It’s been several months since I posted, but a lot has happened in our household.

At the beginning of November 2015 we found out, unexpectedly, that we were pregnant with our second child. That’s right G was being promoted to Big Bro status! Jeremiah and I were nervous, but excited about this newest addition!! All the “what-ifs” went through my mind constantly…..I think every parent goes through that, but if I’m honest with myself I have to admit that I was just praying for a healthy baby! (Not that Gavin isn’t healthy, but the trials and tribulations he’s already had to endure, and will continue to deal with throughout his life, made me even more nervous regarding this pregnancy.) “What-if” something worse happened than a cleft…….I just couldn’t help myself…..I prayed constantly for peace, understanding, and acceptance of what would be.

Our 20 week anatomy scan came and everything looked wonderful. The baby was not cleft affected and no other health issues were identified. I didn’t want to know the sex of the baby, but Jeremiah said he couldn’t wait…..so we found out we were having a baby girl ☺️

We thought we were in the clear with the pregnancy and began planning the arrival our our daughter. I had left my position as a Nurse Practitioner to begin a new adventure as the Nurse Educator over the units I use to work in as a RN. The day I started my new position I woke up and realized I was bleeding. I immediately called my midwife and went in to be evaluated. At first the thought was my cervix had kind of flipped up on itself, as I wasn’t hurting, so I was released back to work. Over the next week I had several visits to the midwives related to spontaneous bleeding episodes, before they finally decided an ultrasound was needed to see if the issue of my bleeding could be identified…. they referred me to the OB group they work with. The OB thought she saw something on the ultrasound, but didn’t want to alarm us, so she sent me upstairs to the high risk group for a higher level ultrasound. This screening finally showed the culprit. I had what is called a chronic placental abruption. This is why I had been bleeding on/off over the past week and why I hadn’t really had any pain (other than the contractions I had already been having since around 15 weeks gestation). So I was taken out of work and placed on bedrest in hopes the abruption would heal itself and that baby girl would grow sufficiently.

Fast forward several weeks and baby girl had grown well, but decided that 37 weeks gestation was long enough for her to be incubated….our birth story started off at 5:00 am on July 5th…. Gavin woke me up crying cause his “legs were hurting” (growing pains). I gave him some Advil and took him downstairs to rock. Once I opened the door to the downstairs I discovered that our two dogs, Max and Sierra, had apparently had their fill of leftover July 4th cookout grease as they had thrown up on every rug in the den 😫. I had to wake up Jeremiah to get the mess up, as I physically couldn’t get into the floor at that point in my pregnancy. (I had been hurting consistently for a few weeks, but I had hurt on/off throughout the pregnancy with contractions so I just ignored them.) I began to realize that I just didn’t “feel right” and went to the bathroom to discover that I had began bleeding again (after about a month of no bleeding). I called the OB and they suggested we go to the hospital. We had nothing ready…..so I had to pack Gavin and myself a bag as we waited on my Dad to come and pick up G so we could go to the hospital.

Not being our first time going to triage….we parked in the regular parking deck and walked to the 6th floor (we did take the elevator). Once there they placed me on the baby monitor and began monitoring my contractions and the baby. I knew I had been having the contractions for a while, I mentioned it to the OB the week prior, but wasn’t checked as we already had a c section planned for 39 weeks, as baby girl was breech and refused to turn. (I tried everything to get her to turn!). After a few minutes of monitoring the nurse asked if I could change into a gown….so I walked the 3 feet to the bathroom to get undressed to realize that the bleeding had went from spotting to heavy bleeding. I got dressed and Jeremiah helped me back to bed. The nurse, once realizing how heavy I was bleeding stepped out to call the doc and came back in with other nurses to help get me settled. (Being an ICU/CCU nurse for 12 years I knew that wasn’t a good sign.). Once I was in the bed I felt something pop and began hurting pretty badly. I used the hypnosis I had been practicing (the only reason why I hadn’t lost my sanity throughout this pregnancy with the constant contractions I had had) and pulled back the sheets to realize I was literally sitting in a pool of blood and my water had broken. The next thing I know I was moved to the preop OB area and the OB and anesthesia was there to check me. My breech baby girl had decided she was ready for her debut, as her feet were literally hanging out of my cervix (hence the pop and pain I had felt). So I was taken to the OR and prepped for an urgent C section. Miss Riley Grey made her debut before 9:00 am (we didn’t arrive at the hospital until after 8:00 am…..with me not being in preop until around 8:30 am.) so all the excitement we had just had literally lasted less than an hour…..

The doc said it was a miracle she had grown with the way the placenta looked…..and I had a huge blood clot behind it, where the initial abruption had occurred…so it was another miracle that the clot hasn’t dislodged and killed us both. All of the bleeding had happened because the placenta was detaching itself from the wall, which is also another reason why I was having so much discomfort.

All in all, looking back on the adventures of that morning I have to say a higher power was at work. Gavin waking up at 5:00 am (which never happens) was the fire that ignited our adventures for that day. Otherwise, I would have been asleep and at home when the heavy bleeding and water breaking occurred. If that would have happened at home I could have easily have bled to death before we got to the hospital. So Miss Riley is another miracle babe for us. After a short stay in NICU (I guess she wanted to be like her big bro) we were able to bring her home.

She’s almost 4 weeks now. I’m slowly healing. Never having any type of surgical procedure myself before I have to say I have a new found respect for abdominal surgery patients! Getting your abdominal muscles cut through sucks! I ended up being severely bruised because of the urgency needed to get her out so quickly. But she’s here and she’s safe! And to me that’s all that mattered ☺️

Gavin is a fantastic big brother! He just loves her so! I hope that love continues to grow as she does.

As for Mr Gavin, he got a the “all clear” from his cleft team. We don’t have to visit them now except annually. Our next trip is next May 2017! Jeremiah and G had a solo adventure for his most recent follow up, as I was on bedrest. 😢 It was the only doc visit I’ve ever missed for him to date. I cried like a baby when I was told by my OB that I couldn’t travel because of my own health issues. But I was so relieved when he got good news ☺️

So now we are adjusting to being a family of 4. I had forgotten how tiring it is with a newborn, but I wouldn’t change a thing! ﻿