1 Year Later

It is amazing how your life changes when you have a child.  This blog helped me get through my pregnancy with Landon.  There were so many emotions flowing when we had him and still today the flood in at times you least expect it. I have never sat down and wrote about the day he was born.  So I sit her just after celebrating his 1^st birthday (yes he is 1!) reflecting on his first year. 

4-5-12
6lbs 13oz
20.5in
5:22pm

Now, rewind to April 5, 2012.  Eric and I were headed up to Toledo to see our MFM doctor for the last time.  See we had planned a c-section with our regular OB in Defiance on April 10.  At this time in the pregnancy we were seeing both doctors once a week and we were getting ultrasounds in Toledo once a week.   With our MFM doctor we received an ultrasound where he does a complete biophysical of Landon (it measures his heart, legs, arms, head, belly, and umbilical cord flow) as well as a nonstress test.

On that particular day we received the ultrasound first.  The tech came into the room and took a bunch of pictures and went on her way.  Then a few minutes later the head tech came in and said she needed to take a couple more pictures and she would be done.  Well this wasn’t unusual for us as she has come in to our room in the past to double check or to take different angles of something.  Our doctor seemed to be particular and that was fine by us.  So she was in there for what seemed to be 30 seconds and left. 

Then the nurse came into our room and said she was ready for our non stress test.   We went into another room and I was hooked up to the monitor.  I would be hooked up for 20 minutes and in order for us to go home Landon needed to have two heart accelerations within 20 minutes.  The only way this happens is when he moves around.  Well I think he was taking a nap.  The nurse came back in to check on us and “tried” waking him up.  This usually consisted of her pushing on my belly and yelling at my stomach “WAKEY, WAKEY, BABY”  Landon moved around a little and then seemed to settle back into a good spot.  She then asked me if I wanted her to use the “baby buzzer”  If I haven’t told you about the baby buzzer it is AWFUL.  It is this little buzzer they put next to your stomach and buzz in order to wake the baby and let me tell you it scares the crap out of him.  The first time we had that done I thought we was going to come right out of my stomach.  She proceeded to tell me that she didn’t have to use the “baby buzzer” and that she could just let me stay on for another 30 minutes.  So I opted for the 30 minutes.

When she left I grabbed a snack and some juice since this usually wakes him up.  She came back in to check on us and said that everything looked good and she was going to show the doctor the test and she would be back with us.  We explained to her that this would be our last time here since we had a scheduled c-section in 5 days.  She was very happy for us and left the room and said she would be back to send us off.

Then about 3 minutes later a knock on the door and then entered the doctor, a nurse, and some lady I have never seen before.  I instantly started to panic.  At this time we knew that when we would see the doctor that meant something was wrong.  He then said “I told you that I would get this baby out alive and I have noticed a change on the ultrasound and you are going to go up to the delivery floor and have a c-section now.”  WHAT?!?  NOW?!?  I didn’t know what to do or say or think.  Neither Eric nor I asked what he saw on the ultrasound and he had mentioned the umbilical cord flow was not where it should be.  Umbilical Cord…not again…

He then introduced us to the lady that I have never seen.  He explained that she was going to take us to her office so we could call whoever we needed to call and to fill out some paper work.  We had called all of our family and texted some of our friends.  They were all on their way up to Toledo and Eric and I were on our way to the delivery floor.  When we arrived to the delivery floor, the surgeon was there with a team of students…yes it is a teaching hospital.  We met the surgeon and he told us that he would see us in a little bit.  WHAT?!?  We checked in and the nurses acted like it was a normal routine, which I am sure it was probably routine for them, but not for us.  At this point I was still holding strong and then the nurse took us to our room and asked us if we had gotten an Easter basket for a little one…then I lost it.  Yeah a question like that broke me…I started crying because we had not bought him an Easter basket because he was not suppose to be here until after Easter.  Funny how the littlest thing and break you. 

She got us settled into our room and had me change into a gown and strapped me up to the monitor to listen to Landon.  We sat there and she asked us some questions.  Once she learned that I had a snack not too long ago she left and went to talk to the doctor.  She had came back and said we were going to have to wait since I had something to eat.  They told us they were going to continue to monitor Landon and I until about 5:00 and then we were going to go back.  They did not want anything to happen to me if I needed to be put completely under so that is why we had to wait.  So we had to wait and wait.   This gave our families time to get up to the hospital. 

Those couple of hours seemed like FOREVER, I was then taken back to the operating room around 4:30 and Eric joined me.  The whole c-section is for another blog…but long story short he was born with a true knot in his umbilical cord.  After I was cleaned up the surgeon came up to me and said “it was a good thing you got a c-section.”  We were truly blessed.  When we decided to have another child they told us the odds of us having another baby with an umbilical cord issue was very slim…well it happened again, but this time thankfully for all of the monitoring he was delivered safely.  God is GOOD!

35 week checkup

We went back to the MFM doctor and this time they did a full ultrasound with measuring everything even a growth check.  Well our fluid had decreased, but as still in the normal range and everything else looked good.  He weighed in at 6 lbs 3 oz.

Today I am thankful for being pregnant...36 weeks

34 week checkup

Our 34 week checkup was 2 weeks ago…I know I’m little behind.  Anyways we went to the MFM doctor and they did an ultrasound which measured his movements, fluid, umbilical cord flow, and they watched him practice breathing.  Well the doctor came in and told us the my fluid had increased from 16 to 19.2 and wanted to keep an eye on it.  He said that there could be many reasons why it increased, but I was still in the normal range.  Anything over 20 is considered high.  He said that they just wanted to keep an extra eye on the fluid and did not want it to increase. He has also told us that he would like me to deliver at 37 weeks.




Today I am thankful for being pregnant...36 weeks

Biophysical profile

Thursday we had our biophysical profile done.  The doctor said everything looked good so he also had me do a non stress test while I was there.  During the test, it said I had a contraction so they then had to check my cervix.  The doctor came in the room and said everything looked good and that I will be going up to the MFM doctor once a week (every Thursday) and then to the regular OB once a week (every Monday) until this little one arrives. 

He was not very cooperative during his picture session.  He had his hands and feet covering his face, but he was showing off something else during this visit.  The ultrasound tech said “well he wants us to know he’s a boy.” 

Today I am thankful for being pregnant…33 weeks

Non stress test

Monday was our first non stress test. They hook you up to monitors to measure the baby's heart rate and to measure contractions. This is about a 20-30 min test. Everytime he moves I have to push a button. They basically want to see he heart rate increase when he moves so the whole point of it is for him to move. Well they hooked me up and he moved like crazy for the first 5 minutes then he decided to take a nap. They came in and poked at him to see if they could wake him. Well that didn't work so they got got what hey call the "baby buzzer.". They put it on my stomach and sounded this buzzer to scare him...I think it worked. He jumped so bad that I thought he was coming out of my stomach...poor little guy. The test was fine and I will have to get these done 2 times a week until I deliver.

We go back to the MFM doctor tomorrow for our first biophysical ultrasound. This is a big/important ultrasound. It will measure a number of things such as his movements, amniotic fluid, his muscle tone, breathing, and they will look at the flow of the umbilical cord. So prayers for tomorrow.

Today I am thankful for being pregnant...32 weeks

Follow up on grief

This is a follow up from my last post about grieving.  I was debating on where to go with this and I finally have the time to sit down and type.  This post will be about what to say/do and what not to say/do.
Once again this is just from my personal experience and I am sure that there will be things that I forgot or you may not agree with, but this is how I have felt and still feel. 

-First never tell someone “ I know how you feel” because you don’t.  Even to this day I would never tell someone who had a stillbirth that I know how they feel because I don’t know everything behind the scenes.  What I mean about that is that I do not know how long it took them to get pregnant, if they have a support system (family, friends, etc.), if they will be able to have more children and so on.  If I came across someone who has had a stillbirth I would tell them about my story and say “ I know what I have experienced and I can only imagine what you are going through”

-Express your concern…tell them “I’m sorry to hear that this happened.”

-Offer you support, but only offer your support if you truly mean it.  If you tell someone “If you need anything at all just let me know”  then you better mean just that. 

-It’s ok to ask them now and then how they are doing, but be accepting to their responses.  Someday they may say they are fine because they are doing well or they just don’t want to talk about it at that given time.  Then there will be other days if you ask them they will want to talk/cry/scream.

-Be willing to do all the talking or be willing to sit in silence.  Don’t push a grieving person into talking.  Trust me if they want to talk they will come and talk to you.  Sometimes that ‘s all they want/need is someone to sit there and listen. 

-It’s ok to tell them “I don’t know what to say, but I will listen to you.” 

-A grieving person doesn’t feel that someone is going to fix everything so don’t try.  Sometimes trying too hard can make them angry and frustrated. 

-Let them talk about their loss.  When they do talk about their loss join in with them.  It makes them feel better that you remember their loved one. 

-Some different things that helped us get through the first couple of months were what someone of our family and friends did.

They dropped of food, took us out to eat, called, emailed, and texted us.  They just sat with us, watched movies, took us out, etc.  These are some different things you can do for someone who is grieving.

-Continue to provide support for them and I find it especially important during holidays. 

Things NOT to say

-“I know how you feel.” (you really don’t know how someone feels)

-Don’t ever tell someone that they are grieving to long and it is time to get over it and move on with their life.  Once again you do not know how they feel and what they are going through.

-Don’t tell them things like “you should do this…”

There is a lot more that I could write about, but the main point is if you know someone who is grieving offer them support if you can and NEVER tell them “I know how you feel” because you don’t.  I could tell you stories about some of the things people came up to us and said (which tends to still happened to  us to this day).  We have had several inappropriate comments made to us.  I know they probably don’t mean what they say, but just remember words can hurt worse than nothing being said at all.  So if you don’t know of the right thing to say then tell them just that…”I’m sorry I just don’t know what to say."

Today I am thankful for being pregnant...32 weeks :)

My experience with grief

Earlier in my blog I had mentioned that if anyone had any questions about my past pregnancy, current pregnancy or anything in between they could ask and I would discuss it on my blog.  I have had a lot of people talk to me about grieving.  They have asked how I grieved, if I am still grieving, what to say to people who have lost a child, what can they do for someone, etc. 

So I have decided to write about our experience with grieving the loss of a child.  I am not a doctor nor am I a counselor.  All of this information I am going to write about is from MY personal experiences.  Please bare with me as I may ramble or repeat myself, but here goes nothing…

First, I would like to say everyone grieves differently.  I mean some people cry, some people write journals, some people talk to others, some people want to be around others where some people want to be alone.  I can confirm this as Eric and I had completely different ways of grieving. 

After Rylee’s funeral I didn’t not want to see anyone.  I wanted to stay home and that was it.  Eric on the other had felt like he needed to get out and do something and NOT stay home.  Well for the longest time I could not leave Eric’s side.  I don’t know why…maybe the thought of losing him too, but I could not stand to be away from him for the littlest bit. He helped coach baseball in the summer and wanted to go throw batting practice a couple of days after the funeral  then he wanted to go to the game.  I did not, I just wanted to stay home with him.  Well we had discussed what each of us needed and I knew he needed to be with the boys and get out of the house.  So we made the deal of him leaving for an hour to throw batting practice and then we would go to the game together.  If I can give any other couples advice, it would be to communicate with one another on how you feel.  Eric and I had different feelings at different times and we needed to compromise to help each other during this time. 

Quick story…that day he went to throw batting practice and then we went to the game together.  We sat all the way down the fence in the outfield (away from people).  Well there was this family that sat right behind us and they had a little girl named….Rylee.  This was our first time out of the house and you can’t imagine how many stories like this one we have. 

People say that there are “stages” of grief and yes I do agree with this to a degree, but remember that some people will not experience or go throw all of the “stages.”  Also, you may spend a month in one “stage” such as denial and 6 months in another “stage” such as anger.  There is no time limit on grieving.  I can tell you that Eric and I have experienced denial and then anger then denial again and depression and then back to anger.  What I have noticed about  grief is that it comes in waves.  There maybe times where I feel good and then all of a sudden it hits me.  It still does and it has been a year and a half.  The hardest times we experience our holidays, her birthday, and even her due date. 

My best way to describe my grief is like a roller coaster instead of “stages”  The process is full of ups and downs and highs and lows.  The difficult periods should become less intense.  However, there are times that the grief may flare up, especially at certain dates (anniversaries, holidays, etc.)  

My next post will be about things you can do for others during a time of loss.