The Reason I Believe in Miracles...LONG Post!

Warning: This is a LONG post, and this is the most abridged version of this story that I could write!

I was 14 weeks pregnant with our second child and things were going smoothly. I visited my OBGYN that day and he said everything looked great. That night my husband Ryan and I went to my parents' house to help them pack dishes to move into a new house. After I finished wrapping the dishes I sat on the couch and sneezed. I felt a gush and thought I had peed my pants. I excused myself to the bathroom and that was when I saw the blood. SO MUCH blood. We raced out of my parents' house without much explanation and headed straight to the hospital. When we got to the maternity ward the nurse called out "We've got a miscarriage here!" I wanted to wring her neck! How dare this woman exclaim to the world that my baby was gone!

After this, it is pretty much a blur. I somehow ended up in a hospital gown and in a bed. I was completely hysterical. I remember the nurse put an oxygen mask over my face, but forgot to turn it on, so I sucked in nothing and panicked even more because I couldn't breathe. I vaguely remember seeing the worried and sympathetic face of my mother-in-law. I also remember hearing my baby's heartbeat on the ultrasound and feeling a burst of relief in the midst of all the panic. When everything had calmed down a bit an intern came in to do an exam. The idiot didn't even know how to use a speculum and I thought he was going to kill me and my fragile little baby if he kept trying.  He eventually left and Ryan told the nurse that if that man touched me again he was going to punch him in the face. He was my hero! By early morning I was discharged with orders to go on bed rest and a 50/50 chance of keeping my baby.

The next two months were filled with anxiety, frustration, and boredom as I was on complete bed rest. I bled for 6 weeks straight, and he doctor diagnosed that my placenta had torn. I didn't even know a placenta could tear. After a LONG two months the doctor said I seemed well enough to go off of bed rest as long as I took it easy. Taking it easy was a hard task since my husband's job transferred him from our home town to Boise, Idaho. I had never lived away from Pocatello in my entire life, and now in the middle of so much turmoil I was being dragged from everything I knew to a new, lonely town. I'm fairly positive I spent the rest of my pregnancy in tears.

 Finally, it was time to have my baby. We had made it! I checked into the hospital on the night of March 18th. I was scheduled to be induced at 7 am, so the nurse gave me a sleeping pill so I would be well rested for labor in the morning. I dosed off and was awakened by a tearing pain and a gush of liquid. My water had broken! We called for the nurse, who smiled and said, "Oh, you're going to be THAT patient." Yes I was. After an hour and 45 minutes of insane, confusing pain (remember I was still drugged from that sleeping pill), my baby boy was born. He looked perfect until we saw his skinny, shriveled umbilical cord. It looked nothing like a healthy cord. As the doctor cut it she said, "I don't know how this baby survived." The nurse cleaned up my son and handed him to his eagerly awaiting Daddy. It was time to deliver the placenta and then it would be over. What happened next was the most horrifically painful experience of my life. If you are squeamish I recommend you quit reading now. The placenta wouldn't come out. It was stuck to my uterus. The doctor told the nurse to close the door to my room as she reached in up to her elbows to pull it out. It took what seemed like forever, and came out in broken, shriveled pieces as I screamed at the top of my lungs. After it had torn, my placenta basically quit growing and just shriveled up inside me. Again, there was no way my baby should have survived. We were told later that I had a "velamentous insertion of the umbilical cord". This meant that instead of attaching to the placenta, the cord attached to the water sack. This only happens in 1% of pregnancies, and often results in a miscarriage. When a miscarriage doesn't occur the doctors schedule a c-section at 35 weeks, because if the water breaks, it usually results in a stillbirth. Well, my water broke at 40 weeks and my baby survived. To this day I am furious that the doctors in Pocatello did not catch this on any of the FIVE ultrasounds they performed.

Dax right after he was born.

We named our precious little one Dax Kobalt, and my husband and I thought that once he was in our arms the nightmare would be over. It wasn't. About an hour after we were moved from the delivery room to our own room Dax's complexion changed to a dusty purple and his lips began moving like a fish out of water. He wasn't breathing! We called for the nurse, who then called for the respiratory specialists. They used a tiny oxygen mask to pump air into Dax's lungs while my husband and I watched in horror. They whisked him off the to NICU for a few hours, and returned him when he improved. I thought we had dodged a bullet, but he once again stopped breathing. He was taken to the NICU and returned after a few hours with an oxygen saturation monitor. We were told that if his saturation went below 90 he would need to be admitted to the NICU. Not long after that the alarm went off and his saturation was at 72%. He was officially admitted to the NICU where he stayed for 5 days. A chest x-ray showed streaking in his lungs, and we were told he probably had contracted a virus in utero. Once again, something I didn't even know was possible!

Little Dax looking like the back of a car stereo.

Ryan was my rock through all this. He always stayed positive even though he was terrified. After 5 days our nightmare was over. Dax was well enough to come home to his mommy and daddy, and his big sister, Samantha.

There is no way Dax should have survived all of this. He shouldn't be on this Earth today, but he is. He just turned 4 in March and every moment with him- good and bad- has been a blessing. He is the reason I believe in miracles.

My sweet, sensitive little soul...

He is a great big brother to Phillip!

He is also his sister's best friend!

Thanks for listening to my little story!