Kyler's Story

My husband and I got married over 4 years ago.  From the beginning we knew we wanted kids, but we wanted to spend a couple years together getting to know each other before we brought kids into the mix.  Right about the time we had been married for two years my husband's work offered him voluntary layoff that came with some awesome perks.  His layoff package included a severance, 2 years of school and unemployment as long as he was in school.  We decided we couldn't pass up the opportunity, but that we would need to wait until he was done with school before we had kids.  I worked on getting healthy during the next year and a half and lost nearly 80lbs so I would have a better chance of conceiving and having a healthy pregnancy.  The two years he was in school flew by and January 2011 we decided he was close enough to graduating that we could start trying.  By the beginning of March we were pregnant and our due date was Nov 13.

My first trimester was fairly uneventful.  I was nauseous nearly all day every day.  The only thing that helped with the nausea was eating so I gained quite a bit of weight quickly, but I still felt good overall.  It looked like I was just going to have a normal pregnancy,

On July 15th everything changed suddenly.  My husband and I went in for our 22 week ultrasound to find out if it was a girl or a boy.  Quickly we were able to determine it was a boy, he wasn't shy at all, but then the tech measured my cervix and said it looked like it was a lot shorter then it should be.  She took a bunch more measurements of it and told us that she wasn't exactly sure what it meant but that at the very least we would have to be monitored more.  She told us the doctor would look at the measurements and tell us more and sent us back to the waiting room.  A couple minutes later the doctor called us back.  She handed me a tissue as I sat down, I was so confused, I had no idea what was going on, we didn't think it was that serious.  The doctor explained a little about what was going on and told us she was sending me to the hospital so they could monitor me and see if I was in labor.  Minutes later one of the transport guys from the hospital showed up with a wheelchair to take me straight to the hospital.

It took most of the day in the hospital for it to set in that this was a big problem.  In fact my husband went to work after he got me settled in the hospital because we didn't think it was that big of a deal and he had just started a new job we really needed him to keep.  That first evening a high risk doctor came in and explained to me in no uncertain terms how serious this was for both the baby and I.

After they monitored me for 24 hours they determined I wasn't in labor and was a good candidate for a cerclage.  A cerclage is a stitch they put in around the cervix like a purse string to help keep it closed.  The high risk doctor checked me one more time before taking me to surgery and found that the baby's amniotic sac was already bulging out of my cervix.  He said he still wanted to try the cerclage, but was very pessimistic that he could get it put in with out breaking my water.  We decided to go ahead and try the cerclage anyway, and it was a SUCCESS!  The doctor had been able to push the baby's sac back where it was supposed to be with a catheter before he put in the stitch.  I was monitored in the hospital for another day and a half before I was sent home with orders to be on strict bed rest.  I also had weekly doctor appointments with ultrasounds most weeks, weekly progesterone shots, and pills to control contractions.

As soon as they heard I was going to be on strict bed rest my family worked out a schedule where I would never have to be by myself.  Every day just as my husband was leaving for work someone would show up and they would stay with me until he got off work, even though he often worked until midnight or later.  They cooked me dinner, brought me anything I needed, and most of all kept me company.  With their help, I was able to follow my strict bed rest orders to a T.  For 11.5 weeks I only got up to use the restroom and take one shower a day.  I only left the house to go to my weekly doctor appointments.  The whole time I was on bed rest I worried about the baby, whom we had named Kyler Matthew.  Every braxton hicks contraction or pain would remind me we weren't out of the woods yet.

At 31 weeks I got steroid shots to help his lungs develop in case he was born early.  At 34 weeks my doctor told me we were pretty much out of the woods and changed me to modified bedrest where I was allowed to get up for half of the day.  She said at that point if I went into labor she wouldn't try to stop it.  At the end of my 36th week she removed the cerclage and I was removed from all restrictions.  I was sure as soon as she removed the cerclage that I would go into labor, but I didn't.  Since my doctor had removed all restrictions from me and Kyler was considered full term, there was no reason for me to stay out of work.  On the Monday of my 37th week, I went back to work.

My work was awesome about letting me come back.  I work in a call center and was worried about having to focus on calls after not having to think for 14 weeks, especially between contractions, Kyler headbutting me, and frequent bathroom breaks, but my boss understood and set me up to work on projects off the phone while I was back.  I felt a lot better then I thought I would.  I was tired after work but it wasn't too bad.  I worked for two weeks.

On Saturday Nov 5th I watched an episode of "Secretly Pregnant" (one of my guilty pleasure shows from the time I was on bedrest).  This particular episode was about a lady who was hiding her pregnancy because her last pregnancy had ended in a still birth.  She talked about her experience with the still birth and I thought how horrible that was and wondered if that could happen to me.  I started to worry about it and was trying to think when the last time I felt Kyler move was and then he got the hiccups... what a relief!  Later that night I didn't think that I had felt him move in a while, but I was sure I was just being paranoid after watching that show.  Sometimes he would be quieter then others, surely he was okay.  I tried to do some kick counts but kept falling asleep.  Again I was sure I was being paranoid so we went to bed.

The next morning I woke up and got breakfast and he didn't move after breakfast, he almost always moved after breakfast.  My husband and I agreed we should go down and get him checked, just for our peace of mind.  We got to the hospital and they tried to find his heart beat with the doppler but they couldn't.  My heart started racing, this couldn't be true!  They called in an ultrasound and she couldn't find a heartbeat either.  The nurses tried to assure me that they were not experts with the ultrasound and that we shouldn't think the worst until the doctor got there, but I knew they weren't going to find it.  The oncall doctor came in and confirmed that Kyler didn't have a heartbeat.  It seemed like it was all a dream.  They moved me to labor and delivery and called my regular doctor.  She dropped everything and came to support me at the hospital, even though it wasn't her weekend to be oncall.  Once she got there we started making a plan for delivering Kyler.