  The nurses are the only positive part of this disaster.  The ones there that night were SO sweet and made me feel a little less scared.  Once they found a room for me they placed me with another girl who spoke not an ounce of English.  Poor girl had to basically hear me cry ALL night long.  I thought I was going to be sent home but we found out through blood tests that my liver enzymes were elevated.  I was told at that point that I was being admitted and wasn’t going anywhere.  They put me on bed rest and told me if the liver keeps going that way, they will have to take my baby and he won’t make it.  The next day they moved me to my own room since I was going to be an extended stay, I’m sure my neighbor was happy because she wouldn’t have to hear “crying lady next door” anymore. As the days went on, my liver improved and stabilized, however my blood pressure took a bit longer.   I was on several medications to help with the blood flow to the baby as I was told it was the last resort to get the nutrients through to him as he kept falling further and further behind the growing scale. I tried to eat lots of protein, I drank protein shakes at night after dinner to try to help my little guy.  I felt him moving a lot (or what I thought was a lot) so it seemed like he was getting something otherwise he wouldn’t be moving much at all right?  The nurses would even kind of giggle at how much he didn’t like the Doppler and would move lots to try to avoid it.  He had a strong heartbeat and seemed to be doing great, it was just a waiting game.  They started me on a couple rounds of steroid shots for Logan’s lungs knowing that he would be a preemie, his lungs would need that boost in hopes they would be working when he got out.

After about three weeks his heart rate kept taking random dips on the monitor.  Of course that freaked everyone out.  I would try to move to get him back and they gave me lots of oxygen to help.  It worked the first few days, then more dips started to happen.

I ended up having an emergency C Section at 27 weeks and 4 days after finding reverse flow in his brain by an ultrasound, doctors thought he would have a better chance on the outside at that point.  Two hours after my ultrasound finding this, I was in surgery having my son.  He was born at 1 pound and 1 ounce 10 ½ inches long.  I have never seen a baby that small in my life so I really wasn’t prepared for what was to come.  I knew was I wanted him to have a chance at life and I did not want him to die inside of me, but at the same time I know that every day he is inside of me matters.

He did really well on his first day of life, breathing was good (they were actually amazed how good it was for such a little guy) so they took the breathing tube out.  We went and saw him, couldn’t hold him but watched him moving about and even making a fist like he was fighting.  I heard his soft little cry.  Saw his fingers and toes, looked just like his daddies.  He had my nose and ears.  Even though he was jaundiced, discolored, and very bruised he looked perfect.  They mentioned blood transfusions and a bone marrow transplant were in the future so I was signing papers saying go for it.  I knew that it could be a honeymoon phase but they were all so excited I thought maybe he will be that miracle that survives this.  They day after he was born, we had family visiting in our room and a nurse called us into the NICU.   My husband wheeled me in, there were tons of nurses around him and tons of alarms going off.  I knew something was not good.  The doctor came over and told us he was having a brain hemorrhage and coding so it was time.  Before we knew it we were holding our son without any tubes on him basically waiting for him to die peacefully in our arms as we talked to him and kissed his face.  My son even responded to my husband talking to him by blinking his eyes and staring at him while he was talking.  So emotional!  The doctor kept checking his heartbeat periodically and told us she would let us know once he was gone.  It was absolutely the worst nightmare but it was our reality.  We called family and went back to my room where we told everyone that he just passed away.  The shock set in and my world completely changed that day.