Deserving God's blessings

You would think being a teacher and having summers off would give me more time for blogging but, man oh man, have we been busy! I'm on the school's site based committee whose main responsibility is conducting interviews so we have had to do interviews 2 days a week thus far. Luckily we are done with all of that! I've also been going to San Angelo for workshops. I tried to schedule all of them as early as possible so that I wouldn't be huge and pregnant traveling far from my hospital! On top of that Ella attended Vacation Bible School at 2 churches, one of which I was a volunteer for. 

I had a baby shower a couple of weeks ago and so I have been preparing for my baby boy. I've been cleaning and organizing all of his new things. Next week I will be painting the kids' room and moving Ella's new bed in. 

Preparing for this baby has been so much fun, so relaxing. I feel that The Lord has really eased my anxieties about losing this baby and I feel confident that I will bring him home! I am so blessed to have him growing and wiggling inside of my belly. I am trying to cherish every single moment...which anyone who's ever been pregnant knows is a pretty hard thing to do! 

However, at times I get scared and panicked and start imagining how I will deal with it if he dies too. I read an article a couple of weeks ago about mothers who have lost infants and there was one thing that really stood out to me. The woman said that she wished she had the same excited innocence as she had once had about her pregnancy and labor and delivery. I sooooo agree! I feel like my feelings are so tainted by the tragedy that I went through that it can be difficult to just be flat-out, pure and sweet, EXCITED! I have so many friends having babies right now and every time one of them announces they are in labor, I am on pins and needles until I get confirmation that their babies are ok. I pray endlessly and I worry constantly. I think, "If they only knew what I know, they wouldn't post this or that." But I don't want them to know all that! I don't want their excitement to be diminished. I don't want them to know what this is like. I was so unguarded with my previous pregnancies and I don't regret it. On the same note though, I have to force myself to post things about my current pregnancy. I don't want to look back and regret NOT posting and allowing myself to be happy. I should be documenting this gift from God.

 In a bible study I did awhile ago, it talked about being deserving of blessings. The thing is we DON'T deserve God's grace or His blessings. However, God wants to give us these things and we need to accept them. Can you imagine receiving a gift from your father, a heartfelt gift given for no reason, and saying,"Oh no. You keep it. I'm too broken to accept."? Of course not! You would accept the gift humbly and feel good that he was thinking of you. I have prayed a lot about accepting God's blessings and I know that God wants me to be happy. I know that He has given this baby to me as a precious gift.

I thank God every single day for this boy! I canNOT wait to hold him, nurse him, play with him. I can't wait to see his sweet face. I can't wait to raise him up knowing that he has a sister watching over him in heaven and a sister protecting him on earth. What a lucky little guy!

1 Corinthians 15:10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 

Daisy's birth story (my experience with vasa previa)

This story starts out as a happy one. I found out I was pregnant with my second child on December 16, 2013. We had been trying to conceive for about 5 months and were very excited to add to our family. I ordered Ella a shirt that said "I'm gonna be a big sister" and she wore it to our family Christmases. Our families were ecstatic, not even knowing we had been thinking about adding to our family. 

I had a normal ultrasound at 7 weeks. I began to feel those precious little bubble bursts in my tummy at 17 weeks. And at 20 weeks we found out we were having a girl and that all was well with our second little princess. From then on everything was going well. My weight was on track. My blood pressure was good, the baby's heart rate was strong, and she was measuring right on time. There was nothing odd about my pregnancy other than some periodic spotting throughout the pregnancy. Every time it happened I called my doctor and he said it was fine and completely normal (even though this had never happened in my first pregnancy.) My whole pregnancy was happy, healthy, and normal. BUT on July 11, 2014, at 33 weeks and 4 days gestation everything drastically changed...

That morning started out normally. Ella asked during breakfast if her sister was coming out that day. I said, "No! It's too early. She'll come out when God's ready for us to meet her." Later that afternoon Ella went to her Granna's to spend the night and Tyler and I made some popcorn and got in bed to watch a movie. A few minutes into the movie I felt a warm trickle in my underwear. I went to the bathroom to investigate, not thinking much of it. I was absolutely shocked to see my underwear completely saturated in blood. I sat on the toilet and blood POURED out of me in a steady stream. I knew we needed to go to the hospital. 

We went to my mother in law's house to pick her up. She drove me to the hospital while Tyler stayed with Ella. I was not in pain. I checked into Llano Scott and White hospital around midnight. They strapped monitors to me and said that a doctor would be there in a few minutes as one of his patients was about to deliver a baby across the hall. The nurses and I noticed that the baby's heart rate was a little unsteady so they put me on oxygen.

Enter Dr. Miller. He did an ultrasound and said everything was fine (wrong). He said the placenta looked normal (wrong) and in the right place so he was unsure as to why I was bleeding. He did notice the umbilical cord was near the baby's neck but not wrapped (red flag!) I began to have contractions 5-6 minutes apart and the baby's heart rate was changing drastically. It would be normal in the 150s and then drop suddenly into the 49s. Dr. Miller ordered a shot to stop my contractions. He didn't want me to deliver because they don't have a NICU in Llano. He said I would be monitored for a few hours and be released in the morning, although he still expressed confusion about her heart rate and the bleeding. I was told by a nurse that Dr. Miller went home at this point.

 My mother in law went to trade places with Tyler. We were not terribly concerned at this point because the nurses and doctors didn't seem to be. I began to doze as the nurses constantly moved the monitors around in my belly trying to find a steady heart beat. Around 6 am Dr. Miller returned. A nurse had called him to come check on me. He said they were going to fly me out to a bigger hospital. I was shocked! He left for a minute and returned saying the helicopter couldn't fly out due to weather....this still confuses me because it was a clear summer morning. 

He says, "We're going to do a c-section now and the baby might not make it. We have St David's NICU on the way but she still might not make it." Tyler hadn't made it to the hospital yet and I was alone. I started crying. I was so scared. They began to prep me for surgery and Dr. Miller did another ultrasound. He was silent. I could tell something was wrong. He looked at me and said, "The baby didn't make it. I'm sorry." About that time Tyler called and I was so hysterical he couldn't understand me. He came to my room and the doctor repeated the devastating news. 

A few minutes later an angel of a nurse, Debbie, came in to tell me they would induce me and I would deliver my baby that day. I told her I wanted an epidural as soon as possible. I did not want any of the pain without the prize at the end. She understood. They also sedated me. I was still aware of what was going on; I just wasn't so hysterical. When my contractions became painful they gave me an epidural but it was useless. I told them it wasn't working but the anesthesiologist was rude and didn't seem to care. I don't know how long I was in active labor but it felt like an eternity. I felt every contraction, every pain of that labor. It was the most horrific experience of my life. 

Our baby girl was born still at 8:23 pm on Saturday July 12. She weighed 3 pounds 13 ounces and was 17 inches long. She had dark curly hair even though it was sparse. She looked a lot like Ella when she was born but she favored me more whereas Ella favors Tyler more. She was beautiful and perfect. 

I was heavily sedated when they put my angel in my arms. I took a quick picture of her with my phone and it is the only one that exists of our sweet girl. I didn't cry as I looked at her face, touched her soft lips and nose, opened her eyes to see deep blue irises, unwrapped her blanket to count 10 tiny toes and 10 tiny fingers. After about a half hour they took her away from me and I wish I hadn't been sedated so that I would have fought to hold on to her forever. It just happened so quickly. I'm sad that I didn't get to hold her tiny body in my arms longer. 

2 weeks later we met with my doctor for a cause of death appointment. We were told that I had a velamentous cord marginally inserted, which means the umbilical cord inserted to the side of the placenta instead of the middle and was also like a spider web of veins instead of a cord enclosed in Wharton's jelly. He suspected vasa previa also and suggested I research it. I did and it seems that this is the case for me. All the signs are there: painless massive bleeding, fetal bradycardia (heart rate drops), and FETAL DEATH. 

I had never heard of this condition before even though I researched everything about pregnancy! I had no symptoms to speak of. I had no risk factors. Despite all of this, it happened to me. All I know to do is inform other people about this condition that is NOT screened for during pregnancy and possibly save a child's life and save a mother from the pain I feel. 

All you have to do is ASK to be checked for vasa previa. The best time to do so is at your 20 week growth ultrasound. When VP goes undetected it has a 90% mortality rate but if it is diagnosed, with proper care, that rate drops to almost ZERO. If I had been diagnosed with VP, I would've been planning a csection at 34 weeks instead of a funeral. Fight for your child's life!