Pregnancy

My Story
Our story first begins in 1989,In the beginning of 1989,I needed to have surgery, for Gyn related pain and problems, which caused my infertility.
They needed to re suspend my uterus ,my uterus was turned side ways due to massive amounts of adhesions, along with endometriosis and a few other problems.
The doctors could not say for certain If I would be able to conceive after the surgery. It was more of a wait and see kind of deal.
In 1989 a few months after my surgery, I did indeed get pregnant unfortunately we lost our first born son David, when I was in my 7th Month.
If you would like to read about my son David who was born into
heaven please visit our In Memory Page.
In 1991,I became pregnant with my daughter. Her pregnancy was very difficult on me emotionally. Not only did we have to worry about the chance of having another child with a serious birth defect, we also came down with another problem.
When I was in my 3rd month, I came down with an infection called Toxoplasmosis. My pregnancy was monitored very closely, we opt not to have the amniocentesis done, for a few reasons even though the chance of something going wrong with an amniocentesis is small, we had met a few women in our support group that did those their babies to this procedure, ,and that risk was too high for us to take.
We chose to have the level II ultrasound done, and speak with a genetic counselor. We had the level II ultra sound done monthly to compare each month .Everything looked wonderful each month.
The baby showed no signs of birth defects. During my 7th month I started bleeding, totally freaked out as you can image since this was around the time that we had lost our son, they sent me directly into the hospital ,but the bleeding was due to a blood vessel that had ruptured, baby was fine thank goodness.
So back home to wait out the last two month. A wreck that each day something bad was going to happen ,Its a horrible feeling when you a lose a child because, you feel at any given time your world could shatter again. But my doctor was very sweet and kept very close tabs on me. He started me out with bi- monthly visit and when I hit seven months he switched to weekly visit. He did a lot of this because he knew how nervous I had been during this pregnancy, and the two other factors placed me into a high risk category.
At 40 weeks I still showed no signs of this little one coming. They started running the NST to make sure everything was fine, She was doing great all snuggled up ,just did not want to come out, at 42 weeks they decided to take her C-section, this is now my 2nd c-section. I was carrying her at a very high presentation probably due to the uterine suspension that I had ,she never dropped or even came close. So it would of been too dangerous to try and induce, Which was fine by me ,I did not care how she was born so long as she was born alive.
They had a little trouble getting her out because of the presentation and needed to use the vacuum suction to get her out.
Jessica was delivered on July 5,1991. 7lbs 4Oz,19 1/2 inches long.
This was the happiest day of our lives.
We were crying the doctor was all misty eyed, because he gave me the one thing in this world that I wanted and that was to be a Mommy.
Three months after my daughter's birth I became pregnant again, learned that breast feeding and pregnancy thing is surely a myth. Unfortunately my body was not just ready to be pregnant again and I miscarried when I was seven weeks along.
In 1993 I became pregnant again, with my son John again, I was very nervous, that something was going to go wrong .I started spotting with John early on ,the doctor ran the ultrasound and he said the baby seemed to be smaller than he should be, they were afraid the baby was not growing and I was going to miscarry.
They ran the HCG levels several times and the numbers were not increasing, he said he was sorry, and all we could do was wait, Well the pregnancy kept progressing finally the numbers started to go up. And we were in the clear ,the pregnancy from then on progressed normally, at 40 weeks the baby sat in the same presentation as my daughter, he said he would give me another week to see if the baby dropped ,if he did not then I would have to go ahead and have another C--section,41 weeks he was still very high and stuck up under my ribs, which was very painful.
The delivery was very difficult, they gave me the epidural same as my daughter this time I had a reaction to the epidural and started to swell ,we already knew I have a reaction to codeine and oxycodone, but did not know I was allergic to morphine. They pulled the epidural and start doing shots of Demerol for pain relief.
John did not want to come out ,they had to use forceps to get him out ,which is not that common in a C-section ,He came out very mad his little face was all scratched up from the forceps, but he was a healthy 7lb 11 oz 19 1/2 inches long, and that all that really mattered.
1994 I became pregnant again ,I miscarried again when I was around seven weeks pregnant ,by this time other health problems were starting to resurface again, and the doctor advised me on getting my tubes tied. We told them one more and we agree.
In 1995 I became pregnant with my daughter ,and this pregnancy was by far the hardest on my body ,I just could not do it anymore ,I was in pure agony from all the gyn problems. It was painful to do anything. In my 6th month my blood pressure started to go up and they switched me to weekly visits. By the time I hit my seven month my blood pressure was even higher, and they were becoming quite concerned .
I was doing weekly and bi weekly NST at any time, if the baby showed distress they would have to deliver her. She was a trooper and hung in there, but it was mom that was taking brunt of it ,but that was ok.
I was supposed to be on 100 percent bed rest, but I had a two year old and four year old at home. My husband worked very long hours and I had no one to help me. So it became rest when you can. I could no longer walk stairs, my two year old and I had to crawl the stairs together at bedtime and wake up time.
I asked them since this is my last one could I try to go V-back, because of my history with surgery's and my blood pressure the practice voted me out. They said it would be too dangerous to even attempt. Would you believe this was the first one to drop ,I went to see my Doctor when I was 37 weeks, Baby had dropped but cervix was closed and showed no signs of her coming anytime soon.
So off I went,2 hours later my water broke, and the contractions started.
See what he knew!
I do have to tell you though the funnies part, was my water broke when I was sitting on the toilet. I got this horrible contraction and felt like I had to pee, and went to the bathroom and gush.
I first sat there and wondered did it or did not it.
I got up went and sat on the couch, had another big contraction and gushed more.
Yep no doubt there.
I called the doctor and my doctor had left for the weekend. Twice a year another practice covers for them.
Could you believe my luck. I told him about me ,and he said come on in.
By the time I reached the hospital my blood pressure was 200/100.
I tried to see if this doctor would let me try V-bac, Looked at my blood pressure and read my chart, told the nurse prep the OR, she is going Now. The risk of my uterus rupturing during labor, is very high with someone who has had as many surgeries as I.
They gave me a spinal this time, have to say I really do not like spinals ,but now that they know its the morphine that caused the problems ,I can have epidurals again ,which I had for other future surgeries.
Jennifer was born Dec 22nd at 10pm on the dot. Which we did think was funny.
6lbs 81/2 oz.20 inches long.
A very healthy baby, they did tie my tubes during the C-sections.
Six months after my daughter's birth they needed to perform a hysterectomy.
If would like to read about My Story My Pain, which is my own going battle with chronic pain.
You are more than welcome too.
Thank you for reading if you got this far:

High Risk Factors Before Pregnancy

High Risk Factors During Pregnancy

Pregnancy Sites

A Pregnancy Glossary

American Baby

Babies Online

BabyBag online

Baby Zone

Childbirth.org

iVillage

Parenthood web

Pregnancy About

Pregnancy Today

Pregnancy week by week

StorkNet

Very Best Baby