His Story

So back to the stories of my kids…
Fast forward a few months and you find us in early summer of 2005. Wade's grandfather was dying and we decided that it would be great if he at least got to meet one more great-grandchild before he passed. We decided to have another baby.

We didn't have any trouble conceiving Brandy...in fact, we weren't trying, so we just stopped the prevention. Month after month went by and then our perspectives changed from "stop preventing" to "start trying". Months passed. I started charting temperatures. I even went so far as to research pressure points that are supposed to help with fertility.

I finally decided to make an appointment with my OB for my yearly physical and I figured I would at least discuss the pregnancy issue at that time. The next available appointment: 8 months away! Are you kidding me!? I decided to call and talk to the nurse. I was more or less told that unless we had been trying for well over a year that they didn't even want to hear about it…nothing else mattered even if there were perceived problems that could be causing difficulties. Some time passed and after researching some insurance options we would be taking when I did get pregnant I found that my OB wouldn't take that insurance anyway, so I decided to find a new doctor. I found the greatest OB in the whole world! I explained the situation and they made me an appointment. The doctor spent a good hour with me on our first visit and it was discovered that I had a fairly large cyst on my ovary. I was put on some medication and told that if in a month it was still there then the next step would be to remove it. A month later I had surgery to remove the cyst, and I also had some endometrial tissue removed. 3 months later I was pregnant!

We were so excited and so nervous. I already had one pregnancy with complications, and a child born with heart problems. Once you have a child born with heart problems it greatly increases the chances you will have another one with heart problems. We entered into the pregnancy with anxious anticipation, hopeful that everything would be fine. We even had that handful of well-intentioned people "reassure" us that nothing could go wrong, lightning only strikes once....

Everything was going well. I started taking Progesterone shots at about 17 weeks. We had several ultrasounds, and at our 20 week ultrasound we learned that indeed our baby's heart looked normal! We also found out that we were expecting a little boy! Yea! Oh how excited we were.

At 21 weeks it all began to crumble...our hopes...our dreams...our peace. I began to bleed. I called my OB and was sent to the hospital to be checked. I wasn't having contractions and the nurse checked me. She said she couldn't really find my cervix, but she really thought everything was just fine. I went home. The next morning I bled some more. I called the OB and begged for him to check me. The nurse (who is awesome) said, "yes, when can you be here?" I said I could be there in about 40 minutes. I called my husband, picked him up from work and off we went.

When we got to the hospital I stood up out of the car and a very sharp pain stabbed me in the side. I never told anyone. I knew something was wrong. The doctor checked me and immediately pulled back. He explained that my bag of waters was "right there" and that although it was still intact the chances of saving this baby were very slim. We went immediately next door to the hospital.

I was put in bed with a catheter and IV fluids and they put me on top of my head hoping that the bag of waters would gradually make its way back where it belonged so the doctor could get a rescue cerclage stitch around my cervix.

That evening the doctor came to do the procedure and his nurse from the clinic came to see me and offer her encouragement. I could tell Dr. G wasn't feeling very hopeful about the situation, but he was going to try everything. The procedure was a success!

So the plan was to make it 10 more weeks until I reached 32 weeks. According to the doctor’s charts I was currently at 22 weeks, but I knew from my charting when we conceived and that I wasn’t quite to 22 weeks yet.

I didn’t make it 10 more weeks. I only made it 10 more days.

The night of day 9 a “friend” came by to see us, and she went on and on about how everything was going to be okay and that we didn’t have anything to worry about and she was hoping that I would just lay in that bed (remember I still had to lay flat or even a little head down) for not just 10 more weeks but until I made it past 40 weeks! She kept saying things like, “I hope you have a monster of a kid…9 pounds or more!” Aaaah! Oh that didn’t settle well with me at all. I wanted to stay in bed for as long as it took to have a healthy baby, but the idea of staying flat in bed (do you know how difficult it is to eat laying flat) for more than 10 weeks much less to deliver a huge baby was definitely not what I had in mind. That night I went to bed feeling very restless, praying that I would have a healthy baby but that I also wouldn’t have to lay in bed forever. It was a rough night.

For a long time I partly blamed that “friend” for getting me so upset, and I know that is absolutely ridiculous. For a long time I felt guilty for ever feeling so selfish that I wasn’t totally willing to lay in that bed for weeks on end. But then I remember that God is totally and completely in control of everything. He is the giver and taker of life, and I will never give credit to anyone else but Him for what happened next!

The next morning, February 11, 2007, I wasn’t feeling very well. I had been bleeding off and on since arriving at the hospital, but this day was different. I was bleeding more AND I was having contractions. The nurse kept giving me Brethine which helped for awhile. Eventually though the contractions started coming stronger and more frequently despite the Brethine. I was moved upstairs to L&D. The labor pains were relentless and the contractions were coming so frequently that I felt like I never could catch my breath. They started Mag and laid me head down hoping to stop everything and keep my baby inside a few more weeks. I fought hard trying to keep that little guy inside, but there came a point when everyone knew he was coming that day.

Around 5:30 p.m. my baby boy was born via emergency C-section weighing a mere 1 pound 8 ounces. According to the charts he was born at exactly 24 weeks gestation. The only glimpse of him I got was as they rolled the incubator passed me. I saw a small bundle of blankets in the middle…too small to see a baby. Was my baby really that small?

Ryan was in the NICU a total of only 90 days. He was born February 11th and he went home on May 11th. He was on the ventilator for just over 2 months (2/11-4/12). He was on the bili lights for at least that long. He never had to be on the oscillator and for that we are grateful. He did have his share of problems, and his extremely underdeveloped lungs were the source of most of them. He would de-sat so quickly and so frequently that he gained a name for himself. There was a time when they said he only knew 2 numbers: 70 and 100. He either satted 100 or 70 and he went from one extreme to another in a matter of seconds. His alarm was the one that went off continuously, and it had to be the loudest I think. He had a few minor infections in his lungs related to being intubated and he had an eye infection once. His infections never were life-threatening though. He never had intestinal problems which is amazing. When they started feeding him they never had to stop. When they began feeding him bottles he continued to eat like a champ. He sucked his first bottle down like he had just been waiting all that time for that bottle. I started kangarooing with him when he was just a couple weeks old, and to this day I think that had a MAJOR affect on how well he did. I am a huge believer in kangaroo care and if I could I would do everything possible to convince all hospitals of the importance of early kangaroo care. I held him for 2 or 3 hours every day.

There were days when we went home crying. There were days when we left not knowing if we had just said our last good-bye. There were days when we mourned for our friends who had to leave the NICU for the last time with empty arms. There were days when we rejoiced with families who were leaving with their precious little miracles, and there were days when we wondered if we would ever get to be that family. Finally, on May 11th, we were that family and we took our 4 pound 4 ounce little boy home with oxygen and an apnea monitor in tow. He truly is our little miracle! To God be the glory....forever and ever!