Thursday, April 25, 2019

Pregnancy loss and infertility

Sharing my story.... always feels like I’ll miss something. A little about me. I live in CT my beautiful wife, Racheal. I am a relationship manager by day, loving wife and mother by night. 

Mother... A title I have dreamed about since I was a child in pigtails. A place I couldn't wait to be. I would love to share my journey of how I became a mother to Delaney, Tristen and Teegan. 

Like some love stories go, you fall in love, you get married, you start a family, it's all white picket fence storyline and rather boring to the outside eye. However I dreamed of this "boring life for as long as I could remember. I couldn't believe how awesome it was to find out we were pregnant. It was our first iui cycle in Sept of 2012. I remember how anxious I was to pee on the stick for the first time. When it came out positive, I ran outside screaming to my wife, whom at the time was walking our dogs, to tell her. We couldn't believe it! How the hell was this so easy??? Fast forward five weeks and I ended up in the hospital. I was also so lucky to develop Hyperemisis Gravendarum. What the hell was this? Yea I'm the 1% of women whose body produces too many hormones that pregnancy is not a fun place. The pregnancy was hard to say the least, however Racheal and I watched my growing belly. We picked out our theme, Dr Suess. We found out we were having a little girl. Our very own ray of Sunshine. We talked about her in pigtails on the first day of school, and what she would look like. We read to her and told her all about the world she would be coming in to. We counted down the weeks. We decorated her nursery, we washed her clothes, we sang to her. I was almost time! Our baby girl had so much love she would be coming to. We did our baby classes and got prepared for delivery, breast feeding and being a family of three. In a terribly sick pregnancy all we could do was hang on to the fact she would be here soon. In my third trimester I started to gain weight finally. 36 weeks that all changed. Something changed. Something was different. We were blissfully unaware. We were naive. 

At 37 weeks I told our OB that something was wrong. I told her that Delaney wasn't moving as much. She told me that this was normal. She told me that she was running out of space and that "you're carrying a watermelon in the size of a watermelon how much do you think she can move" words that will haunt me for the rest of my life. Here I am a first time Mama, and my dr knows best, right? Wrong! I called the dr two days later and told her I still didn't feel right and she advised me to drink juice to feel her move and she would see me in two days. 

Today was my last day of work, 38 weeks, I can't believe how close it is to meeting our daughter. I hope she loves us. I hope we give her the world. It was my 38 weeks appt and I get to hear my babies heartbeat...except I don't. There isn't one. The nurse couldn't find a heartbeat, a second nurse couldn't find it, the Dr couldn't find it and sent me to get a sonogram. I sat in the sonogram room, alone, afraid, and knowing before anyone could say the words...my baby was dead; my daughter...dead. Babies don't die after 12 weeks? It's too late to have a miscarriage. Everything is ready though. What do you mean there is no heartbeat? The sound of silence walking back to my dr office as I collapse to my knees. How the hell do I call my wife at work and tell her our baby is gone? But wait she is still inside me, what do i do now? My
Hospital bag is at home, do I need it now? 

I drove myself to the hospital and waited for my wife to get there after her hour commute, I waited for our families to come, all who lived over an hour away. I sat there quiet. Is my baby dead? Or can they save her? My BP started to rise. I had to give birth vaginally. 27 hours of induced labor. Delaney was born. 7:20pm on May 17th, 2013. She is beautiful. She is still. She is perfect. Silence. Complete silence resonated the room. She was here. Our daughter. I'm a mother. Except was I? I became extreme eclampsic and coded 5 hours after delivery. Super scary. My wife almost lost me after we just said goodbye to our first born. 

The Drs ruled her death as an "unexplained fetal demise" WTF is that! WTF does that mean? No I didn't have a fetal demise. My baby died. My daughter named, Delaney, died! 

After seeing specialists and having multiple tests done, we found out that I have a blood clotting disorder called factor V lieden, I was pre eclampsic and I had a blood infection that went into the placenta and took away the nutrients from Delaney causing her death. 

Life after that was no longer about me. It is about her. I live and I love for her. I'm a warrior mother. I have this strength and I know it's her. I call it my Delaney strength. Grief is a life long journey now. Cycles and hamster wheels of balancing life and loss at the same time. 

Since losing her in 2013, we did 7 rounds of iui in 2014, the last one ending in a miscarriage in October of 2014. How did this happen? Were we ever going to have a rainbow baby? We went on to seek adoption and quickly learned it wasn't for us. After one more round of IVF, we found out we were having twins. Two boys. Another scary pregnancy with Hyperemisis. This time watching every thing as though these babies would die on me too. Living most days hour by hour. I developed a condition called Colastasis and again pre eclampsia. My body was literally trying to kill my boys! Not again! The difference is that now I had a voice. Now I knew what to look for, now I wasn't afraid to push back on my drs, I wasn't afraid to march my ass to labor and delivery for a piece of mind. This time I have Delaney watching us. 

Our rainbow babies were born via emergency c section on April 6th, 2016. Almost three years after we kissed our daughter. I know she protected us all. Against all odds, with my body trying to take them and my life, we survived. She kept us safe. 

Life after loss is no longer about the past. Because there is none. Life as you knew it is over. Life is now about living for and existing. I no longer live for me. My life ended on 5/17/13. I started living for Delaney that day. I live for all three of my children now. All three of my children. My boys will know all about their sister. How she brought them to us and kept them safe. I know our girl is always around. I feel her. And I know that for the rest of our life, she will be. 

Never be afraid to use your voice. Delaney gave me mine. She taught me never to stop pushing for what I believe and to never be afraid to challenge someone else's word. She gave me life because the day she died, I started living for her.