This wasn’t part of the plan…..

This isn’t a typical post but, its part of my life and “I am keeping it real”…(Viewers Discretion Advised) 🙂

….I couldn’t wait to have a baby. The doctors told me that getting pregnant would be very difficult and after more than a year of waiting, and a round of fertility drugs…my dreams came true.
I had it all planned out, my pregnancy was going to be perfect and at first…….. it was.

….my perfect pregnancy quickly became very imperfect… I was just 22 weeks, I woke up and I noticed what every pregnant woman fears… spotting. All that went through my mind was that I was having a miscarriage…. I ran to Ryan waking him up sobbing “I’m losing the baby!!”…It was a blur but we went straight to the emergency room and I sat shaking  as they searched for a heartbeat…..it seemed like forever before I heard the precious rhythm of the life within me.

An ultrasound confirmed that I had Placenta Previa and that I would be spending the rest of my pregnancy on bed rest. It was only the beginning to a long struggle that we had ahead of us….they told me that I would not carry this baby full term and that every week counted.

…..this wasn’t part of the plan…..

I went home to start my bed rest but it was only a matter of time before I had another bleed and back to the hospital I went. Because we lived out of town, I ended up having to stay in the hospital because if I started to hemorrhage, we might not be able to get to the hospital in time to save my life or the life of my baby. I was transferred to the University Of Iowa Hospital where I began my journey. They told me that if I could just get to 28 weeks, then my baby would most likely survive and if I could get him to 34 weeks, then he most likely wouldn’t have long term problems. So, everyday I sat….and sat….and sat. I was allowed a 30 min wheelchair ride a day. It became a new way of life.

I remember not really thinking about the reality of everything. One night, before my 28th week they hooked me up to a monitor and I guess I was having contractions and during the contractions Logan’s heart rate kept dropping. They didn’t really tell me what was going on and I remember being confused when they told me that they were going to move me to “Labor and Delivery”.  Unknown to me, outside my door, the hospital staff was preparing how they were going to move such a tiny baby to NICU. My parents came and everyone began to pray that the labor would stop. And that night it did. The doctor told me that I probably only had a week or two at the most before delivery.

 We celebrated my 22nd birthday and our 3yr wedding Anniversary in the hospital and I was thrilled when 28 weeks came and went. They took me to NICU for a tour to prepare me for what was ahead and as they pushed me past the helpless tiny little babies I got sick to my stomach thinking that this was going to be my child…hooked to a million wires…fighting for his life. Its not what I had planned. They told me that everyday in the womb counted. I started getting horrific painful shots that helped develop his lungs quicker.

As my stomach grew, the previa started to move and became a partial previa and the doctors thought perhaps that I could go home and finish me pregnancy normal. This was fantastic and hopeful news but that wasn’t the plan for me….when Logan was born it wasn’t the way I had hoped….it wasn’t what I had dreamed about.

 On my 34th week….we went home to Fort Madison to celebrate Labor Day with my family and little did I know that in a few short hours my life was about to be turned upside down.

On Aug 31, 2003  I woke up in the night because my hand felt “wet”…I instantly thought “Oh! I either wet the bed (you never know…lol) or my water broke”…Ryan reached for the light and as I pulled the covers away my hand was sitting in a puddle of blood…panic struck through us…I had began to hemorrhage.  Ryan called the closest hospital and loaded me up. I was shaking and in shock of what was happening. We met a police officer in West Point and he escorted us to the emergency room.

The goal was to stabilize and transfer me to the University Of Iowa Hospital where they could take care of a tiny baby but then contractions began and during a contraction…blood would gush.  It was awful. Logan began to show signs of stress and within 15 min I was in the operating room for an emergency c-section. It all went so fast. When they delivered Logan I didn’t get to see him. A medical team from NICU had flown down to take care of him and work on him as soon as he was born. The first sight I got of him was a picture that Ryan had taken on his camera. After that they put me out.

 

He was 4lbs 14oz and 18 in long

 It was Ryan who had to see them working on Logan….watching his firstborn son struggling to breath…

 I can’t imagine what it was like for Ry to watch outside a window as they prepared to airlift him.

When I woke up in my room, I was very shaken and they were preparing to air lift Logan to the Uof I. They brought him in for a moment to say goodbye but I couldn’t see him very well with so many tubes and they had him all wrapped up.

Ryan left me to travel the 1.5 hr drive to meet the helicopter. I had to wait all day before they would take me by ambulance to be with Logan since I had just come out of surgery. Once they finally transferred me to the Uof I , all I wanted to do was see my son so before taking me to my room they took me straight to NICU.

When I saw him for the first time fighting for his little life I got light headed and was about to faint and I remember the nurses saying “Don’t let her pass out!! Get her! Don’t let pass out!”…it was just all too much to take in….this wasn’t part of the plan.

It was two days before I got to hold Logan and everyday we lived in question whether we were going to go home empty handed or not.

I remember one morning the doctor asking me where my husband was and I said he wasn’t there at the moment and the Doctor said  “you need to call him in…Logan isn’t doing well and for some reason he randomly stops breathing…he needs to be here”. He didn’t have to say anything more, we both knew why he wanted Ryan there. That was the day that Ryan had to look that Doctor in the eye and ask him if our baby boy was going to die. The only comfort was knowing that God was in control….. and I trusted him….. I knew this wasn’t my baby but God’s baby. Who else could take better care of him than the one who created him….

This was my view for many days and nights….I would open one of the little doors and sing “Baby of Mine”to him while we both cried.

He was always getting poked…I hated it. One night he was crying because of a shot and the nurse said “Its ok, your mommy is here, she will make it better”….and I stood there with tears falling down my cheeks and I looked at her and said “That’s the thing, there is nothing I can do to make it better”…I couldn’t hold him or kiss him when he was hurting …my mommy heart was broken.

Once he could keep his body temp up he got moved to an open top crib and I was so excited because I felt closer to him and got to help take care of him.

He was almost two weeks old when I got to do my first diaper change but as you can see I kept my eyes on the monitors….

Sometimes he would pull his feeding tube out and before they would put it back in I would get to see him without wires and tubes…

….a life impacting moment from God happened for me while I was at the hospital. I was at rock bottom. Logan was still in the nursery and my room was on another floor so I had to walk a long way to be with him and since I didn’t want him alone I sat in a chair next to his bed during the day and night. I had been hoping to get transferred to peds because that meant I would be able to sleep in the same room as Logan. But everyday the arrangements didn’t happen and I was tired, recovering from a spinal drip, in pain from a c-section, and for the first time in my life I looked down at my feet and had “cankles”….emotionally I was exhausted. I needed God’s help…I was trusting him through this but I was at the point where I needed to be carried. While the doctors were doing their rounds, my mom and I went to the tiny chapel in the hospital and on the floor of that small empty room I cried out to God and begged him to move us…I sobbed that I needed him to help me…I sobbed because I was tired of fighting for my son…I sobbed because I was falling into a dark place and feeling all alone and forgotten about.

When I returned to the nursery I sat next to Logan’s bed the same as I had so many days and nights…and I cried. I didn’t care who saw me..I didn’t care who heard….they didn’t know what I had been through…they didn’t know that this wasn’t the plan. While mom sat with Logan I walked the million miles back to my room and I was sitting on the bed and I heard a knock on my door. I assumed it was a visitor from church but when I opened the door standing in front of me was Logan’s doctor. He said “Its done”…I just looked at him puzzled. “Its done, you are being moved to Peds today…they are getting Logan ready to be transferred right now”. I couldn’t speak. I started to cry (again)…and I know its very improper to hug strangers but I was in that poor mans arms before he even knew what hit him. He looked at me and said “I know you just want to be with your son”

…….I was in awe of my answered prayer…..

Being moved to peds was wonderful. I had a bed next to his crib and we were able to spent our days and nights sitting together and discovering the “mommy /baby” bond that we had missed out on.

This was the first bath I gave him…I love this pic because newborn pacifiers are so tiny and it helps me remember how small he was because it looks huge compared to his little tiny mouth and nose.

Getting ready to go home…..13 days old.

Before we got to leave he had to pass a 1/2 test to make sure that he wouldn’t quit breathing in his seat.

 I think we drove like 20mph on our way home…lol

 Logan was born 1 month and 10 days too early…he traded in an October birthday for an August birthday….. We spent two weeks in the hospital before we got to bring him home….it was the most exciting/terrifying day. We were “new paranoid” parents to begin with and having a preemie didn’t help. We were so scared he would quit breathing so we basically just sat and stared at him. lol

It was quite a journey for two new parents…

I know that it could of easily been me and not her with the empty arms….

Logan James Crank….such a little miracle…

Logi, I can’t even begin to express the love I have for you……..