My pregnancy was without complications for the most part. I didn’t get morning sickness, no gas, or heart burn, no acne, or oily hair. Honestly without my baby bump you would have never have guessed I was pregnant because of how normal I felt and acted. My daughter was born at 33 weeks due to PPROM and incompetent cervix, so during this pregnancy I was placed on progesterone shots weekly starting at 16 weeks that are to last until 36 weeks.

Fast forward to the day of my anatomy scan my world seemed to come crashing, because along with finding out our precious baby was a boy, he also has a congenital heart defect called tetralogy of fallot. We were sent to a maternal fetal medicine specialist to confirm and then placed as high risk, we ran multiple blood tests and then we got some more bad news, our baby had a 90% chance of having Down’s syndrome (or trisomy 21). The doctor told us that he wanted bi-weekly ultrasounds to watch baby’s growth and heart. I went in for my routine 30 week check up and had been feeling lots of pressure. My doctor checked me and I was only 1cm dilated and 0% effaced. So my worries went down. But at 31w 4d I woke up to use the restroom and my water broke. We get the bags together, take our daughter to her grandpa’s house and head to L&D. The nurses place me on the monitors and go get the doctor to check me and give me a speculum exam, it’s confirmed my water has broken but I’m not contracting. Soon after they get me to my room a whole bunch of doctors start coming in and out of my room. From NICU nurses and doctors, to cardiologist, to maternal fetal medicine doctors I was surrounded and completely overwhelmed. I spent the next 3 days in the hospital on complete bed rest and getting steady antibiotics because of the risk of infection. The nurses start me on magnesium for the baby’s brain development and to lower the risk of brain bleeds once he’s born, and steroid shots for his lungs to develop. (The magnesium makes you feel like you’re on fire but on the inside of your body, it’s awful)

The next day the doctor comes to check me and I’m 3cm dilated and 70% effaced, they then tell me that I’m at too high of a risk for infection so they’re doing to move me to another room and induce me. She comes in and starts the pitocin. I call my mom and tell her it’s baby time and to get to the hospital and she insists on stopping to grab baby clothes on the way to the hospital. By the time she gets there the nurse says I’m contracting every 5 minutes but Im still not feeling it so she turns up the pitocin to a 6. I start feeling the contractions now and I’m moaning through them. An hour later she comes in and has a doctor with her to check me, no change, so they bump up the pitocin some more. Might I remind you that I was trying everything I could to have a drug free birth. So besides the necessary things like pitocin and magnesium I had nothing to ease the pain. The contractions are getting close to unbearable at this time and I’m yelling/moaning very loudly through the contractions and the nurse suggests being checked again and if there’s no change then we could try an iv medicine to try to ease the pain some. I agree and there’s still no change so we get the meds. I start to feel the medicine kicking in but it’s only making me light headed, I can still feel the contractions full force. So the doc checks me again since I’m contracting every minute with little to no ease in between and still no change. The doctor then tells me that every time I contract I’m tensing my body because of the amount of pain I’m in and my son isn’t able to lower into the birth canal because of it so they need to give me the epidural to help move the process along. She checks me right after they get everything in and I’m at a 6 I’m so happy that I’m progressing now because by that time I just wanted him OUT OF ME. I start to feel my legs go numb but at the same time I feel the biggest urge to pee, and I know it’s pee, I know it’s not the baby coming and I tell them that I have to pee so the check me once again and I’m at a 10 and ready to go. They said I had no time to go to the restroom or for them to get a catheter in so they put towels underneath me and they said to go before I start pushing so that I didn’t pee on the doctor (ew.. I know) so after that they break down the bed and get my legs into the stirrups and I’m already crowning. 6 pushes and 15 minutes later my little guy was born screaming.

Here’s photos of our entire NICU stay 👇🏼

Update👇🏼

So the results for trisomy 21 came back and he does have the extra chromosome, and he will have to have an open heart surgery to correct his congenital heart defect at just 4 months old sometime in November. We have a very long road ahead of us but he’s starting to do much better. He’s gaining weight like crazy, he’s a whole 7lbs 4oz now. I will update again when we get more news and when we go to the cardiology center to have his repair done.

UPDATE:

He got to come home yesterday on his due date! He did so great on his first night home. And he got a bath in his bathtub and loved it! We’re still waiting on a date for his repair but as soon as we know I’ll update again.

UPDATE:👇🏼

So we have to go to Texas children’s hospital in houston (best children’s cardiology hospital in the country) Tuesday to have an echo and an EKG and for him to be cleared for surgery. We will be getting an exact date for his surgery soprayers that it’s not sooner than later. Also he’s almost EIGHT POUNDS😄 my little guy is growing bigger and getting stronger and stronger each day!

P.s. all of you women are so uplifting I thank you so much for the kind things that you have to say. I absolutely love success stories and I know my little guy would love that he has so much support! Bless all of you❤️