Do you want to know what pain is? The real true definition of pain? Pain is holding your baby boy as his skin grows cold and life leaves his little body. Pain is when there's nothing they can do to save him because he's too premature to attempt a tube. Pain is knowing there was nothing wrong with your child at all, but it was your body who failed him. I've decided I hate my cervix and all it's insufficiency. My little boy, his name is Austen (yes after Jane Austen herself) and he's a sweet angel in heaven.
Austen was born at just 18 weeks 6 days on February 3rd, 2014 at 10:11 am. He weighed 8oz and was 10 1/2 inches long. He was tiny but so perfect in every way. My sweet baby boy looked so much like me, he even had the same identical separation I have between my toes =]He was my little miracle. I have PCOS and thyroid disease so conceiving for me has been difficult. I unfortunately went many years without medical and had no idea why we weren't able to conceive until I finally got insurance and seen a doctor who was willing to do whatever testing to find out what was going on. I was put on metformin, got my thyroid under control, made dramatic changes to my diet and lifestyle resorting in almost 40lb weight loss and a few months later I was pregnant. After years and years of trying and every month getting a negative result on a pregnancy test I finally got two lines. I can't even explain the feeling I had the moment I seen a positive result. I guess if I could try I would describe it as Marcus does on the show "About A Boy" as Total Exuberance. My husband and I planned a whole life in those few short months. We imagined trips to the zoo, his first day of school, what things he would like, what he would look like, cuddling him until he fell asleep, his first encounter with our fur babies, taking him to have a Happy Meal, trips to the movies, trips to the park, all the activities we would do together as a family... We planned a life with our child, everyday and every minute of his life, we planned to spend with him watching him grow with each passing year.. we never planned to lose him. In our hearts, our little boy was going to grow up not die in my arms. We didn't even know he was a boy until I delivered him.. We were a few days shy of our big gender ultrasound when it happened.
18 weeks 5 days.. It's Super Bowl Sunday and I just finished watching the game and hubby just got home from work. I had been having a heavy discharge but chalked it up to normal pregnancy stuff. Until I went to the bathroom and wiped and saw pink tinged mucus. I immediately called my OB who told me he didn't think it was anything that required an immediate ER trip, just to come in to a visit in the morning and he'd check me.. Fast forward about two hours later. The mucus is now tinged with red streaks. RED BLOOD. Definitely not normal, so we head to the ER. No serious pains or anything so I'm thinking I lost my mucus plug but I've read they regenerate, or I have some kind of infection. By the time I get checked I'm told I'm 2-3 cm dilated and given two options, either wait and see or sign termination papers!! UMMM TERMINATION PAPERS! NO way! They put me upstairs in a room where I'm there maybe an hour or two at the max and I start having a lot of pressure on my tail bone actually tmi but I kept feeling like I needed to number 2! I call for a nurse and tell her this and her facial expression is not good and she has a doctor come in who tells me she needs to check me. After checking me she tells me I have no cervix whatsoever and I need to be moved to labor and delivery immediately. I think that's the exact moment I went into shock. I started shaking uncontrollably and feeling extremely nauseous.. It was real, We were losing our baby :'( I kept having to pee and while going I felt liquid that just coming and coming. I was given pain meds at that time and I don't know how much later but I was asked again if I wanted an epidural (the first time I said No and I'm not sure why, fully aware me would have said yes straight away) So my OB recommends I get one incase later I have a retained placenta (a WHAT?!) I receive my epidural and I swear it went so fast and I was ready to push. After delivering Austen the doctor who was my OB's relief has this concerned look on her face and that's when I knew something was wrong. My placenta was stuck and she needed to remove it manually (with her hands) so she begins to rip it out of me.. I explain it like that because that's exactly how it felt. It was so incredibly painful and traumatizing. I yelled for my husband to leave because It wasn't coming out and the pain was so intense. I just didn't think that was something he should have to witness. I didn't want him to see me in pain like that, I was worried about him and how it might effect him. I think my epidural had begun to wear off because I felt everything. The doctor makes an emergency call to anesthesiologist to come give me more pain relief. At this point she has a very concerned look on her face and starts yelling for people to come. Next thing I know there's a bunch of nurses, people with these hats on that are tied in the back, a nurse with a ultrasound machine.. She's (the doctor) telling the anesthesiologist to give me something very strong and he's telling her he gave me as much as they give a patient for a c section, she tells the nurses to grab my legs, people are pushing on my stomach, she's ripping my placenta out piece by piece and I get to a point where I'm just so tired. She tells me I might need emergency surgery to get the rest out and there are risks.. HUH?! So I find strength from who knows where and I tell her to keep going. I calm myself somehow and finally she gets the last piece out.. I made the mistake after and I looked down.. there was blood everywhere and I mean everywhere. I guess I had started to hemorrhage. All I wanted was to see my son. By the time I finally got to hold him he was fighting to stay alive. My husband was able to see him moving his legs and hands, I unfortunately was not able to witness him with that much life due to my placenta complication. I held him, told him how much I loved him, kissed his tiny face, and prayed to God to allow my parents and my husbands grandpap to come down from heaven and carry him home to Jesus. He passed right after that. I could feel my moms presence, I knew she was there and he was going home with our Father where he would never have to feel pain, shed no tears, and have eternal life looking down on his mommy, daddy, and family.
I've stood over my mothers hospital bed as breast cancer took her last breath. I stood over my father's hospital bed as he was strapped down, completely mentally gone and pulling his tubes out and dying from lymphoma. I've witnessed more traumatizing things in my 30 years of life then most have in their entire lives. BUT nothing compares to losing your child. No one gets pregnant to leave a hospital without their child.. NO PARENT should ever have to go to a hospital pregnant and leave with their arms empty. The pain is so extreme sometimes I don't even know how I breath.. You have to sit and watch all your pregnant friends deliver healthy, full term babies and the joy they have being a parent and you don't get to have that.. you don't get to hold your child in your arms.. Then there's the friends who are still pregnant and having baby showers, buying baby things, taking belly shots.. and your there crying because that should be you too. I'm EXTREMELY happy for all our friends and family but I'm not gonna lie and say it doesn't make me miss my son and what I should of had. It's painful to see everyone so happy when your heart is hurting and aching for that same happiness.. It's hard. There's not a single second of the day that I don't think of him, miss him, and ache for him. It's a good day when I can actually fall asleep at night (it's very rare these days) Most nights when I lay my head down all I can think about is him and that when I wake up it's another day I have to spend without him.. The only thing helping me is the research I've been doing on Incompetent Cervix. Sure I tell everyone I'm ok but really I'm dying inside. If it weren't for my drive and my desire to beat Incompetent Cervix I'm sure I'd be in even worse shape. The hope I have keeps me moving forward somehow. You can never let anything defeat you. My next child will come home in a brand new car seat with every kind of safety thing they sell. and when he or she is old enough I'll tell them all about their angel brother who watches over them from heaven with their grandparents and family.
I've done my research and found what surgery I think is best for me. I'm going for a surgery called a TAC. Transabdominal cerclage with a surgeon in Chicago. This surgery gives you basically 100% chance of making it to full term or very close. All I'm waiting on is my insurance to approve it. If everything goes through, May 12th I'll have it done and I'll never have to worry about losing another child due to an Incompetent Cervix. This surgery is performed prior to pregnancy and is permanent, so we can have as many children we want and each time it still has the same percentage of success. I have my heart set on this surgery so I'm really praying everything goes through.
Well if you read through all of that I greatly appreciate it. I just had to do this, had to tell my story.. Austen's story. I leave you with a quote
"There is no foot so small that it cannot leave an imprint on this world"
