Our journey to parenthood wasn't easy. Georgina was diagnosed with endometriosis in 2006, making it difficult for us to get pregnant on our own. Needless to say we were ecstatic when we got pregnant on our second cycle of fertility treatments; but were devastated when the pregnancy failed very early on due to a blighted ovum.
We got pregnant with Justin on our first cycle after the D&C, but given the previous miscarriage we didn't allow ourselves to get excited until after we saw and heard our baby's heartbeat a few weeks later. But that excitement was short lived; at 8 weeks we were told that our baby was measuring right on track but the gestational sac was measuring 2 weeks behind, an indicator of possible genetic problems. A follow up ultrasound 2 weeks later still showed a discrepancy between the baby and gestational sac so we were referred to a geneticist. An amnio at 17 weeks showed that our baby did not have any chromosomal abnormalities, BUT, we were told that our baby was now measuring 2 weeks behind so we were referred to a maternal fetal specialist.
At 24 weeks, a trip to labor and delivery for contractions landed Georgina on strict hospital bed rest. And so began the constant monitoring: blood pressure checks every 30 minutes, blood draws every 6 hours, 24 hour urine samples, doppler ultrasounds to measure the blood flow from Georgina to the baby, biophysical profiles to measure the baby's heart rate, muscle tone, movement, breathing, and the amount of amniotic fluid, steroid shots to help develop the baby's lungs. On paper our baby had reached the point of viability, but his growth had been restricted due to a lack of blood flow to the umbilical cord. The neonatologists gave us a 50/50 chance of viability and boy did we get lucky. her
Fast forward a year and a half; we're pregnant with baby # 2. Fortunately we didn't have any of the early warning signs experienced during our pregnancy with Justin. Nonetheless, our new Drs were wonderful and monitored Georgina every 2 weeks. At 31 weeks, Georgina was admitted to the hospital after going into preterm labor. Luckily they were able to stop the contractions and after 5 days she was sent home on bed rest. At 35 weeks she went into labor and because she had a classical c-section with Justin the Drs didn't want to chance her uterus rupturing so she had to have a c-section earlier than planned.
Like most people, we simply thought of a preemie as a small baby, not realizing all the difficulties that preemies, let alone micro preemies, may face. When we got pregnant we never expected to have a preemie. Little did we know we would be catapulted into preemie land: ventilators, ROP, reflux, developmental assessments, physical/occupational therapy and the list goes on and on. As crazy as it sounds we wouldn't change a thing.
