OBGY-ME

What a crazy couple of months!!! Lots of wonderful things happened and I am so grateful to be part of each and every moment.
 Well I have been thinking so much lately about what it means to have a baby these days. So exciting for sure and a miracle in every sense of the word! But still with where medicine and medical teaching is today there is still sooo much unknown about it. I would have to put it up there with one of the wonders of the world.
 

My Grandma & Aunt

When I was around the age of 8 or 9 I remember my great-grandmother had a picture that was her mother's that had children in it dressed to impress- one of those pictures where no one smiles but you still get a sense of each person's personality. I asked who each child was and my grandma went though each one.. this is me, this is my brother Frank and so on and then she got to Margaret, she said it was her sister that went in for an eye surgery and  passed away-she was only 8. I remember saying how sad that was and then my grandmother told me about how when she was pregnant she had a beautiful baby girl named Connie that passed away within hours of being born- I asked if she had a picture of her she said no that back then they did not take pictures of babies in the hospital like they do now. As children do I thought how sad it was and then moved on to the next picture in the stack. The only time I had heard about children passing away was this conversation and playing Oregon trail where every now and a green worded message would pop up on the screen and say you had to stop because Tommy had passed away and there would be a cross on the side of the road and back on the trail you would go never thinking twice about it.
 
Moving forward a few years I was around 12 and was at a sleep over with a few friends talking about the boys we were going to marry and what kind of lives we were going to have. We planned everything- the house we would live in, the jobs we would have and how many children we would have and of course the names we would give them. Never once did it occur to me that something would go wrong with this plan and it may not turn out the way I thought.
 
I am now 16 and having the talk with my parents and what would happen if I were to get pregnant. Awkward and embarrassing I tried to muffle through it. Never once did it occur to me that maybe it still would not work out how I planned ... I was not planning on having a baby until I was married and at that point still everything was going to be perfect when that time came.
 
Out of my teens and 21, at this point I am married and not even considering children but I have a few friends that have babies. I was there when a few of them were born and the births went as planned other than having to have a c-section for one of them because the baby would not make it the traditional way. The babies were perfect and so was the mamas. At the time I did think I was not ready to have my own but when the time came I would be sooo excited and it would be an amazing moment in my life. Still no idea that things might not go as planned I moved forward with life.
 
Now we fast forward to 28, I am 2 months pregnant and unbelievably joyful even though I can't keep water down. It was my time and I was going to be a mom. I read a little in the book of what to expect when expecting and some other things here and there and being naive but realistic at the time I thought, I decided early on that anything negative was just overcautious people writing and talking about warnings like early/late miscarriage, stillbirth, cord accidents, placental ruptures and so on. I could not imagine any of these because luckily I did not know anyone other than my great grandmother and Justin's grandpa who had lost babies. I was confident with medicine and the medical field as a whole that if something did go wrong it would be fixable- if we have the ability to clone someone then why could we not make pregnancy and birth 99.9% successful. I did not even consider the rest of my pregnancy anything would go wrong so I moved forward with planning the nursery and picking the perfect name. I instead started the dreaming of who my child would be and what kind of life he would have.
 
Fast forward to May 2012--- REALITY CHECK. Life came with a thunder and hit me hard. Having a baby was not as easy and cut and dry as I had thought. I was consumed with thoughts of what I could have should have done to change what happened. I relived every minute in my mind of being pregnant and tried to pin point when things changed. I could not figure it out.
 
I looked for an outlet to help me understand and talked in detail with my doctor who reassured me over and over there was nothing I did wrong or could have done different to change the outcome of my birth story. I felt more settled but something inside of me felt so alone in this I mean the only person I knew who had any complications were old and medicine and technology had come so far since then so today who could I reach out to I was the only one I knew who had lost a baby in this new era. I could not find the resources I was looking for so I turned to the web and seached baby loss and unfourtantnly but fourtunantly (I know that sounds strange but when you are in that place it is comforting to know you are not the only one) there was a community of us. I clicked on the first site and the was woman after woman from all walks of life of all ages with stories of pregnancy and neonatal loss, infertility and many of ther OB issues that made having a family difficult or sadly impossible. They poured their hearts out and told their stories of loss, love and perceverance.
 
A dark heavy curtain that was always there was pulled down infront of this community all the way up to April 6, 2012, when Wyatt was born, the curtain was lifted I was now part of a sisterhood that no one ever thinks exists but we all know does. We all have something in common that people really never talk about complications or loss of pregnancy that result in devastion and loss of hopes, dreams and sometimes faith. I could not let this beat me but I had to understand it since it was something I was sooo unfamiluar with and was just being introduced to. It was sort of like an aquaintance who's name and face you know and other than the few times you ran into that person you never really thought about them. They are not part of your daily lives, they are not part of your circle, they are not a friend or foe. This is was my past with the thoughts of tragedy in having a baby I knew it happened but not in these times and especially not to me.... I was wrong and now am understanding that there are so many women out there that deal with this daily and some talk about it but the majority live with it and never talk about this taboo new normal.
 
After our loss and finding this sisterhood of women that were dealing with simiular things I decided to blog and from there on I have come into contact with soooo many woman that have told me my friends and family of their struggles of not being able to concieve, miscarriage, stillbirth or losing a baby shortly after giving birth. I could not believe how many women have such terrible circumstances and never do we ever speak about it until it happens to someone you know or yourself.
 
In a era where we are so open and understanding there is still something wrong with us taking our minds or hearts to a place where woman may not be able to do what we have done for years ...conceive and then on top of that if they do we cannont even fathom that something like losing the baby would happen not to mention that if you are fourtnante to have give birth to a child it would pass away-- baby and death do not ever go together and make the majority of people cringe and become very uncomfortable when it comes up. I was one of them before that dark but very real curtain was lifted. There is nothing wrong with this but most people are just not in the place where one of these woman have shared their story or they have been personally touched by the loss of fertiltiy of a baby. Becuase we are in this era and times are changing there is still so much unknown about fertility,pregnancy and infants that I think it is safe to say making the choice to become pregnant or becoming pregnant holds so many unknowns and cautions we should all be aware of even though it really is uncomfortable to think bad things happen wtih something so beautiful and miraculous.
 
I looked up the words Obstetrics and Gynecology and found the definition to read :
 
OBGYN- Of or relating to the profession of obstetrics or the care of women during and after pregnancy
 
I could have sworn it somewhere in the definition it would say mind reader, psyhic, godlike, perfect. Shockingly  it did not have even one of these words. It says people in this field are human and are like you and me and when we go into see our OBGYN we find ourselves putting the lives of our unborn children and everything that goes with that in their hands and we expect it to be perfect. In so many cases it does not happen this way. I put everything into my OBGYN's hands and thought it will all be perfect this is what they do and if something is wrong they will know and they will tell me and fix it. This field and those working in it have come so far and yet there is so much unknown.. other than a way to open up our bellies take a look around each time we go in to see them and waving a magic wand they are at the mercy of our bodies and what we tell them.
 
My doctor this summer after a long appointment with us told me something that many others working in the field say... Pregnancy is a disease and until there is a healthy baby born it can go any way. After reasearch and talking with loads of others I completely agree and fully understand why they feel this way now.
 
Goverment Statistics show:
 
* There are about 6 million births each year in the USA
                     
                      4,058,000 live births
                      1,995,840 pregnancy losses
 
*Out of the above statistics every year in the USA there are pregnancy complications that follow:

• 875,000 woman experience one or more pregnancy complications
• 458,952 babies are born to mothers without adequate prenatal care
• 467,201 babies are born prematurely
• 307,030 babies are born with Low Birth Weight
• 154,051 children are born with Birth Defects
• 27,864 infants die before their first birthday

*Statistics for over 60 Million woman every year in the USA who are within child bearing years show:

                   6,000,000 woman deal with infertiltiy

 

Crazy.... I know..... These statistics are much better than years ago but the numbers are still high when you figure most of us think that having a baby will be perfect and if you are like me I was more worried about stretch marks and the pain with giving birth and if I would be a good parent to this little baby than what would threaten having this perfect baby. My eyes are open and I am aware now that having a baby is not what I was taught my whole life.... there are ups and downs and things no one talks about.

 

In conclusion, it is bittersweet when I say I am glad I am educated and the door is open to discuss this and educate others but in the end I would not change anything about my journey with Wyatt and the story of his birth and deciding and becoming pregnant was the best choice I made in my life so far and I would never want it to be any different even if I knew how it was going to go. Most of the women I have talked with or read their stories would not change their experiences either in end. Having a child is one of God's greatest gifts and mysteries that none of us will ever fully understand. I have learned that rather you have had a child, adopt a child, or someone else carries your child for you the moment we think about our baby we are all parents that love, nurture, dream and hope for our children the same way.




Justin & his mom



My mom & me



Wyatt & me