It’s Been 4 1/2 Years…

Wow, I can’t believe OD has been gone for so long! I don’t remember how long after my last entry I tried to log in, just to find out that OD was no more. I’d been a member for 7 years then and my entire relationship was chronicled on here. I was pretty devastated. I tried Blogger, and LiveJournal, but nothing kept me coming back like OD always had. I still write in Blogger (called MissingLiam) once in a while. I went quite some time without internet, so there’s only a handful of entries there. It’s more of a place where I write letters to Liam. I’ve also recently started another one for using daily prompts to write the story I’ve had in my head for ages. It’s in like diary format, based on the daily writing prompts. Anyway, wow, so much has happened since OD disappeared. I haven’t really told my story over those years so, here’s the abridged version.

2013 – The end of 2013 was a rough time. As I wrote in one of my last few entries here, I had quit taking my birth control and we were leaving things in God’s hands. It was probably not the smartest choice, given the fact that we were arguing quite a lot at that point, though I believe a lot of that was because of our grief. Well, come November, we spent the night of my mom’s birthday drinking (so I could forget my pain, probably) and it was the weirdest drinking experience of my life. I’d been going out on Thursdays with two of my friends for lady’s night, so it’s not like it shocked my system or anything. I got drunk and apparently I blacked out. I have never before and never since blacked out (though I don’t drink anywhere near as much as I used to.) The only thing I remember from that night was Darryl bathing me and telling me he was going to take me to the hospital because I wouldn’t stop throwing up. I kept telling him I was fine. I thought it was a dream at first until I realized my hair was wet and I was clothed in only his shirt. I have no idea why I reacted in such a way, but two weeks later, the day before my birthday, I took a pregnancy test (when my cycle didn’t start that morning) and got a pretty faint positive. Who knows, I couldn’t have been more than a day or two dpo, but maybe it was enough for my body to go all wonky. The next morning it was negative and I was kind of depressed on my birthday. I wound up telling Darryl why I was upset and he asked me if that meant we were going to lose yet another baby. I told him that I didn’t know yet, as it was really early. We just kind of held on to each other and I took another test that evening, which was a little more positive than the previous one. I think I took more tests throughout those first few weeks than I had with any of my other pregnancies. I found a really good doctor and explained my past. They decided I was going to be considered high risk, since they seemed to believe I had PPROM with Liam plus the fact that he was born before 37 weeks. My first appointment was the first week of December, just to verify pregnancy. I had to wait until I was 12 weeks for a sonogram and each day was full of stress. This was the roughest pregnancy I’d ever experienced. I had morning sickness (since before I even got that positive) that got worse and worse until around 16 weeks. From about 5 weeks to 9 or 10 weeks I had horrid digestive issues, probably from a mixture of being too nauseas to eat anything and the two things I could eat being dill pickle chips and cajun boiled peanuts. It was not a fun time. On top of that, I was severely anxious and constantly stressed. Probably the biggest blessing during this time was the fact that they wanted my boss to open our newest store and of course I went with her. She told me we would be opening this store in the beginning of December, so despite my terror of telling people, she and my best friend (who was going with us to the new store) were two of the few people we told early on. Thankfully, the regulars who followed us knew my story and were beyond happy for me. Plus, this store was very slow compared to the store we’d been at for years. Maybe, just maybe 2014 was going to be alright.

2014 – My first real appointment was on Dec. 30, and it went amazingly. I heard the heartbeat (without even asking) and got told when to report to the high risk doctor. We had our first ultrasound on Jan. 16 and again, everything seemed perfect. I was measuring exactly on schedule, per my ovulation date, since the doctor’s had me a week ahead. They did the blood work for the screening and gave me tons of pictures. My doctor really was amazing this time around! Fast forward to early February and the doctor wants to put me on weekly hormone injections to keep me from going into preterm labor (just in case, since Liam was technically premature.) I was terrified. I have had a phobia of needles since they made me pass out when I miscarried in 2008. At first, I have Darryl go with me to hold my hand, but once he had to work and I was forced to go alone, I kind of just got over it and didn’t need him there anymore. It was difficult, but I didn’t care, my entire focus was on a healthy baby and I was willing to do anything. A couple weeks after my first appointment, I got a call from my doctor’s office, something was wrong. My risk for Trisomy 21 (Down Syndrome) was elevated at 1 in 136. They told me “slightly elevated” but being 25 at the time, the number should’ve been more like 1 in 1100. I was grief stricken, not because I have any kind of issue with anyone with a hndicap, but because I had lost so much in less than a year and now I was facing the possibility of losing the life I had envisioned yet again. I was scared of the possibly health risks my baby would face. I was terrified of my baby being treated as “less than.” It was a huge blow after everything was going so perfectly. I had to wait a little over a month for them to do the MaterniT21 which they did during the same appointment where they did my anatomy scan. I was completely terrified that day. Darryl had to work, so I was alone. I was completely alone and convinced that I would go in there and they would tell me my baby had no heartbeat or something. Before the appointment, I prayed, something that I had been a bit dodgy doing for a long time. I begged God that the baby would be fine and that everything would be ok. I also asked Him that the baby be a girl if it was going to have T21. II don’t know why I thought the baby being a girl would make it any easier. If anything, it’s probably harder, especially when they get to puberty, but in my broken mind, I was convinced that that would make it easier for me to accept. I went into that waiting room and waited for what seemed like forever until they called me back. I watched the screen while they measured  the baby and kind of got concerned when they stayed on her heart for longer than anything else. They didn’t say anything was wrong, so I tried to put it to the back of my mind when they got to the real reason we all go to the anatomy scans. With Liam, I was able to tell that he was a boy well before they told me. Well, I looked and looked at that screen and couldn’t figure it out. I guess I was looking for boy parts, since that’s all I’d had to that point. Then she looked at me and asked if I wanted to know the gender. Of course I did! She went back to the screen and pointed, “You’re having a girl!” I was shocked, because I never expected that. I was having a girl, finally! They finished up and told me that everything again looked perfect. She only had one “soft marker” for T21, so I put that possibility way in the back of my mind and went to surprise Darryl. I got to his job and snuck to the baby center. I grabbed a pack of bows, hid them, and went to find him. When I did, I handed him the envelope with the bows and sonogram pictures. He was elated and went around the store showing anybody and everybody the pictures. It was an amazing day. Two weeks later, everything came crashing down. I got a call that the MaterniT21 results determined that our daughter had a 99% chance of having Down Syndrome. They wanted to rush me to Tampa to have an amnio, “just in case.” On one hand, I kind of knew, after that prayer before the sonogram. On the other I was crushed to have to let go of the future I’d envisioned. Then on another hand, I was beyond upset. They wanted to rush me to have a procedure that could cause me to lose my baby. A procedure that would determine her condition, in case I wanted to get rid of her. Were they kidding? Didn’t they read my file? I’d lost so much, how could they think I’d want to get rid of my precious baby just because she wasn’t “perfect?” I was pissed off. I looked into it, and saw that the risk to her was 1 in 100. Not worth it. I talked to my doctor and was told that the percentage of the blood test is pretty much the same as an amnio and that my care would not change with a more formal diagnosis. That solidified my position. I would never decide to terminate my child. I’m vehemently pro-life, so it would not have mattered to me what was wrong, I would never choose termination. So we prepared ourselves for possible health problems and life just pretty much went on. I stopped getting my weekly injections at the beginning of July, when they had me at 36, almost 37 weeks. I was a little worried because based on when I ovulated, I was around 34 to 35 weeks. About a week and a half later, I went into labor. I worked the entire morning while I let the contractions get less and less sporadic. By the end of the shift, I decided to try and check in, since I knew labor would go fast. I did not want a repeat of last time. We dropped Ville off with my best friend and headed in. I was only at 2 centimeters and they were convinced that I would stay that way for a week or two. I tried telling them I would be back later that night, but they sent me home. We had Ville stay at his grandmother’s house and I tried to get some sleep. By 5 am, I couldn’t wait anymore and we went back in. They kept me this time, thankfully, and they started getting me checked in. Unfortunately, they broke my water when they checked me, which caused labor to speed up exponentially. Within maybe half an hour, they were casually wheeling me to the delivery room when it got so much worse. I told them she was coming NOW! They told me that was impossible, but ran anyway. They got me settled, checked me, realized I was right, and told me not to push until the doctor got there. That was nearly impossible. I tried my best to push back against my body, but it just wasn’t working. I held off until the doctor got there, somehow. He walked in, gloved up, and turned right as she was born. Darryl got to cut the cord, and as we had aggreed, he got to hold her first. He was instantly smitten. On July 19, the day before her angel brother’s first birthday, at 6:20 am, Isabella Rose came into the world. He called my boss and our friends/family and let them know that they could come visit later on. Of course, the doctors could tell something was off. They did blood testing and confirmed her diagnosis of Down Syndrome. They offered their condolesences, which simply pissed me off. First off, why did they not just look at my paperwork and see that we already knew? Second, I still just had a baby. A much wanted and long awaited baby. Why did they not see my history in my paperwork to know that this should be a celebration? Looking back, of course they couldn’t really know my feelings, but they still should not act like it’s something horrible. Be real, but still congratulate the family on their addition. Anyway, she was completely healthy. She had an ASD (I think that’s what they called it. It’s a hole in the heart that generally heals itself in time and even typical children get them.) and it was really small, so they gave me a referral for a cardiologist. Other than that, she had absolutely no health problems. We were beyond blessed with that. At her first appointment they referred us to a program to help her with any possible development issues. For the first few months, everything was exactly the same as any typical child. It took her a couple extra months to sit up and even longer to crawl, but still, she was perfect. She was easy going and generally a happy baby, just like Ville had been. In August, when Ville started 2nd grade, I saw him and his dad off and stayed home with the sleeping baby. Not quite what I had envisioned the previous year, but close. It was still incredibly hard. I absolutely hated nighttime. I couldn’t sleep if I couldn’t see her. I HAD to make sure she was breathing several times a night. I couldn’t look at her when she was sleeping either, because she looked like her brother, since all of his pictures were after he passed and his eyes were closed. I used a few of his blankets and more neutral items of clothing and gifted Belle his alligator. We also used his stroller, car seat, and pack n play. My plan was to use these items to one day tell Belle how they were special because they belonged to her big brother. All in all, 2014 was a pretty good year. Things had mostly fallen in place, we finally had our rainbow, and life (while some days were still incredibly difficult) was getting easier. The fact that Belle was born the day before Liam’s birthday was probably the single thing that got me through that day. As we welcomed 2015, life seemed good.

I’ll have to cover the next 3 years next time, as I have a tired princess that needs a bath and dinner to make. Until next time, farewell.