Miracle in the Making...

Our Miracle…
First and foremost, I feel like I need to thank the Lord very generously for the last three days of my life. I have never been a super spiritual person, and have always held my level of Faith inside… but I think that if you don’t believe in GOD now, that there is something seriously wrong with you.

I am lucky to be alive after hemorrhaging and losing half of my blood supply due to placental abruption that occurred early Sunday morning. Liam is extremely lucky, and there are still a lot of people that think God himself came and helped get Liam started.

My morning Sunday started like any other, but once I had gotten up and moved downstairs, made coffee, and started my day I felt a very sharp, persistent back ache in my lower back. It was enough to concern me, and have me start looking up pre-term labor signs… but after about a half hour of strictly back pain, the pain moved directly in front, under my belly and was a constant and severe cramping. At first I thought, ok… boy was I wrong if I didn’t think I would be able to tell what contractions were, and let them go for a few minutes. Dean kept asking if they would stop or if they were constant. I couldn’t really tell if anything stopped or got worse, I just knew I was in massive pain and that, that was as close to labor contractions I could manage. I also had thoughts that if these were just the beginning contractions, then I was really going to be in some trouble since the pain I had was more severe than any pain I’ve EVER experienced before.

After about 15 minutes of straight pain, I decided to go up and take a bath thinking one, it might help the pain, and two, I hadn’t felt Liam move since before I really got up, and that would at least ease my mind some. When I got into the bath, I immediately started poking on my belly, and rubbing trying to get Liam to wake up and get mad enough for one of his reassuring kicks. After 30 minutes of me rubbing, and not getting a single movement, is when I really started to panic. This child as many know, never stopped for more than a half hour at a time, and I could always seem to get him to move by doing something. This time I couldn’t.

After I got out the bath, the cramping kept getting worse, and so I decided to call my dr’s office and lie down on my side and just see what they said. After I got a call back from the on call Dr. she had advised me to do a fetal kick count, and if I wanted to, to just come in to the hospital in Johnson City and they would be there to take a look… I think I waited a whole 5 minutes before I collapsed on the floor, screaming out in pain, and telling Dean to call his parents, get someone, anyone over to our house so we could just go. He called his parents and couldn’t reach them at first, so he called Rachel and she was basically on her way… Then it got even worse to where I said, let’s just take Jax with us to the ER, but we have to go now!!!

My current OB and the hospital we had planned on delivering at in Johnson City was 45 minutes away, and I knew that I honestly couldn’t handle the pain for more than a few more minutes. I literally kept saying I am dying I am dying. So we decided to come to the hospital closest to us, where Rachel met us, and had already briefed the staff (Thank God), so they were ready for me. Once they got me in a chair and wheeled to a room, they started trying to find vital signs on Liam…

The scariest words I’ve ever heard…
After me screaming, and rolling, and kicking in pain, they were finally able to strap a fetal monitor on me, but could not seem to find a heartbeat or get any movement out of Liam. Of course Dean and I immediately were panicking, but I honestly was in so much pain, I couldn’t think straight. Come to find out I had lost over half of my blood supply, and I was going into shock. About 15 minutes into this scene, the on call Dr finally came in, and did an ultrasound… when they finally got that up and running, I was in even more pain, and the cramping just kept coming. That’s when my world stopped after hearing… “I want to make sure the baby is even alive before we do anything else…”

I can’t fully explain to anyone what those words did to me. I tried to stop crying and screaming, and think of Liam. The only thing I could do was cry out to God to save my baby. Immediately every emotion went through my body. I had my husband there with me, but I didn’t get to say goodbye to Jax, or that I LOVED him. I literally thought I was going to die. I tried to focus on my breathing like they asked, but I just couldn’t. Once the Dr said she saw a little flutter of a heartbeat on Liam, Dean said she just went into overdrive and started calling out orders left and right and prepping for an emergency c-section and putting me completely under.

30 minutes later again, the anesthesiologist was finally on board, and literally had just given me IV fluids as they were cutting me open. At that point they said it didn’t matter, they had to go in. Thankfully I only remember counting to three… and not getting sliced open.

When I woke up, I had no idea where I was, what happened, if I had a living baby, I was just scared and groggy. Then Dean came in, and told me that as of now, we had a pretty little baby boy who was fighting harder than anything. He explained to me that Liam came out a stillbirth, and that it took his pediatrician a full 9-10 minutes to revive him, but he was breathing on his own after that, and the Dr was extremely happy. He told me what I had gone through and of course that meant nothing to me… but I needed to thank the one Dr. that saved my life, and another Dr. who refused to give up on Liam who had saved his. I think I was still in a state of shock hearing all of this from Dean, but after talking to the Dr’s and the staff, I know how lucky we both are to be here right now.

After I left the recovery room, the hospital staff said that they would bring Liam in for me to see him before he was air lifted to Johnson City’s Children Hospital. I knew he would go there, and that there was nothing I could do… so I just begged them to let me see him. When I saw him, of course emotions that only a mother can feel , flooded my body – but I was also so scared for my itty bitty little guy not knowing if he would survive the helicopter ride or the trauma of being moved so fast… I didn’t get to hold him, or really see him that well because of the unit he was in, but I did get to touch his hand, and rub his little leg long enough for him to open his eyes and give me a few kicks. After that, they took him and loaded him up right outside my window, and I got to see the helicopter lift up, and fly away.

My mother in law, Sharon decided to follow and go to the hospital Liam would be at, and keep him company and all of us updated as we had to take care of Jax, myself and Dean. Jax ended up staying with one of our dear friends Brandi, and everyone else hung out with me until they knew I was stable and understood what was going on with Liam. And from there I just tried to rest as much, and let my mind be free of bad thoughts, and just kept thanking God and praying for Liam and myself to come through this.

Had I waited any longer to call the Dr, had we decided to drive to Johnson City, had we waited 5 more minutes, I know Liam would not be here, but I can’t tell you if I would be here myself to tell our story.

It’s been a very rough, emotional but incredible journey over the last 36 hours. I am so thankful I am here to even experience this, and that Liam is fighting. He is not out of the woods at all. He came 7 weeks early, and obviously wasn't quite done cooking, but he is stable and staying strong considering! They are keeping him on a ventilator, and he seems to respond well to that, but as of this morning, he kinda went backwards, so they upped the levels on it. They plan on doing an MRI today of his brain to see if there was any damage caused while he was non responsive. I am praying that there wasn’t, but we will get through it if there is. His Dr seems to be pretty optimistic that since he has not had any seizures, that, that in itself is a good sign. We just all ask you to continue sending your thoughts and prayers to Liam and I, and pray that he will pull through.

We have a lot of information to take in and to learn and will try our hardest to keep everyone updated on Liam’s health and status. I will have to have patience and try to understand a lot of things that he is going through, I just know once again, that I am lucky and blessed to have a miracle baby and that GOD had everything to do with Liam and I being here today.

Shylah