The Pregnancy

The pregnancy started out just like any normal pregnacy could. Jason and I decided that we would 'pull the goalie' and just see what happens. Well, 6 weeks later, I was taking a pregnancy test and it said positive. That was a shock in itself. I had been on birth control for years and really didn't think it would happen so fast. We went to the doctor and it was confirmed and we got to see our little bean beating away on June 27, giving us a due date of February 16, 2012.

Everything went great at the beginning. I did everything the way it should be done and I was rewarded with no morning sickness, or any of the other uncomfortable things that go along with pregnancy. But at 9 weeks 5 days (the morning of inventory at work) I started to bleed pretty bad. I called my doctor and she sent me for an ultrasound the same day. We got to see that baby wiggle and move like nothing was wrong. They did see a subcronic hemorrage, but apparantly those are pretty common and doctors said it would heal by itself. Little did we know, that was probably when my water started to break. I was on bedrest for the weekend, and then I was back to work. Jason and I went to all of my appointments and they all were pretty uneventful.

That was until I went for my anatomy scan at 18 weeks 4 days. We were really hoping to find out if the little one was a boy or a girl. Unfortunately, baby wasn't in the right position to see that. Also, the pictures weren't very good because they discovered that I had no measuable amniotic fluid.

2 days later we went to Deaconess Perinatal to get a higher level ultrasound and see what was up. That ultrasound showed the same thing; no measurable amniotic fluid. Our little baby was given basically no chance at survival because with no fluid, lungs won't develop. There were many possible reasons that I didn't have any fluid. Maybe I had ruptured and I was slowly leaking. Maybe baby's kidneys didn't work, and they weren't peeing and that's why there was no fluid. Unfortunately, none of the scenarios included survival in the end.

We had 4 ultrasounds in 3 weeks to see if fluid levels were changing. Every time doctors said no. We were even given the option of termination. Now that I am telling the story, I am crying all over agian thinking that we considered that and we decided that we would just let nature take its course because I could not live with the idea that I would never have known what could have happened. My last partial day at work was September 21. That was also the day we found out I had no fluid. I was put on modified bedrest basically to not complicate thigns further. I drank water like it was going out of style and was in bed as much as I could be. I did still go to school and on the occasional outing, but I put on a sweatshirt and didn't let any stranger know I was pregnant because I just didn't want to talk about it.

Jason and I also decided to keep the gender a secret, both from ourselves and others just because we didn't want to start calling it by name and getting more attached than we already were. Lisa (Jason's sister) went with up to an ultrasound and decided that she didn't see girl parts, so it must have been a boy (since she is an expert on girls; she has 3 of her own). We also decided, based on some wives tales, that all the signs pointed to boy. So in my head, I was prepared for little baby Vincent to arrive.

My last ultrasound did show a tiny (less than a cm) pocket of fluid. That was the only sign of hope we had, and personally, I tried not to let it make me happy, but it really really did.

Doctors told us that we could be admitted to the hospital for monitoring anytime after 24 weeks. Basically, I would be on complete bedrest and if baby's heart rate dropped or anything looked suspicious, we would have an emergency c section. Jason and I decided to wait until after Christmas (32 weeks), and if anything happened before then, we would deal with it as it came up.

At 23 weeks 6 days (when my dad was in town), I woke up to watery, pink leakage. Kind of scary, so off to labor & delivery we went. I was there for about 3 hours. They checked me out, took my blood. Everything seemed ok, and it was 'just one of those things.' So we went home and went on with our lives.

That is kind of the end of the pregnancy there.