Alex

Now it’s time for the story of Alex’s birth. This is a SUPER LONG one, sorry…

*****The picture to the right is when I was pregnant with Alex, about 5 weeks before he was born!*****

After I lost Jakob, I had a really hard time with everything. An old ex-boyfriend got back in touch with me and it seemed to me like he was making things easier. Of course, I was vulnerable at the time and fell back in love with him almost instantly. He made me laugh and smile at times when it was really hard to do so. Well, we dated for a while and ended up moving in together. Around the middle of November, 2006, I thought I was pregnant again. I had mentioned it to the guy that I was seeing at the time and he just brushed it off. I asked what we would do if I was pregnant and he never wanted to talk about it. Around Thanksgiving time, he was already pushing me further and further away. By the middle of December, I KNEW I was pregnant. I was getting the morning sickness and I hadn’t had my period. At this time, I found out that the “father” was seeing someone else and him and I ended our relationship. I was so scared… I didn’t want to go through losing another baby without the father being around. I was scared to lose the baby that I was carrying, I was scared that something bad would happen like it did with Jakob, I was scared that people would judge me because I was pregnant and the “father” was already seeing someone else. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t tell anyone I was pregnant. Finally in the middle of January, when I was already 11 weeks pregnant, I went to see a High Risk OB-GYN. Of course, they told me I should have come in sooner and all, but they understood my fears as well. The Dr put me on Blood Pressure medication and told me to watch my blood pressure very closely. He told me that he thought we’d be able to catch any problems a lot sooner than with Jakob because he was going to have me come in every other week for check ups and have an ultra sound once a month. After this first appointment, I told the “father” what the Dr said and he told me to keep him posted and that he wanted to be there for the next appointment, but he never talked to me again after he said that. Anyway, off the subject of Alex’s “father”, about a week after that appointment, towards the end of January, I decided I could finally tell my friends and family. I let everyone know by showing them the ultra sound pictures and telling them to look at the date. For the most part, everyone was excited. In March, I went and told Alex’s other grandparents. They told me that when I had called and told them that I wanted to see them, they had a feeling I was pregnant. They seemed happy and mad at the same time. I was already almost 6 months pregnant and I was just telling them, so I could understand their feelings.

On April 15th, my OB-GYN went out of the country for vacation. That same day, I was going to a friends house for a birthday party and after being there for about 5 minutes I walked to my car so I could go to the gas station and get a drink. As soon as I got to my car I was sick to my stomach. It came out of nowhere. That was when I had a feeling something was wrong. That night I didn’t feel quite as sick, I had started to feel better. The next day I was supposed to go to dinner after work with my friend. When I got home though, I felt light headed and checked my blood pressure. It was pretty high. At this point I was 28 weeks pregnant. I knew that I had gotten further than I did with Jakob, but everyone always says that it’s best to go past about 36 weeks. I did not want to lose another baby and I was scared out of my mind. My friend and I ended up sitting at my house instead of going out. I thought that when I went to bed, my blood pressure would go down. I woke up the next morning and took my blood pressure before even getting out of bed and it was still high. I went to work and from work I called the Dr and his nurse told me to come in as soon as possible. I left work and told my boss I’d be back shortly….

That was April 17, 2007. I went in and they watched my blood pressure for about half an hour and told me that they were admitting me because I had the beginning stages of Pre-eclampsia/Toxemia again. I started crying right away. I was so scared and didn’t want to go through this again. All that day they gave me magnesium sulfate to lower my blood pressure and they started watching my urine output and everything. The next day they got all my levels stable and sent me to another room. They told me that they were thinking of putting me on bed rest, IN THE HOSPITAL, for the next 11 weeks, or until the baby came. I don’t think Alex liked that idea any more than I did because all of me levels were back up way more than before the next day and my Pre-eclampsia had advanced to HELLP Syndrome. They decided on the 19th that they had to induce me and get Alex out. All night on the 19th and all day the 20th, I didn’t have a single contraction. On Saturday, April 21st at about 7:30 am the Dr’s decided they had to do a C-section because nothing was happening and my body was getting worse. My mom couldn’t come in to the birthing room because she was really sick at the time and didn’t want to get Alex sick. My dad was also sick. I could have called so many friends, but I wanted to give Alex’s other grandmother a chance to be there. I called her and she was there as soon as she could be. Now, let me just tell you how awkward it is to be laying down on a surgery table with your arms strapped down and have them take all your clothes off in front of your ex’s mom! LOL Anyway, I could feel them moving around inside my stomach and it was a really weird feeling and it started to make me nauseous so they gave me some more medicine… which knocked me out completely! I still wish that they hadn’t done that because I definitely wasn’t the first one to see my baby. He was born at 10:21 am on April 21, 2008. He was born exactly 11 weeks before his due date.



I woke up only to see pictures of my baby boy laying on the bed next to me. I didn’t know what was going on because I was in panic mode and pretty much everything they had told me about the Neonatal ICU the day before, had disappeared from my mind. I was wondering where my baby was and when I could see him and if he was ok! Later that night, around 9 pm, they wheeled my bed to another room again and as they did that, they pushed me through the NICU and they stopped at my baby’s incubator. He was so tiny and he looked so helpless! The nurse was very nice, she went over a lot of information with me. But she could tell that I was still pretty out of it so I think she tried to keep it short. She did tell me, he was 2 pounds 2 ounces when he was born. He was 15 inches long, and he didn’t even need to be on a ventilator because he was breathing well enough that he could be on the next machine above that which is called a C-PAP machine. It was still helping him breathe but not quite as much.


This is where our Journey began……

More to come!