And So It Begins...

To quote what a very wise and respected doctor recently told me, “the only thing we know 100% in medicine, is that we don’t know 100% of medicine.”  How true this statement is.  One thing I have learned over the years is to take into account what the doctors have to say, research what they have told me, and to really stop to listen to my own body.  As women, we have a certain intuition, or voice within, that unfortunately most of us ignore. As a result, we often overlook symptoms and chalk them up to stress or exhaustion until we realize we really have an issue we can no longer ignore and are forced to go to the doctor.  Most often, we are too busy taking care of the family and life in general and push ourselves aside. 

It took me until my early thirties to begin to “hear” what my body tells me, but it took losing one baby and then almost losing my youngest baby to realize I need to hear the cues of my body.  I’ve also learned along the way that when people say pregnancy is a miracle, they are only half correct.  It’s the miracle of staying pregnant and delivering a child full term if you are one of the fortunate ones to get pregnant.   

Learning I was pregnant again in 2008 after delivering my oldest child, a healthy baby girl a year and half prior, was certainly a miracle that we rejoiced especially since in my twenties I had been told I would more than likely never be able to have children. I had severe and complicated endometriosis that even a corrective surgery could not remove all of it. But after a second endometriosis surgery in my early thirties, and learning that I had a progesterone deficiency that caused a missed miscarriage at 10 weeks,  I was finally able to get pregnant and carry my first successful pregnancy to 37 weeks.  I never thought I had any reason to doubt I wouldn’t carry my second child to full term based on my experience with my oldest child and the fact that we now knew I had a progesterone deficiency. I had taken progesterone supplements as I did with my oldest daughter to ensure my body wouldn’t abort. And although I was very sick from severe morning sickness, I had taken all the necessary supplements to help with ensuring a healthy child.  

But life doesn’t always go the way we plan. At almost twenty-two weeks pregnant I found myself in the hospital with some minor back pain and a slight bloody discharge. The doctor told me I had an incompetent cervix, my water bag had not broken but was visibly hanging and could been seen right away vaginally, I was also dilated 5 cm and almost completely effaced. I suddenly felt so small in a world that seemed to engulf my entire soul.  There was nothing to celebrate about this announcement. My mind couldn’t comprehend what I was being told. It wasn’t happening.  It couldn’t be happening.  I felt angry, confused, hurt, betrayed by my body, betrayed by medical staff who I desperately hoped were wrong. I wanted them to save my child and in my desperation I couldn’t grasp why they couldn’t fix what was happening to me.

When I looked over at my husband’s face after he learned the news, his anguish was seeping out of every pore even though he tried to appear stoic and calm. I have always been the person who takes care of everyone, who strategically plans every move, organizes and neatly puts everything in its place but I couldn’t fix this.  I felt hopeless. The demands I place upon myself are often unrealistic and have no bearing on the world, but mean the world to me. But there was no magic file to tuck this news away and no magic cure. I had to face it.

 "Her prayer prompted me to begin visualizing a golden light shining down upon me and a golden hand protecting my child from falling out of my womb."

My husband and I had just learned the week prior that we were having a girl. We didn’t have a name yet, a nursery prepared, or a grasp of what life was now going to look like for us now that her future was perilously hanging by literally a thread. I was immediately admitted into the hospital and placed in trendelenburg position (head way down and feet elevated), and informed I would most-likely deliver my child within twenty-four hours and unfortunately she would be too underdeveloped to survive. If I lasted twenty-four hours, a procedure called a cerclage would be attempted to try to sew my cervix shut.

Having been a religious person in my youth, although no longer attending church, I remained very spiritual studying and seeking to understand all religions and belief systems. Lying in my hospital bed, I now sought reassurance that everything would be okay. My belief system was very much in jeopardy because this news rocked me to the very core.  When you are at your lowest point, although you are going through it with your amazing husband and incredibly caring family and friends, you realize that you are alone. You realize that it is your body that is failing and your body that is the sole reason why your baby might not ever meet her mommy, daddy and big sister. And suddenly, you sink lower. It’s amazing what happens when you reach this point; people reach out to you if you let them in.

During my first night in the hospital, one of my nurses approached me and asked if she could pray with me.  She held one hand above my belly and one on my forehead and she prayed that despite what I had been told, my baby would stay inside of my womb protected so that she could continue to grow until she reached a point where she would be viable to live outside of my body.  She prayed that as a family, we would find peace no matter where this journey took us. My sister also brought us some beads and stones that had been blessed during a Vedic prayer ceremony where she had specifically blessed my baby girl. Her prayer prompted me to begin visualizing a golden light shining down upon me and a golden hand protecting my child from falling out of my womb. 

As I lay in bed that first night, I could feel my baby’s limbs on occasion dangerously hanging out in my cervix. Frightened and sick with worry, I asked the nurse to tilt my bed more so that I was further tilted and I willed my baby to stay far away from my cervix.  I was never able to do the cerclage because I stayed five centimeters dilated. However, despite the initial prognosis that I would deliver my baby within twenty-four hours, I remained in trendelenburg position for the next 16 days, never once getting out of bed. I intended to stay in trendelenburg position and would have stood on my head until my daughter was full term and had 100% chance to survive, but on that sixteenth day the maternal-fetal doctor said I had no choice, I had to have an amniocentesis due to possibility of infection in the womb from being dilated for so long.   The results came back within forty minutes that I had a severe case of chorioamnionitis and my baby’s life was in danger.

She had to be delivered by emergency c-section right away.  At 24 weeks, we knew she had only a 20% chance to survive, which meant there was an 80% chance she would not.  She was born weighing only 1 pound 5 and 1/2 ounces. 97 days later, our baby girl finally came home from the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).  There were many terrifying moments wondering if she would ever come home, but she defied all medical odds and today at two and a half years old despite some normal developmental delays from her prematurity that will eventually resolve themselves, and some lung issues that will also eventually resolve she is a spunky loving child.

During my stay in the hospital, and our daughters stay in the NICU, we were blessed with many friends and family who reached out to us by bringing us food, helping us with babysitting our oldest daughter, and helping us with cleaning our house or running errands for us.  We were very blessed with the outpouring of support.  It was those that love us the most, and saw what we went through having a child in the NICU, who openly shared their fears that we should never try for more children. And honestly, there were times when I had just wished the doctor would have tied my ovaries while I was having a c-section. Incompetent cervix is so misunderstood.  It is for this reason that we hesitated to tell people.  Although I did my homework both by emotionally healing as well as researching my options to have more children, there was no way I was going to convince those who saw the pain and emotional havoc from the experience of having a child born 16 weeks early, that I was truly ready to carry another baby. 

Now you know my story and so my new journey into pregnancy after incompetent cervix begins.  I am now in week 17 of my current pregnancy and I have had some ups and downs, but no matter where this pregnancy takes me my readers will be there with me with an honest and realistic view of my experience. I look forward to reading your comments and hearing from you on your stories as I know I am not alone in this journey.