Fears...questions...and feelings

A million little things need to be written in order for me to clear my head today. I usually have just one thing that has been weighing on my mind that I need to get out, but for some reason today there are several.

In this crazy world of bloggers I have met some wonderful people. I get emails and comments from total strangers that comfort, pray and sometimes can even relate to my situation. It is amazing that there are so many stories out there like ours. It is therapy to read the outcomes (some good, some sad) of their stories and keep up with them daily. One night I found a blog about a family that had a very similar story to our own. Infertility…Twins…boy and girl…premature labor…precious little boy passed away. I felt connected for the first time in a long time. I did something that I would typically never do…I emailed her. For a few months now we have been communicating back and forth and it is nice. It is so nice to have someone that knows you are not ungrateful for what you have, but you will never “get over” the loss you have experienced. It’s nice to have someone that feels your similar pain. It feels less lonely somehow. Yesterday, during my usual “blog check-up” time (at about 12:45am) I was heartbroken to find news about another fellow blog mom (30 years old, two small children) that was diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma cancer. For the first time since Bennett’s death I was scared of leaving this earth with Ellie left behind… Just like it is hard to imagine living without Bennett every single day, it was suddenly equally as tough to imagine not being with Ellie Grace. It was a reminder to me that this life is a temporary mission. I know that I have so many “jobs” left to complete here in this physical world…and I feel blessed to have the faith to know that.

This brings me to the next random thought.

If you know me well…you know that I am a perfectionist (nice way to say anal). I like to be organized, planned, researched, ordered…you know…everything that life IS NOT! So, when we were doing IVF I researched EVERYTHING. Brandon was often times embarrassed to go into the doctors office with me (and my book of questions) because I asked a million questions, read statistics, asked about future research they were planning to do, etc. I even went so far as to “challenge” my doctor while I was laying on the operating room bed about the number of blastocysts he was going to implant. You see, the odds are only 50/50 that any woman will get pregnant with IVF and he wanted to put in 2 eggs. I thought why waste the time with 2 (we had a total of 7), lets at least put in 3 and see what happens. You can understand why, 2 weeks later, when I visited his office his first words to me were, “I told you so!” Anyway, at 11 weeks and 6 days pregnant I suffered a sever hemorrhage. I was rushed to the hospital the whole while thinking I had miscarried our long awaited miracles. NOPE! It was what they call a threatened miscarriage and I had a 50% chance of losing the babies. After several weeks of complete bed rest I went back to the doctor to be diagnosed with a subchorionic hematoma. I was sentenced to at least 6 weeks of complete bed rest (I had a large hematoma) until the bleed could reabsorb into my body. My fingers were on fire as I researched this rare diagnosis. My doctor told Brandon to pull the plug on our computer b/c it was not healthy for me to spend hours worrying about the odds/outcome of these types of bleeds. So, I obliged and spent the remainder of my bed rest attempting to knit (YUCK) and scrapbook (What was I thinking). At 19 weeks I was finally allowed to get up and return to work (I was an elementary teacher). I worked with my little angels for 7 weeks until my water broke AT SCHOOL at 26 weeks pregnant. After the twins were born I spent endless hours researching prematurity and the complications associated with it. There was ALWAYS something to research as Bennett was the classic “worst case scenario” preemie. It occurred to me a few months after Bennett died that I never really understood what happened with my own body. Why did I hemorage…what is a subchorionic hematoma…did it play a role is my PROM (premature rupture of membranes)…I needed answers. I was disappointed to find out that there isn’t much written about my condition. It occurs in roughly 1.3% of pregnancies…and a few other useless stats. I have only met one person that even had one and I call her the mystery nurse practitioner (she was supposed to be the new NP in Ellie’s pedi office…she was there 1 time at which time I talked to her about the sub. Hemorage and then she never came back…weird!). Long story short I would love to meet/talk to someone else that knows about this rare condition. Is it going to happen again…was it the cause of our PROM…is my next pregnancy likely to be as troubled???

Anyway, like the blogs that I read about families that have lost a child, it would be wonderful to find moms that have had subchorionic bleeds to talk to. If you have had or know someone that has had one of these please feel free to contact me.

We have 5 embryos left and we are praying that just one of them will grow into a healthy baby to join our family. It is a scary time for us. We are once again planning to let go of our control and leave it all up to God. There are just a few questions/fears we need to calm before we move forward. Most of you took the last journey with us and we feel blessed to have you pray with us on this next journey…

Last Friday we went up to the hospital to see Bennett and Ellie’s nurses and bring some books to the hospital. It is always so amazing to see the number of nurses/RT’s/NP’s and other hospital staff members that remember you. The long term preemies are famous in a way. I think it is because they cause the most trouble and they require the largest number of staff members to stabilize them. I think that Bennett will go down in Women’s hospital NICU history. It was awesome to see the nurses that spent endless hours taking the absolute best care of our little angel. It was also nice to see the few that had Ellie during her short stay. We got to see Uncle Chris and Aunty Charlette…always a heartwarming experience. We feel tied to this part of our lives forever b/c they are our only link to the best time of our lives. They are the few that we got to share our greatest loves in life with…they are our family. As we stood in the scrub area in the NICU I could see past the glass pain door to the other precious miracles fighting for their lives. It gave me chills to see the tiny blue knit hat on top of the lemon sized head and legs the diameter of my finger. The nearly translucent skin, the wires, and the IV sites brought back all the memories of our 6 months and 1 day in the NICU. What other definition of bravery is there…I mean when you see a 2 pound baby fighting to survive that is brave! You would think that this experience would detour us from ever trying again to have children…but, I feel like that is where our faith comes in. Are you ever prepared to relive that type of experience…NO…but, at the same time I don’t think we can live our lives in fear of the unknown.

My irritable toddler is reminding me that I have been on the computer way too long! It is a blessing to know that I can type out my fears, questions and feelings to so many faithful friends. Thank you for listening today!