The begining of the Mommy trail...

*warning* SUPER LONG POST!! *warning*

After loosing my ectopic twins and needing to have an emergency laparoscopy, things seemed very dark. I hated thinking about the words the doctor said, "only way is IVF." Sam and I worked through it and had considered to start talking to the doctors at Boston IVF to decide if it was worth it for us. They were going to start with tests to try and determine the causes of all the losses. However, before we could even start treatments, we got pregnant on our own!!

Exactly a month after my surgery, on June 19th 2008, I took a pregnancy test and it was positive!!! We didn't know what to think, but we moved forward cautiously optimistic. I went into the OB's office and the nurse was trying to be kind and told me that sometimes the hormone stays in the system a bit to long. Forgetting that we had tested it out. So when we got a beta on June 21st of 25 the first time, I didn't know what to think....but the second one came back at 147 on June 2th, and we were in the right track. Dr. Dreiker decided he wanted to be sure things were progressing correctly, since I had just had an ectopic, so we did one more draw on June 26th, and it came back at 505!! We were more then doubling, and definitely moving in the right direction!!

We went through everything needed, and were sent to Maternal/Fetal to monitor the pregnancy closely. Our first ultrasound on July 2nd showed us the gestational and yolk sac, but this did little for my nerves. For we had seen those with our first angel at 13weeks, and nothing more. So we waited a week, and after seeing the heartbeat of 111 on July 8th, we felt a bit better. But nothing was as good as watching the baby grow over the months. We had numerous ultrasounds throughout the pregnancy, and we joke that he has to be the best documented baby in history.

Due to my past pregnancies I spent the majority of the first trimester on bed rest to ensure that nothing bad could happen. We had a small scare at the end of July (7/24-25) that had me spotting and passing clots. I was terrified. But Dr. Dreiker brought me right in for some ultra sound. We saw the baby's heart beat of 175, but a small blood clot was seen behind the sac. It was assumed that is what caused the bleeding, but the baby itself was perfectly healthy. A following ultra sound on September 5th showed the baby's heart beat ranging at 164, and continuing to grow perfectly. All my tests came back negative for Tri18 or Downs, which helped eleviate any extra stress during the whole thing.

On October 1st we discovered we were having a baby boy. I had to attend the ultrasound alone, and was so upset when the nurse announced the baby's sex. I was so sure he was a she!! But there was no doubting what we saw. Just as the tech asked if I cared to know the sex of the baby, he spread his legs for the WHOLE world to see!! I called Sam, and cried my way home. I'm not going to lie, it probably took me a good week to adjust to the fact that he was a he. I was glad that he was so healthy, and was more then mad at myself for being upset over the sex when we at least seemed to be having a very healthy pregnancy!

However, this little child was a bit more anxious than most to join us. I started feeling him bounce all over the place around 23 weeks, and it was wonderful. He LOVED to kick my bladder, and seemed that it was the most fun to do when I was the furthest from the nearest restroom! But I loved to sit and feel him move around, and it seemed great to me that it was "our" time.

I had taken up a job as a seasonal Assistant store manager of Yankee Candle, but that ended earlier than planned. I went in to interview with them as a seasonal clerk, and during the interview got hired for the management position instead. Right around my birthday, Twilight came out. So Sam and I went to see it in the theaters around the 20th of November. I had the worst time sitting there, and started to have major contractions during the movie. It was bad enough that we almost headed to the hospital after the movie, but things calmed down. The contractions continued to come on and off, but never stayed around the minute mark for long! Then on December 4th, I had the night shift and left work after closing up and having fallen off the ladder straightening. I went home and relaxed, and noticed that I hadn't felt the baby move! So Sam and I headed off to the hospital. I had to go to the main ER since I hadn't called ahead, but telling them you are pregnant gets you to the head of the line. They found a bed in the back for me, and we did a quick ultrasound and found the baby was there with a strong heart beat and of course just then started to move around. (for some reason he HATED the ultrasound machine and would kick at the wands when they would check) They sent me for a CT scan of my spleen b/c I had tenderness, but this wasn't until after they could ensure me the dye AND the test wouldn't harm the baby!! This came back clear and after some further testing of me to ensure I didn't injure myself anywhere else, they sent me up to the maternity ward to be monitored.

On the way up, I noticed that I was a bit moist, and so once up there, they tested me and one test came back positive for amniotic fluid and another (a fern test on a slide) came back negative.
It was determined after other tests that I had a small tear and was slowly leaking amniotic fluid. So they hooked me up to monitors and decided that we would do a full ultrasound by maternal fetal the next morning. When we headed over there, they observed that my cervix had shortened a lot (from a 3.8 to a 2.1) since my last ultrasound the week before and I was having full contractions. They don't like a cervix shorter then 2.5 that early in a pregnancy. So I was admitted to the hospital and hooked up on anti-contraction meds, but also given steroid shots to mature the baby's lungs in case we did have to deliver him at 26 weeks. (Which is 14 weeks too early!) After 4 long days on bed rest in the hospital, I was allowed to go home but had to remain on bed rest for the remainder of the pregnancy. From there I continued with on and off again contractions with need for medication to prevent them from developing. Further ultrasounds showed that the cervix was still shortening, but what further could we do!

On Sunday February 8th (at around 37 weeks) I went to the hospital again due to a severe pain in my upper left side. The OB on call happened to be the doctor that had done my lap for my ectopic, she remembered me and took great care of me. They checked the baby to ensure he was fine, and started to do tests to see what could be wrong with me, since the pain was high on the side. As she said, "when a pregnant mother comes in asking for narcotics...we know there is serious pain from something!!" I was kept there over night and she put in a request for me to get some antibiotics to ensure I didn't have an infection that was spreading. That night they kept me monitored and medicated and things were going well. However, by morning I no longer could hold food down and medication was not helping, and I noticed that my pain had changed and moved. I told Sam about it, and we talked to the nurse. This is when the next Ob took over, and my day got horrible!! He came in my room, checked my monitors and said the baby was fine and I wasn't in labor so I was going home. He didn't know or care what was wrong with me as long as the baby was fine. He never even gave me the antibiotics that had been ordered previously. The nurse that was on, wanted to monitor the baby some more, but he said it was pointless. She informed him I wasn't keeping food down, so he told her to give me some more fluids by IV a bit of anti-nausea meds and send me on my way. At this point it was about 3pm and I was so upset. I was in so much pain, and no one was listening to me..and this a$$hole didn't care as long as the baby was fine. Don't get me wrong, that was important to me too..but...we knew he was fine...I wasn't!!! So with that said, the nurse left to get my meds and I unhooked my IV grabbed my clothes and fumbled my way to the bathroom to get dressed. She was in total shock when she got back and I think I freaked her out that I had unhook the IV and monitors. She said she wanted to monitor the baby and my contractions a bit more against doctors orders..but at that point I just wanted to get out of there. No one was listening to me and my complaints! She gave me the script of oral narcotics from the doctor. (yes, gave me oral meds when I wasn't keeping food down..and not just that, but a medication I never had before!!) And with that, we left. I told them I'd see them all soon as I stormed out!! I cried the whole way home, curled up on the passenger seat!!

We got home at about 4:30 on Monday 2/9 (since the hospital is an hour away), and I layed in bed trying to not hurt! Sam and I were watching NCIS..and at 6pm I looked at him and told him he was going to find it funny but.....MY WATER BROKE!! I told them something was up at the hospital, but the doctor didn't listen! So, Sam called the doctor back and we found out the same A$$ was still on and he refused to talk to Sam and had to talk to me. Which, I loathed the man and didn't care to ever speak to him again!! He asked if I was "sure" and that well I wasn't in labor while I was there. Ugh. So he told me to come in and he'd check. Because it's a hop, skip and a jump to get there!! I was so upset because of how this guy treated me, I told Sam I wasn't going to go as long as he was on. I sat in the middle of our kitchen in total meltdown mode, crying my eyes out and refusing to return of that guy was the one to bring my son into the world!! So he called my ob to see how long this guy was covering for my doctor, and we were informed he was on until the next morning. Sam made me go in, so I sucked it up and got our stuff to go in. He told me I couldn't harm the baby b/c the doctor was bad, and I informed him that if that guy was the one delivering him, we might have to worry anyways!! We got there and they had me sit around for a bit, and then brought me back into maternity triage. They wanted to check to ensure I had ruptured. The nurse confirmed it from my pants and another test, but we had to wait for Dr. A$$ to confirm it, and he was busy. So they put me in one of the rooms and I got so sick while there. Right before he came in, I was throwing up again. He came in and did a check to determine if I had. One part of the test came back positive but the other he said showed I hadn't ruptured. (This would be the fern test I referred to earlier..and to add to the fun of that...he is the same DR to perform the one from 26 weeks!!!) He said he'd have them "monitor" me, but he didn't think I had. I'm sorry...but either I had OR I needed to have surgery to fix my bladder b/c I had soaked my bed, carseat and the bed I was on then!! So he sent me over to be monitored. I didn't get any higher levels of contractions, so I was able to sleep through the night.

The next morning the nurse came in and said they were going to send me over for an ultrasound because there was some confusion from the other doctor on whether I had ruptured, and then they would send me home. I was FUMMMMING!!! I had no confusion about it. The morning OB came in and said there was a back up, but she'd check me visually. The second she got ready to check she said there was no question about it, before having to do anything and was getting ready to put in orders for the day. They wanted to wait and see if my contractions would pick up or not. But by noon they hadn't, so she put an order in for pitocian to start forcing labor to continue. I was able to get in touch with my mom, and her and my father came out. That night they checked and even though I was at a high dose of pitocian we had not progressed any further. They gave me a chance to take a break and walk around and were going to start it back up before bed. We started it up and it kept going all night. I asked about an antibiotic since I had been so long ruptured, and they paniced that I hadn't been given it yet...so they pushed one through and I got so sick from it. They cancelled the second dose for that night and decided to try another the next day. The next morning my nurse came in and we started talking about what was going on. I got checked, had progressed a cm! Wooohooo!! Forty-eight hours of labor for 1 cm!! After being on that stuff for over 24 hours, had done nothing. I spoke to her about my family history of not being able to have kids naturally and such and she said she was sure it wasn't going to effect it. She moved my room to a much nicer room to be in labor with, and my day started to get more and more painful. As the pitocian level reaced over 28 (when they normally stop at 20), I was in so much pain. I requested they check me again to determine if I should start the epidural or not. I didn't want to be in pain forever, but I didn't want to get it if it was "right around the corner!" Around 3pm they check me and i had progressed to a 3, and was ready for some sort of relief from all of the contraction pains. So they ordered my epidural. I'll tell you, that doctor is my new best friend!! Dr. Boon!! We got that set up, and i was settling down for another long few hours when MY ob came in. He appologized he had never came in, but no one had informed him that I was even there!!! He checked over things and was angry that they had me at such a high level of pitocian...but also was concerned about my dilation, especially since I had so much trouble with pre-term labor!! He checked me, and said he thought the other doctor was being nice with the numbers. He asked what I wanted to do...and at that point I was exhausted. I had been in labor for 3 days, and was done both mentally and physically. I was so upset with myself for giving up, they I just couldn't keep it up. there was talk of them stopping my pitocian for the day and starting it up the following day! That I couldn't handle!

So he called for an emergency c-section, even though he wasn't the doctor on at the hospital. At 4pm, they wheeled me into the OR, and at 4:13 my handome perfectly healthy little miracle was finally born!!!

So : On February 11th, 2009 at 4:13 I gave birth to my son John-Douglas Snell Fox and he was a healthy 6lbs 15oz and 19 inches long!!!

it was discovered at birth that he has a sacral dimple (a small hole at the base of his spine, hear his butt hole). It was too deep for them to determine how severe it was, and he had to go for an ultrasound on that the next morning! Talk about the news you didn't want to hear while in the recovery room! But that turned out to be nothing to serious. It does close before it hits the spinal column, so it's just another spot we have to keep extra clean!

Phew..that was a lot!! And here it is 4 months later already!! Time has been flying since then. I had a long 5 day stay after delivery...so that was a total of over a week! But JD came home healthy. Since then, he's been growing like a week. He's already 27 inches long and 16lbs. He's trying to crawl, and he's such a joy to have! I can't believe he wasn't in my life before. He doesn't totally take away the pain of all the losses, for they will always be with me...but he definitely dulls that ache!

So, other than now being a mom and spending my days at home with him, there isn't much else to report. :) I have been reading my Tarot Cards and trying to pick that up a bit more now that I am home and have a little bit of time to do it. So far, that has been going well, but need to do more to advance it and get a few more readings heading my way.