May Sweet Pea Spotlight
Stella
It took my husband
and I almost three years to get pregnant. We spent a full year trying
to get pregnant on our own before we finally went to the doctor
frustrated, angry, and exhausted. After almost two years of medications
and having surgery to open my tubes we finally got pregnant in August
2010. It sounds funny, but I was shocked. I had just been so used to
the negative pregnancy tests that the positive one did not seem real.
Right from the start I was terrified that I was going to lose this
pregnancy.
At six weeks (we discovered I was pregnant at five weeks) I started
bleeding and cramping. I was sure that I was going to lose the baby
and went rushing to the doctor. The CNP did a pelvic exam. When I sat
up she looked at me and said that it looks like I lost the baby. I
could not breathe. But she wanted to do an ultrasound before she sent
me home. We walked over to the ultrasound room and while my husband
and I squeezed each others hands our little peanut’s heartbeat popped
up on the monitor. Everyone was shocked! The CNP put me on bedrest
until the bleeding stopped. I went back to work on Monday, five days
after I had started bleeding. By Tuesday (week 7) I was bleeding
again. This time my doctor sent me to the ER. After much arguing with
the ER doctor I convinced him to do an ultrasound. There I was able to
see my peanut’s heartbeating once again. Again I was put back on
bedrest until the bleeding stopped. This bleeding, ultrasound, bedrest
cycle went on until week 11. Not one of the doctors at my OB
practice could figure out why I was bleeding, but they all assured me
that things looked okay with the baby.
My husband and I were anxiously awaiting our 20 week ultrasound – it
was right before Christmas and we could not wait to go home and tell
our family the sex of the baby. Right away I could tell that something
was wrong. As I watched the tech measure my baby the measurements
seemed so small: 17w2d head, 16w5d arm, 17w3d belly, etc. The tech
then asked me why I was here so early for my 20 week ultrasound. I
told her that I was 20 weeks today and that I was not early. She
didn’t seem overly concerned and just reported that my dates had to be
wrong. I knew that my dates were not wrong, I had had an ultrasound
almost every week up until week 11 and the baby had measured correct
the whole time. Once my ultrasound was finished we went to talk to the
doctor. He was not able to give us any information other than our
baby girl was measuring four weeks behind and that her umbilical cord
was a two vessel cord instead of a three vessel cord. I was told to
try and gain some weight (I had only gained about 3-4 pounds thus far)
and to come back in three weeks to see if she had grown. It was hard
to stay optimistic over Christmas. Friends and family were telling us
that things were going to be just fine, that she was just going to be a
small baby, but this mama knew differently. I knew that there was
something seriously wrong and I knew that I was never going to be
bringing my baby home.
At 23 weeks we went back to the doctor to check the baby’s size.
Almost immediately I knew something was wrong, again. The tech seemed
very concerned and was not talking very much. I could see the
measurements and she was now measuring almost 5 weeks behind. The tech
told us that things just didn’t look right and that she was going to
get the doctor. I was crying, my husband was quiet, we were scared.
The doctor came in and told us that things did not look good, that he
was going to get us an appointment with a specialist for the next day.
That night my husband and I cried and cried. We had no idea what to
expect. The next day we drove four hours to the specialist’s office
where we finally got some answers. We were told that Stella had severe
IUGR (Inter-uterine growth restriction). Most IUGR is caused by high
blood pressure, diabetes, smoking, drinking, or drug use. I did not
fit into any of these categories. Healthy women’s babies usual develop
IUGR because of some sort of chromosomal abnormalities, so I had to
have an amnio. My doctor recommended hospital bedrest and very close
monitoring. I was admitted to the hospital and I spent the next three
weeks hooked up to monitors and getting ultrasounds three times a
week. A few days after my amnio, the results came back that there were
no chromosomal abnormalities. This meant that my IUGR was a total
fluke and the severity was even weirder.
At my 26 week ultrasound the neonatologist that my perinatologist
asked to join my case, seemed to think that Stella had grown all she was
going to grow and that by leaving her in any longer we risked her
dying inside me. The ultrasound from that day showed that she was
approximately 13oz and the neonatologist assured us that ultrasounds
usually underestimate weight. I was scheduled for a C-Section the next
morning. I was scared to death, knew that the chances of my daughter’s
survival were low, and I was not ready to face this.
Stella Mae was born on February 1, 2011 at 10:27am, she was 12oz and
9in long. The doctors were surprised at her spunk and the development
of her lungs. She may have only been 12oz but she had the maturity of a
26 week old, which really helped her. They intubated her, rolled her
past me so I could get a peek, and took her straight to the NICU. The
time that I had to spend in recovery and then in my room was agonizing.
I just wanted to be with and see my little girl. Luckily my husband
was able to spend time with her. When I finally got down to see her 10
hours after her birth it was the most amazing moments of my life! She
was perfect… she may have had tubes and wires attached to her, but
her fingers and toes were perfect, her little nose was beautiful, and
she has so much dark hair for only being 26 weeks. My husband reported
that right after her birth he reached in to her and she grabbed his
finger. She did the exact same thing to me. I know that she knew my
voice.
The next few days were perfect – she was doing much better than
expected. Although her brain showed a slight bleed, we were assured that
it didn’t look like it was going to spread and that it was normal in
preemies. All of her organs were working and they even started her on
pedi-lite a few days after birth. She was the miracle of the NICU –
all the doctors and nurses were coming to visit her. She was funny and
spunky and full of life. My husband and I were able to change her
tiny diaper, take her temperature, swab out her mouth, and help the
nurses. We were so excited to be able to do these things. We had yet
to be able to hold her so doing things to help take care of our girl
felt wonderful.
On February 5, 2011 I was discharged from the hospital. I just moved
myself down to my girl’s room and parked myself on the recliner. I sat
there all day, even refusing to leave to get lunch with my family. It
was like I knew that something was going to happen. By the afternoon
her nurse seemed concerned that her oxygen levels were going down and
that she was having a hard time getting them back up. She called her
doctor who watched her and ordered some meds. A few hours later she
crashed… her heartbeat went well below 70 and the doctors and nurses
crowded into her room trying to get her stable. After about an hour of
her crashing, them giving her epinephrine, and chest compressions the
doctors figured out that she had fluid built up around her heart.
They removed the fluid and she became stable. My husband and I stepped
out of the room to get some air and just cry. A few moments later we
were called back into the room… she had crashed again. This time the
blood vessels in her tiny lungs had burst from all the stress of her
original crash. In a moment that I will never forget, her doctor
looked at me and said “She is not going to survive this.” I screamed
and cried and told them to stop and give her to me. My husband and I
held our little girl as she took her last breaths. We held her for
hours after that. The nurses took out all the tubes and cleaned her
up. I sat in the recliner and rocked her and hummed to her.
Her doctor explained to us that medically she was a miracle, but it
was the technical aspect of her tiny size that got her in the end. Her
tiny veins were as thin as tissue paper and the fluids that she was
being given leaked out of her veins. This fluid then pooled around her
heart. Eventually her heart could not pump and that is when she went
into distress. This distress caused the blood vessels in her lungs to
burst and we were told the same probably happened in her brain. She was
just so small her body could not handle that type of stress. We could
not be more proud of our little girl. She fought so hard to live and
never once gave up.
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