Our Story

We knew from the beginning that this could be a difficult pregnancy. After the loss of Emilee we thought we were prepared. This pregnancy had started out with stress and problems. Now that I write this, I feel like it was all part of Murphy's Law!

At 21 weeks, we found out that my cervix was dilating. This was not good, so the doctors decided to do a cerclage and stitch my cervix closed to prevent an early delivery. On January 23, 2007 I had the procedure done and was sent home on bed rest.

I continued the bed rest for a few weeks and on Feb 7, 2007 I was feeling "off". A bit crampy and just not right. I called the doctor's office and they told me to come right in. Upon examination, they found out that despite the cerclage, my cervix was still shortening. Dr. Welch decided that I should be admitted and sent to UConn. At this time I was also having slight contractions.

Once I got to UConn they continued to monitor me. The plan was to keep me pregnant as long as they could. The first few days were okay. I was put on a medication called Indocin which is an anti-inflammatory and also used to stop contractions. This seemed to work fine. I was on this for the first 48-hours. Soon after this medication was stopped, I started having contractions again. Saturday around 11 pm the contractions were a lot stronger so they gave me a dose of terbutaline. That didn't totally stop the contractions so they put me back on Indocin for what was supposed to be a 72 hour course. They don't want to use this drug too long as it can affect the amniotic fluid levels. All seemed to be going well until Monday, February 12, when my water broke. This was not good news. I called Dave and he came up to be with me. This was one of the days he was going to stay home as he and Arran were with me all weekend. As long as I wasn't contracting, I could remain this way for weeks/months. If I started contracting again it was all over. I tried to remain positive, but I had a feeling since I came in with contractions and only the meds were stopping them that it was going to happen again.

SO.......... After they stopped the indocin, the contractions started again within about 12 hours. Happy Valentine's Day! I told the nurse and they monitored me for a few minutes and decided to send me to Labor and Delivery. Once again, I called Dave and he was on his way here. This too was a day he wasn't planning to see me. We were expecting a storm and he was going to stay home with Arran and wait until the bad weather was over. Boy am I a needy one! He made the drive when the weather was just starting to get a little nasty. We were in L&D all day and the contractions were not consistent. This was good so they sent me back to my previous room. I got dinner and a few hours later they started getting a little closer together. We didn't think anything at the time, but did mention it to the nurse. They put me on the fetal monitor for what was supposed to be a normal 30 minute reading. An hour later I was still on, and we were noticing that his heart rate was consistently dropping. The nurse was concerned as well, and she observed that it was during my contractions that it was happening. One of the residents came over and talked to us and said this was not a good sign. Because the fluid levels were low, her thought was that during every contraction, the umbilical cord was getting compressed and his heart rate was dropping. So back to L&D to be monitored. She said that if the deceleration happened more than 4 times in an hour, we were going to have to deliver. Because he was breach, this was going to have to be a C-section (we agreed that this was best anyway, as it puts less stress on an already stressed preemie).

The first hour went well, but 30 minute into the second hour we got the news that it was going to happen. It wasn't an emergency per-say but they were getting me ready as quickly as possible.... all the prep was done, met with the anesthesiologist, got a catheter and was ready to go. Now, boy do I wish that they had shaved me!