Well, I just finished the data transfer, and I am exhausted. Who knew transferring dates from one planner to another could be so emotionally exhausting?! In one evening, I just relived this entire tragic, triumphant, traumatic year. Don't get me wrong, I am always a little nostalgic going into a new year, and more than a little excited about the promise of a new year and a new calendar full of days that will soon be filled with dinners, plans, and birthday parties. But this year. ..this year so much has happened, and I have to admit I'm more than a little wary of a new year full of blank days where the unthinkable could just as likely happen as not. I am still an optimist at heart, but I guess the last shreds of that innocent childlike hope and belief that truly bad things don't happen in our life is gone. I believe that things work out for our good, and that good things come out of bad situations, but I now know that sometimes devastating, terrible things DO happen in our lives, and it's up to us to survive them and find the good.
Many of you know our story, or at least the general pieces of it, but I didn't start this blog until well into our stay at ETCH, so I will take this time to reflect on how we got here since I just got done reliving it myself.. Our journey actually started in July 2010 when we found out we were pregnant for the first time. Everything was off from our first doctor's appointment. We went in for our 7 week ultrasound only to find out that I have a uterine malformation, which is a fancy, somewhat nicer way to say that it is shaped funky. It turns out it is "heart shaped", which, again, is a nice way to describe something that I consider very ugly. The visit didn't go well; the baby looked 2 weeks less developed than it should and all I was told about my newly discovered uterus was to "Google "bicornuate uterus" and "uterine didelphus". That information came from the ultrasound tech; my doctor at the time didn't even meet with us. Two weeks later at a follow up visit, we found out we had lost the baby, and I had a D&C later that day. I was heartbroken, lost, and unsure of what came next. I am thankful that my mom has talked to me extensively throughout my life about miscarriages that she had; thanks to her, I knew in my heart it wasn't my fault, and I knew that they were actually incredibly common. I spent the next few months lining up with a specialist to determine exactly which type of uterine malformation I had (One kind can easily be fixed with outpatient surgery, the other can not). Mine turned out to be the kind that can't be fixed, but the good news was that it generally doesn't lead to miscarriages. It does lead to a higher frequency of preterm deliveries (A little foreshadowing here, I think so!), but with a cervical stitch placed early in pregnancy, the risk of preterm delivery drops to just 20%, not much higher than the national average.
Fast forward to January 2, 2011. After a few months off, we had decided to start trying for a baby again in December. On December 31, 2010, we moved into a new house, and on January 2 we found out we were pregnant again! Talk about a new year and a new life!! We were incredibly excited, and I quickly went to the specialist to see how things were looking. We were right on track! We would see the specialist through the first trimester, at which point I would get my cerclage to help hold the baby inside in case my uterus started to become a problem. Things went relatively well, with just a few first trimester scares; more me scaring myself than anything. We were cruising in the second trimester! Energy was back, morning sickness was gone, and Baby Humphreys looked amazing! At 16 weeks we confirmed that "it" was a "she", and on vacation at 20 weeks, we dubbed her "Addison Lane". My new OB/GYN was watching us a little more closely than normal, but she did release me to travel outside of the country and to do some mild / moderate exercise to help relieve stress. So, we travelled to the Caribbean for a "Baby Moon", and I exercised 3 days while we were there. I thought I had been feeling some "tightening" prior to the trip, and I had asked the doctor about it, and she dismissed it as Addie moving around my uterus. Space was tighter than normal since she only had half of my uterus to live in; she was housed in the left side of the "heart". I felt more and more tightening, especially with activity, while we were gone and it continued when we came home. I was anxious for my follow up at the doctor to confirm that things were ok. ..I just had a bad feeling about the trip and my activity, but trusted that things would be "ok". And. ..they weren't. I had started to efface past the point that they were comfortable, so they said they would start monitoring me more closely. They told me again that the increased "tightening" was nothing to worry about; that it was just Addie's head pressing up and into my ribs. I wasn't placed on bed rest, but my activity was definitely cut off. The next day Monday, I was continuing to be uncomfortable and started to sense something was wrong. ..on my way out the door to see the doctor I noticed some bleeding and knew then that things were not ok. Crying, I went to the doctor's office, and they confirmed that I was almost down to just the cerclage keeping Addie inside. They placed me on bedrest, and reassured me again that the tightening was just Addie moving. The next day, after a relatively peaceful morning spent talking to friends who had been in similar situations, the afternoon brought more tightening - or contractions as we now know. By 6 pm, I was hurting, and we went to the hospital. They quickly identified the contractions, placed me in trendelenburg position (feet up higher than my head), and started pushing magnesium sulfate to try to stop the contractions. ..
The doctor on call was not my doctor, but I'm forever thankful for her. She came in and took charge. She examined me and Addie, told me she didn't know if she could help me, that ETCH may not be able to help us since Addie was only 22 weeks and 5 days at this point, and that she was going to call the perinatologist on call to see if he thought he could help if they could get me to Fort Sanders. I know that all sounds negative, but she was honest, and her fear for me and my baby pushed her to push the EMT's and everyone else to get us transported to the Fort as soon as possible. Enter Dr. Roussis, perinatologist at Fort Sanders. Thank God for Dr. Roussis. He more than doubled the mag sulfate (miserable, miserable medicine, but it saved Addie's life so I love it), and had them send me immediately to the Fort. He said he thought he could help me and Addie. I will never, ever forget that big bear of a man coming into my room at Fort Sanders, strolling to my bedside, sitting down, and asking me what the fuss was about, and why on earth was I laying with my feet elevated and my head down. I explained what I knew about my uterus, trendelenburg, and what had happened. He smiled at me, patted my hand, and told me I didn't need to lay like that. He then drew a picture of my uterus on a marker board, and explained false labor versus true labor. The magnesium sulfate had stopped the contractions, so it was false labor. He said if it had been true labor, there was nothing he could have done to stop it. He prescribed a number of other medicines to help ease the contractions, my pain, and put me to sleep for the night. ..it was well after midnight at this point. I will say that if you've never had magnesium sulfate before, it does a number on your body. You feel hot like you've never felt hot before. You are as thirsty as you've ever been in your life, but you can't have anything to drink because all of the muscles in your body are slowed down to the point of stopping, including your swallow reflexes, your stomach and your intestines. So, no food, no water, no nothing. I imagine it's a little like the sensations one must feel in hell. ..and the next day! You feel like you've been hit by an 18-wheeler. The worst flu aches of your life. But I would do that all again, and I am eternally greatful for it because it saved sweet Addie. It helped buy her a few more weeks.
That was the first night of 25 that I would spend at Fort Sanders. I wish I could have spent so many more there. ..from there it was a daily battle for my sanity and for Addie's life. I didn't allow phone calls or texts or Emails; any stimulus seemed to bring on more contractions. I missed and needed my friends, but even talking to Jenny or Joey brought on a flood of tears which brought more contractions. By May 18, they thought I was stable enough to try to redo the cerclage since that was all that was keeping Addie inside. Unfortunately, although the cerclage was successful, my water broke. Fun fact - you can carry a pregnancy for several weeks thanks to modern medicine, even after your water has broken. I managed to make it another week and a half. Addie was born on May 30, 2011, at 7:45 pm.
It was a pretty nice day, and I even started it joking with Dr. Stephens that his other patients needed to behave and let him enjoy his Memorial Day because Addie and I were certainly not going to be bothering him. Little did I know that contractions would continue to pick up, and that by 5 pm I would be back on mag sulfate praying contractions would stop. After a host of meds failed to stop the contractions, they announced that I would be having sweet Addie that day. I have never felt such fear. ..I hated seeing her so smooshed in my uterus without any water to help cushion her existance, but I knew she was still too early at 25 weeks and 2 days. ..I don't know what made them decide we were having her that day. I think I was too scared to ask what had changed... I wish I had because now I wonder if I had asked, if we had given the mag sulfate more time, if we could have bought Addie a few more days. ..They made the decision without the doctor ever examining me. They sent me back to surgery (she was footling breech), and in a blur of tears and terror, Addie was born.
No one tells you what happens when things are going wrong at delivery.. .but when you have a 25 weeker, you don't get to see your baby when she's born. You don't hear a first cry. You don't get any triumphant cheers. You just get some tugging and pulling and then someone hustles away with your baby in hand. You lay there while they start to sew you up, not knowing if your baby is alive in the next room or not. You hold your husband's hand until he can't feel it anymore. There are no pictures, and your mom isn't in the room with you. You are transferred back to your hospital bed and taken back to your room. ..still not knowing anything other than your husband got to glance at her for a second, and she was breathing. For me, my spinal tap was starting to wear off while I was still getting sewn up, so the minutes after I made it back to my hospital room were an agonizing mesh of fear for Addie, distress at what had happened and why couldn't I keep her in any longer, and the worst pain I have ever felt. ..it seemed to take years before they could get a morphine drip in to help with the pain. I'm not one to yell or scream at pain, but there was no way around it here. At some point in all of this, they brought Addie by my room. I was shocked and thrilled because I didn't expect for this to happen. My glasses were gone (Philip accidentally threw them away in the rush after delivery), so I couldn't really see her. ..I just saw a blur of the incubator and a little arm wave, like she was telling me she would be ok... Then your friends who you have missed so much, and your mom, get to come in, and they tell you that it's ok, that they saw your baby, and she was beautiful, and she is going to be fine. ..and you're so happy to see them and a little sad that they've seen your baby and you haven't. ..You're just distraught. . .and then you sleep. You sleep and sleep and never want to wake up because your afraid of what the day will bring. I spent the next 166 days dreading waking up, dreading what the day would bring, afraid that the day before was Addie's last. There is no agony, no pain, no fear that I can compare this to. ..but the next day comes, you wake up, and you get through another day. And now, Addie is home, and getting up isn't nearly as scary. I say all of this to say that you can face the worst thing imagineable, survive it, and come out on the other side.
I'm sorry to relive all of this with you all, but it's theraputic to get it out here. I also hope that somehow it will help other mothers who have had this experience or who will have this experience know that they aren't alone. They aren't the only ones who were cheated of a normal delivery. Others like myself have been there. We are stronger for it. Our babies, the ones who make it, are stronger for it. I am one of the lucky ones. I still have an Addie to cuddle and coo with at home now. More mothers have problems than you realize. That much I learned while in the NICU for 5+ months. So many of us have a hard time, but so few people really talk about it. We are still the minority, though, so you may be the only one in your non-NICU group of friends who had problems. To you, I say you are NOT alone. We have a gift, although it's one no one ever wishes for. No one wants our gift, but we have earned it, and it is our duty to share it. There are others who are out there, and there are others who will come after us. We have to share our story so they know they aren't alone. We have to share our story so they know that you can survive this. We have to share our story so they know that "normal" is all in the eyes of the beholder.
As you can see, 2011 brought me to my knees. It tried to break me, and maybe it did in a way. I have wounds that will never heal, guilt that may never go away, and I know that is all ok. If I was broken, I have started to rebuild. I know that all of it has made me stronger. My faith is stronger. I have leaned on God more than I ever thought possible. I have yelled at Him, cursed Him, and laid myself at His feet. He never once turned me away, and He carried me through every day of those 191 days. There is always hope. Even when life is at it's darkest, when you are praying to survive each moment, let alone each day, there is hope. He can bring any of us through any situation.
I'm not the same person I was in 2010, and I guess that's why 2012 scares me even as I hope that it will be a better year. I now know that things don't always wind up "ok" even when they look bad. ..sometimes things are just bad. But I have learned that we make the best of what happens and we survive, that the victory sometimes is simply in surviving, and I have learned that we are incredibly stronger than we realize. Addie is proof of that. She is stronger than anyone else I know. I still wake up every day because I know that she has been through more than most of us will ever have to go through, and she still wakes up to face the day. I know she works harder than any of us every day, just trying to catch up, trying to live. 2012 is a new year, one in which I hope to see Addie grow, thrive, and tackle so many "firsts". Addie is going to grow up believing there is always hope. She taught me what it truly means to perservere, and I will make sure she understands the importance of hanging in no matter what the situation looks like.
2011 has been a trying year, but at the end, we won the battle. We are here, celebrating a new year. A new battle will rage next year, new struggles will present themselves, but we will get through it together. The challenges of 2011 have brought about so many blessings. Friendships renewed, deepened, strengthened. I have never felt so much love and support. I have never felt so humbled as when we were simply surviving day to day, relying on the kindness of strangers, coworkers, bosses, friends, and family. We are incredibly blessed. .. Actually, we are beyond blessed, and our life is better than we deserve. We don't deserve for Addie to have made it; there were more times than anyone will ever realize when she shouldn't have. But she did, and we are forever greatful she is here with us today. We will spend the rest of our lives enjoying God's greatest gift..
Thank you for letting us be a part of your life. I look forward to sharing more with you in 2012.
God bless!!!!!
Where we were:
Wow. This was beautiful, Rachel. I had chills and my heart ached while reading it...but, I also felt so happy for you throughout, because you are so positive and such a light. Addie is so lucky to have you as a mom!
ReplyDeleteP.S. I LOVE school supplies and new planners, too!!!!!!