I see you

I saw you in the grocery store. You were trying to peek discretely, but I saw you anyways. I saw you because I know that look. That heartbroken look. That jealous look. That almost-given-up look. I know that look because I gave that look. To so many moms and babies over the years. Families that had all that I wanted. Because I was so sure that I would not ever have it.

I know that look because I still give it sometimes. To the family that has what I want. To the big brother looking after his little siblings. To the moms who have a handful of kids they're trying to wrangle.

I see you. I wish I could go to you. Tell you it's okay to feel however you feel. But I know you don't want ME to know that you're looking. Peeking. Pretending to do something on your phone, check your cart, anything to make it look like you're ok and not feeling the hole in your heart get bigger and bigger.

I wish I could tell you that your time will come. I wish I knew. I wish I knew for certain when it would happen for you. Because then I could give you comfort. And I wish that we could find something else to fill that void in your spirit. I know what it is to long for something, someone and to be afraid you will never get to meet that someone. I know that feeling. And I wish I could take it from you.

But you'll go through the check-out line, take your groceries home, and go on with your day. But I just wanted you to know that I'm sorry. I see your pain and your longing. And I wish, oh how I wish that I could come up to you, hear your story, and understand your journey. But for now, I'll just tell you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you are enough.

What Happens After You Get Your Rainbow?

Women who have given birth know the routine: you go in for your six week checkup, they give you the ok to resume "normal activities" (aka you can have sex now) and they ask you about birth control, since they really don't want you to get pregnant again right away.

At my 6 week checkup, with Huey peacefully sleeping in the infant carrier, my OB asked me the same question. "What kind of birth control would you like me to prescribe you?"

I nearly laughed in her face. 

Are my broken ovaries not birth control enough??

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Several people have asked me, since Huey's been born, if I "feel better." I'm not sure what they mean by this, other than do I feel that I can get over everything we went through to have him? The answer is, of course, no. 

Just because I have my perfect rainbow baby does not mean that all the pain and hurt and loss we had goes away. The sharpness may be dampened, but it's not gone. It's part of our story and I wouldn't want to erase it, even if I could. 

There are still triggers. While pregnancy announcements don't send me into an emotional spiral anymore, there are still feelings about them. Especially seeing people announce their third or fourth or beyond child. 

Trey and I are lucky we have ONE child. That may be all we get. Yes, we still have four embryos left, but it took us FIVE embryos to get a baby. And my time is quickly running out. 

At 38 a lot of options disappear. REs won't allow you to do retrievals after 38, most adoption agencies prefer you to not be 38 or older. I feel rushed to go ahead and do another transfer, possibly before we're physically, emotionally and financially ready, because I'm running out of years. I don't want to find out too late that none of the embryos worked and now I'm too old to do another retrieval. And now too old to look into adoption. And now too old for this and for that. 

And it sucks that this is something I have to think about. What happens if we use all our embryos and it's too late to do another retrieval? Will I be ok having just one child when I wanted more? Will I always regret and feel guilty about how things played out? I mean, I probably will feel guilty about a lot of things for a long time because hey #momlife. 

These are things families struggling with infertility are forced to think about. 

Not to mention now we have storage fees for the embryos. 

So, to make a short story long, be gentle with your friends who are struggling with infertility. Even the ones who have their miracles. Having a baby doesn't cure infertility and it certainly doesn't erase all that we went through to have those babies. There are still things that bother us, things people say to us thinking that we should "get over it," situations that we try not to put ourselves in. 

Infertility is an ugly green monster that, I don't think, ever goes away. 

#nicuwarrior

You don't choose to have a NICU baby. I call my little man my NICU warrior. He went through so much and was so little and so new. I wish I could rewind everything and make it so he didn't need to stay in the NICU. But I can't. And now that's part of our story. 

We went into the hospital never thinking that we would leave without taking him home. I think the worst I thought that would happen would be I would end up needing a c-section.

But we did. We left that hospital the same way we came in, as two people. But we should have been three.

The hospital had just put up their big Christmas tree. As we left I watched families taking their picture in front of it. I wanted a family picture. I wanted my son. My heart stopped. If Trey hadn't been there I might've fallen to the floor. I was leaving and I wasn't taking my son. It about killed me.

Every day we drove to the NICU. Every day I cried. Every day I left him there. For almost two weeks I couldn't take him home. He couldn't even leave the NICU.

There's so much I missed. So much I wish I could rewind and have a do-over. So many firsts I never got to experience.

I never heard his first cry.
I wasn't there when he opened his eyes for the first time.
I wasn't even the first person he saw. Or the second. Or the third, fourth, fifth. Maybe the tenth. Maybe, maybe I was the tenth person he saw.
I didn't feed him his first bottle.
I wasn't the first person to check on him in the middle of the night.
I didn't give him his first bath.
I didn't put his first diaper on him.
I wasn't the first to put diaper cream on him.
I wasn't the first person to dress him.
I wasn't the first person to pick him up when he began crying.

I wasn't the first person for a lot of things. I will never get that back. It breaks my heart to think that when he needed comforting from his mother, I couldn't be there. I wasn't the first for so many things I should have been.

But my son is alive.
My son is healthy.
My son is strong and growing.
And every morning we are the first people he sees.

I wasn't his first for so many things. But I'll be his first for the rest of his life.

The Miracle of You

It's been almost five months (holy moly how time flies!) and I've decided I need to go ahead and write down Huey's birth story before I forget.

Disclaimer-some details might be TMI for some readers.

Huey's Birth Story

On November 23, 2018 I went to a routine checkup. I had still not started dilating since my cerclage was taken out, nor had I started contractions. However, my BP had started increasing and I had it checked three times at the appointment. It was decided I would do a 24 hour urine test to check for preeclampsia. I would come back the following Tuesday and we would discuss the next steps.

On Tuesday I went back to the doctor, BP still elevated and urine test wasn't back yet. Because I was term and she didn't want to risk anything, we decided to schedule me to be induced, Thursday, 11/29. Since I STILL was not dilating or having contractions she warned me it could be a long process.

Thursday came and we had made arrangements for our dogs to be taken care of while we were in the hospital. We didn't have to be at the hospital until the evening so we took the dogs to the dog park for one last romp before their lives changed forever.

I was getting nervous and excited. Huey was coming soon and I was going to be a mom! I had heard stories about women being induced but really wanted to try and have a natural birth experience.

We arrived at the hospital at 4pm and were taken to a delivery room. I had cervidil placed against my cervix to get it to ripen or soften. It would remain in there overnight until the pitocin was started the next morning. I can't remember if they hooked me up to fluids right then or did that later, but I was still able to move around and got up frequently to pee because HELLO baby on the bladder. The cervidil started working and I could feel some cramping overnight. I tried to get some rest because I knew Friday would be a busy day but as many of you know, spending the night in the hospital is not like spending the night at a resort. Plus the L&D beds are super uncomfortable. Even more so than regular hospital beds.

Friday morning I was checked, had the cervidil removed and the pitocin was started. I KNOW I was hooked up to an IV at this point because I wanted to walk around I had to drag that thing everywhere. Contractions started pretty quick and they were intense. No buildup, no getting used to them, straight to intense, painful contractions. Unfortunately with pitocin there is no buildup. You don't get to "get used" to the contractions before they intensify. You get transition-style contractions at the very beginning and not at the end when there's a light at the end of the tunnel.

I had external monitors for both contractions and a fetal monitor. At some point, maybe around 830am my water broke. I was walking around and felt a POP, then a gush of liquid. It was weird and really cool. Apparently, that stressed Huey out because he stooled and some meconium came out along with the amniotic fluid. *more on this later*

Around 1030am I was checked and had only dilated 2cm. After four hours of no breaks in contractions and nearly crying and being in so much pain I decided to have an epidural. Let me tell you, after feeling those contractions I didn't even feel the numbing needle in my back. Something else that's fun: staying still during a contraction when someone is injecting drugs into your spine. Ha!

The epidural was in and it was determined that I needed both an internal fetal monitor (that would go into Huey's scalp) and an internal contraction monitor (that would go into my uterus). Very glad I had the epidural at this point.

The next few hours are kind of a blur right now. Maybe I should have written this down earlier. It seemed I would dilate and efface very quickly, and then there would be a lull where I wouldn't do anything. This happened off and on for several hours. At some point during the numerous BP and temp checks I spiked a fever. I don't know when this happened in relation to everything to else, but I was given IV penicillin which worked and brought my fever down.

A couple of hours after my epidural I began feeling contractions again-but only on my left side. My epidural had failed on my left side! I got a top off of nice epidural drugs and the anesthesiologist was sure that would stick with me.

Nope.



Several hours later, started feeling contractions again.

I ended up being able to take a short nap. But the nurse woke me up because Huey's heart rate kept dropping. I was re-positioned on my right side, doing some sort of half sit up thing (which made me super nauseated) and then back to my left side. I didn't know it at the time, though they did bring it up that we might have to, but they were getting things in place to have an emergency c-section if they could get his heart rate to stay up. Because you're bed-bound when you get an epidural, you DO have to move, but Huey only liked it when I was lying on my left side, so when they moved me, it was only for short periods before they put me back on my left side.

My parents arrived in the late afternoon and I remember them being very interested in the contraction monitor. They would tell me when I was having a contraction, even though I obviously knew because I could still feel them. It's okay-my mom had two sections so all this was new to her and my dad.

By the time the second epidural topping off was failing, I was checked because the nurse was positive I would be close to 10cm. She didn't have to go in very far before announcing that Huey was right there and it was time to start pushing. Suddenly everything happened at once. They called for the on-call OB because at this point it was after 9pm. The nurse instructed me to start pushing before the OB got there. I can't remember how many times I pushed-maybe five? It was hard, definitely hard. But the pain of the contractions went away because I was so focused on getting Huey out. I wanted to meet my son! Also I was exhausted and ready to be done.

Huey was born at 9:46pm on November 30, 2018.

We had discussed delayed cord clamping but we didn't get to do it.

As he was coming out my doula was taking pictures. The OB told her to stop filming. Huey came all the way out and he was placed on my chest and they started wiping him off. In the back of my head i knew something was wrong, he wasn't crying, but I couldn't connect thoughts at the moment. Then the OB told my husband to cut the cord after I delivered the placenta. Before I could protest the cord was cut and they took Huey to the isolette the NICU team had already brought into our room. As they were working on him (and me), one of the nurses held him up so that everyone could see his hair (shock blond hair in a mohawk). The whole room stopped and marveled at my son for a second or two before getting back to work. Later it would seem that everyone on the floor knew about my son because of his hair.

Later I would find out that the cord was wrapped tightly around his neck. This was why his heart rate kept dropping in certain positions.

A NICU nurse brought him to me to kiss him bye and then he was gone to the NICU.

I looked down and realized the OB was stitching me up. I would later be told I had a grade 3 laceration. The worst is a grade 4. Grade 3 is not any fun, either. I started to feel the needle DOWN THERE and asked if she was almost finished. She was, but I got more lidocaine anyway.

They wouldn't let Trey go to the NICU with Huey at first. A NICU nurse came and talked to us. Now, I work in the medical field. I read medical records all the time. But when you've been in labor for 24+ hours and then had your baby taken away from you without an explanation, anything anyone tells you is going to sound like jibberish. The OB could clearly tell I was having a hard time processing things. She asked me if I understood what the nurse had said. No, I did not. I don't remember what exactly she said, but I remember understanding most of what she said. They were concerned about fluid in his lungs. Something about an infection. NICU.

Here's what I missed:
Once Huey's head was out, they could see how tight the cord was around his neck. The nurse stood next to me and pretty much jumped on my stomach to get him out. Because he needed to get out RIGHT THEN. Because he was a pretty big baby, his shoulder, which had been stuck, caused the grade 3 tear as he came out.

So, we had a baby. But we didn't know if he was ok. We didn't know what was going. Or when we would get to see him. Or what kind of condition he'd be in.

Finally, they let Trey go see him. I couldn't go but I desperately needed someone with him and I needed to know if he was ok. After seeing the pictures of him, I am glad I didn't see him like that. He was purple, and hooked up to the CPAP, and had so many tubes and wires you could barely tell there was a baby. I crumpled enough as it was the next day when I went to see him.

At some point that night I fell asleep. I woke up around 1am and Trey still wasn't back. I started to worry. Had he not come back because he didn't want to tell me bad news? I didn't know. He came back shortly afterward and told me Huey was ok, he was fighting the CPAP which was a good thing. We'd be able to go back in the morning (later in the morning) to see him. Did I sleep? I probably did, for a couple of hours at least. I still had the pitocin running and a fun catheter to help my uterus contract back down. Plus the always exciting fundal massage. Don't know what it is? Look it up. FYI-it's not a massage.

In the morning, I got my catheter and IV out. Freedom. I was placed in a wheelchair and they took me to the NICU.

Visitors to the NICU have to was their hands and arms for three minutes.

My first glimpse of my son:

Trey was ecstatic. "He looks so much better!" And he did, in fact, look better than he had several hours previously. But what mother wants to see her baby, her baby who is only a few hours old, like this?

I was the only one who got to hold him that time. They didn't want to stress him out and he was still on oxygen. Can you imagine. Not being able to hold your baby when you wanted. A baby that took us four years to get. But we couldn't just hold him when we wanted to. Not at first. He was there for almost two weeks and towards the end they pretty much let us do what we wanted, he just had to stay in the NICU.

In the end it was determined that I was pre-preeclamptic (if that makes any sense). Had I stayed pregnant I would have developed preeclampsia. And soon. I already had proteins in my urine.

Something that didn't even cross my radar until weeks later was brain damage. It was in the thoughts of my parents and Trey's early on. But I didn't even think about it.

So many things went wrong. Huey aspirated amniotic fluid and meconium during labor. He contracted the infection that I had. He had the cord wrapped around his neck. But you know what? His cultures on Saturday, the day after he was born, were all clear. He had to finish his course of IV antibiotics, but the E Coli infection he was born with, was gone within 24 hours of his life.

So many things went wrong. Getting pregnant was not easy. Staying pregnant was not easy. Birthing him was not easy. And the first two weeks of his life were not easy.

But he is here. And he is healthy. His pediatrician told me that if she didn't have his hospital records she'd never have known how sick he had been. He's perfect. PERFECT.

And we are so lucky.