From the Beginning

Today I would like to go back, back to where I first became a Mom. When I was 16 years old, my husband and I got pregnant with our now 16-year-old daughter. The pregnancy went great. Other than gaining more weight than I should have (thanks to Pizza Hut! Lol), I had a smooth pregnancy until the end. My daughter, Krysta, decided that she did not want to come out, so I went two weeks over my due date. I was induced on December 6, 2001, and I had her at 8:01 pm that night. Again, things went fine. We were both discharged a few days later, and she has been healthy ever since. Now fast forward many years, I was 22 years old. I felt sick and decided that I would go to Statcare to figure out what was wrong. The doctor comes in, and he says, well, you are pregnant (about 6 weeks pregnant), and that’s why you have been so sick lately! I was so happy. I walked out without even waiting for the discharge papers lol. I went right to Dollar General to buy pregnancy tests to surprise my daughter. At the same time, I am calling David and my parents telling them the wonderful news! However, about 6 hours after I found out I was pregnant, I started to bleed. I was having a miscarriage. I was absolutely devastated. I didn’t know what to do or say. My heart was broken for this child I had only known for 6 hours. Fast forward again, several months later, we try to get pregnant again. We did. I found out I was pregnant and once again, we were thrilled. And then about 6 weeks in, my HCG levels began to drop, I was once again losing my baby. I was crushed, I was lost, I was grieving for these children that I would never get to meet. The doctors did so much blood work to figure out what was going on. Finally, they determined that I had a blood disorder. Upon getting pregnant again, I would need to give myself 2 blood thinner shots in the stomach every day that I was pregnant. I also needed to be on a huge list of medications. So, here we are, January of 2008 with the green light to get pregnant again. I couldn’t start the blood thinner and suppositories until I was pregnant, but I knew if I waited until I was five or six weeks pregnant, I would lose the baby, so I decided to turn into a crazy person. I needed to know the exact date that I got pregnant. So we had sex one time in January, and I waited 9 days then I took my old pregnancy test order (changed the date to the current date) and went to the hospital for my bloodwork. I refused to leave, so I sat outside the lab until my blood results were done. They handed them to me. My HCG level was 9.3, and I was 9 days pregnant. I rushed to the doctor's office with my proof. They attempted to tell me we had to wait until my level was 25 before we started the medications. I refused to leave until I got all the medications I needed! I left that day with all the medications I needed! My due date was October 6, 2008. From this point, the pregnancy went great. I was high risk, so I had ultrasounds done every two weeks. Everything was fine. On July 14th (I may have this date wrong), I went for a checkup and an ultrasound. Everything was great. At this point, I was already on bedrest due to my cervix, but all was okay. I had steroid shots just in case my cervix gave out too early in my pregnancy. I was 27 weeks pregnant. That night after the doctor's appointment, my life was forever changed. I stopped feeling Jayden move. He was so active, yet I felt nothing. I rushed to my moms to use my sister's heartbeat monitor. Nothing. I rushed to the hospital. They thought I was crazy and sent me home. I went back the next day and the next day. I would go to the hospital multiple times a day from July 14th until July 18th. The hospital would tell me things like I am too heavy to feel him move at this point. Bullshit. His heart rate was the same, no fluctuations like it should, they would say he’s asleep. Bullshit. Finally, on the 18th after another biophysical profile (the first ones he scored 3’s!), he scored a 0! That meant he was dying! The ultrasound photo of him still haunts me to this day. It was as if he was calling out to me to help him. When I saw it, I decided that I will not be leaving this hospital and that he will be delivered today! At 6:37 pm on July 18, 2008, Jayden was born, dead. My spinal did not take due to my back problems, so I felt every cut and pull they made. Once he came out, I passed out due to the pain. When I woke up, David and doctors are screaming at me to sign paper work. That he died three times, and they brought him back, but he needed blood NOW! I signed. What we later found out, was that the entire week I had been going to the hospital, he had been losing his blood into me due to a severe feto-maternal hemorrhage. He was born dead because he had almost no blood in his body. This little 2-pound boy born at 28 weeks received over 10 blood transfusions just in his first 24 hours let alone all that he received over the next 2 months in the NICU. After they got him “stable” meaning kept alive long enough to come talk to me, they told me he was only going to live a few hours. That they have him hooked up to a ventilator so that I could see him before he died. No, that was not happening. No, you people will not let me die after I see him. I refused to see him. I refused to go see my very sick baby because no, they were not going to let him die after that. If I held off on seeing him, then they had to keep him alive, right? Right! They called Akron Children’s who offered to come try a special machine on him. If the machine helped him, they would transport him to Akron to save him. If it did not help him, they would leave him there to die with me. I finally went to see him because I knew Akron was coming for him. I could hardly see him under all the wires and machines. Akron got there. This is about 3:30 am. They hooked him up. The machine worked! Thank God the machine worked! They took him and David to Akron. He was there quick, before I could even get out of bed to get clothes on after a c-section. The NICU doctor called me and said the machine is no longer working and that they were transporting him back to my hospital to die with me. The fuck you are was my reply. At this point, I refused all pain medication since my c-section because I knew my mind had to be clear to make life and death situations. I was in pain and scared to death for my child. When that doctor said I am sorry, he is not responding. I said then fucking try something else. Try another god damn machine, try another fucking medication, try the machine again. What the fuck, it stops working for a minute and you are fucking done!? No, no you are not! I will be there soon, and that boy will be alive when I get there. I do not want him back at this hospital! I do not give you permission to send him back to me! So with that, I got out of bed, got my clothes on the best I could, and made the 30-minute drive to Akron Children’s hospital. I got there, and there he was, covered in machines, Daddy by his side speechless. I found the doctor that I spoke with on the phone and told her that they WILL do everything in their power to save him. I didn’t care if we had to fly specialists in, he will be saved. She understood my words and my passion, and from that moment on, I never again had to demand they save him. Those doctors and nurses got to work; other doctors came in, new machines were used. They told me he may not live past three days and if he did, he may be a vegetable. I do not care what your opinions are, I will love a vegetable just as much as I would love a typical child, so it is of no concern to me! The first 30 days his brain and head did not grow. It remained the same size. His eyes were fixed and dilated. They claim he is brain dead at this point. No he's fucking not was always my reply. Somewhere around the month and a half point, his brain started to grow rapidly. I am talking it caught up with the 30 days that it didn’t grow! His eyes were now working, and he was moving his little arms and legs! He was 3 months early; he just needed time to heal and grow which is what I was attempting to tell the doctors all along. He had massive brain damage from being dead multiple times and lack of oxygen to his brain, but that was okay. Around this time, I was brewing a massage infection in my stomach because I have been at the hospital since having my C-section (I didn’t trust them not to save him if I left). The NICU doctors tried to get me to go to the hospital next door and have my infected treated and my staples removed. I said no. They finally just treated my infection there because they knew I wasn’t leaving. My staples didn’t come out until months later after Jayden came home. I finally went with him hooked to monitors laying on my chest as the doctor attempted to dig for and locate the 25 staples. We still never found all 25 lol. So two months go by, I am ready to take Jayden home. They say he's not ready. I say yes he is because I know what I am doing. They wanted to keep him until his due date of October 6th. I said no. I bothered them for a week. They continued to say no. I explained that he was at a point where he would do better at home. They said no. I didn’t stop. September 8, 2008, a month before his due date and two months after he was born, I brought Jayden home. They finally saw things my way lol. He was on medications and monitors, but he was home. The doctors finally saw that they had made the right decision to let him come home with me (at 4 pounds) a month later when we showed up on his due date. He was doing tremendously better than the month before. He just needed to come home so that Mommy could take care of all of his needs. <3

#specialneeds