In honor of Prematurity Awareness Day (yesterday because I'm slow) and Prematurity Awareness Month, this is my not-a-preemie story. This is the story of the long road to Darling Girl. The story of our worries, our prayers, or fears, and our joy. I know that there are hundreds of thousands of people in this world who aren't as lucky as we were with Darling Girl. I pray for all of those people and hope and pray that we can bring the much needed awareness to preemies and their families.
In 2003, I was finally diagnosed with uterus didelphys. I had been trying to find out why I had been having some various problems and fighting to get an answer from the doctors. Finally after an oh-so-fun vaginal ultrasound, they found that I had double the fun, two uteruses (uteri?), two cervixes, and even two vaginas (in the TMI category, I had the two vaginas downsized to one). The problem with this is that it isn't really two full size anything; it's really like taking one full size and dividing it in half.
So I have endometriosis, uterus didelphys, and a repaired congenital heart defect. The doctor came in, looked at me, and said, "You should never get pregnant or attempt to give birth." Then she told me if I had any other questions to call her office and she walked out. Seriously. I got dressed, walked out to my car, and cried. Thank God for second opinions. My high risk OB is possibly the best doctor in the history of the universe. He told me that I could get pregnant and that I would just have to be monitored more closely than other people.
Fast forward to late 2007. We weren't trying, but we weren't preventing either. I had had 3 (possibly 4, but I'm not sure) miscarriages in 2006 and couldn't bear to try again for awhile. Mr. B and I finally decided to make an appointment with a fertility specialist. With the uterine abnormalities, the miscarriages, and the length of time we had been trying, it was time for other options. I got an appointment for early 2008.
Then on New Year's Eve 2007, I got a positive pregnancy test. The excitement and the worry began.
At our first high risk OB appointment, he told me that the goal was to get the pregnancy to 34 weeks. He said that we would try to do everything possible to make it to that point. At that point, they wouldn't prevent labor. He said that there would be problems with a baby born that early, but the problems would be fewer. The doctors all said that pregnancies like mine rarely, if ever, make it to term. We circled July 23, 2008 on our calendars and prayed.
They told me to stay off my feet as much as possible, to avoid stress (the whole forced move at 8 months pregnant was probably not the best choice), to avoid lifting anything remotely heavy, and to be careful. So I did the best I could with that.
I went in to see the high risk OB every two or three weeks. I went to see the regular OB alternating with that. I had to have an ultrasound at almost every appointment. The ultrasounds were to check the amniotic fluid around the baby, to check to see if the baby was growing normally, to check to make sure that this baby doesn't have the same congenital defects I had. I worried at every appointment. Would this be the one they would tell me the baby doesn't have enough amniotic fluid and needs to be born right now? Would this be the one where something isn't ok?
Every appointment went fine. Better than fine. The baby was growing well, the amniotic fluid was fine, there were no defects. This continued all the way through the pregnancy. We crossed off week after week and kept praying. We celebrated every little milestone. We celebrated every day that I was pregnant.
We kept celebrating through that July 23rd deadline.
Then at the beginning of August, we set the moment we had prayed and hoped for. We set the date for the cesarean section.
On August 27, 2008 our beautiful Darling Girl was born. We had our miracle. I carried a baby to term. There but for the grace of God go I.
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