Due Date

Today marks another sad day for our family as we remember what could have been. Our "rainbow" baby was due today. We thought for sure that when we found out that we were pregnant with this baby that God was giving us a special blessing--we found out that we were pregnant at the halfway point in between Virginia's delivery date and her due date. (This was also my grandpa's birthday and the baby's due date was close to my grandma's birthday). On August 2nd, just a short month later, I had a small issue and went to the dr. and they found that the baby had no heartbeat and must have just passed away. The devastation with this loss can't even be described with words. We were both terribly angry and hurt.

I think honestly that we have just shut down emotionally--we have been hit so hard this year with the loss of Virginia, the loss of the miscarried baby, the loss of Tim's job, etc. So many of our dreams just keep getting flushed down the toilet.

It seems that everyone else is pregnant, doing well financially, etc.

Daddy's Blog

Here is a link to Virginia's daddy's blog--he wrote a very good post about what we have been going through lately

Josiah's 1st Hospitalization

Our life has not been easy over the last nine months. We kind of thought that after the loss of Virginia and the miscarriage that life was going to just be kind of normal for a little while. Instead we seem to be slammed with one terrible thing after another.

I started working full time in January, which is something I would prefer not to do, in order to help make a little more money. We were going to be getting back on our feet financially until Tim came home one Friday afternoon in January and told me that he had lost his job. This was a major blow to our family.

Then, Josiah started to run a fever and had a horrible cough. We went to the dr. last Monday and she diagnosed him with RSV. On Wednesday he still had the fever (day 5) and was not eating or drinking much. We went in to the dr. again and he put him directly in the hospital. He was diagnosed with RSV, dehydration and pneumonia. This was soo hard for me to have my little guy in the hospital. He did such a great job with the iv, blood draws and the people coming in all of the time. (I must say that it was also hard to be at this hospital too because this is where we had our failed induction with Virginia. It was also eerie how we went in on a Wednesday with Virginia and Josiah and were discharged on Saturday with both of them-it was an almost identical 60 hours in the hospital). We were so thankful that Josiah was discharged on Saturday. I am still a little nervous having him home because he isn't eating or drinking as much as he should and his oxygen stats were only at 90 when he was discharged but ...

Virginia's 1st Birthday

We are doing something special for Virginia's 1st birthday and would love for you to check it out here.

Advocate

I've been thinking a lot about Virginia lately--it's crazy that a year ago we were so excited to be pregnant and a lot of those memories are coming back. As I reflect on her life and look back on my journal entries, I realize that I should have done more. I look back on all of my OB appointments with her and at EVERY appointment something went wrong. My first appt. with Dr. S. she had said that she did not need to do an u/s unless something was wrong--well, she did an u/s. The next couple of appointments, they had trouble finding the heartbeat at each one of them and usually ended up doing an ultrasound.

If I could go back to any time in my life I would go back to April 8, 2010 and have clarity of thought. April 8 was the day that we received the news that Virginia had no chance of survival. We had an hour long ultrasound (where we still had no idea that anything was seriously wrong). Afterwards we met with the genetic counselor. This is where I would love to go back to. I would have demanded that I speak with a Maternal Fetal OB. That person would have walked us through the ultrasound and showed us exactly what they were seeing with our baby. I would have requested the ultrasound pictures along with the ultrasound video. I would have asked for a second opinion with a OB who has specialized with this condition.

I feel like as a mother my greatest job is to be an advocate for my children and I know that I advocated for Virginia but I know that we were just so overwhelmed by all of this that we could have done things differently.

I wish too that I would have kept my care with a Maternal Fetal Physician as opposed to my OB. My greatest desire was to be able to hold my baby and touch her skin, count her fingers, her toes, etc. I was able to hold her but it was sooo hard to look at her body. I wasn't able to count her fingers or her toes. In fact, I didn't even look at her belly or her arms. I could not even differentiate between the different aspects of her face.

Extreme Makeover Home Edition

We were watching EMHE last Sunday night and as they are describing the family they say that the little boy was born with Hydrops Fetalis. I had to pause the tv and just stop for a second because I wasn't sure if I could continue to watch it. This is the same condition that took the life of Virginia (but she also had cystic hygroma--fluid behind her neck). I found it to be very bittersweet as well because I am happy for this family that their little guy survived this terrible condition, I am also glad that it will bring national publicity to this disease but it also means that another family has been affected by this disease.

I had never heard of hydrops before I had Virginia and it just breaks my heart that I hear of it sooo often now. There is just not enough being done for this disease. No parent should be told in a geneticists office that there is nothing that they can do for their baby and that there is no hope. Obviously there is hope because there are babies that are surviving this condition. I think that part of my mission is to try to bring more awareness to this disease--even if it just helps families to know what to expect.

Rainbows

In the last couple of weeks, I have seen two rainbows peeking through the clouds when it was not raining or anything like that. It was not a full rainbow just a partial one.

Each time I saw this, in one way it hurt a little because after you have a perinatal loss people say that they are having a "rainbow baby". There are soooo many people that are now pregnant with their rainbow baby's that lost a baby at the same time as Virginia. I am definitely happy that they are pregnant but would also like to be pregnant as well (I would be 32 weeks if I had not miscarried.

The other thing that ran through my mind is that God keeps His promises. I may not have as many kids as I would like but He is still there with me carrying me through whatever storms I may go through in life.

I do not recall seeing many rainbows in December but know that God is showing me that He is waiting for me.