This past year has undoubtedly been one of, if not the hardest, years of our lives.
However we have been blessed immensely by Heavenly Father in ways that I never thought possible.
Let me do a little explaining.
2 summers ago (2009-the summer we got married) I started taking birth control. However, my body is not a fan of the hormones that birth control contains whatsoever. Over the summer I started to feel numbness in my hands, face, etc. I didn't connect the numbness with birth control at that time however.
Then one morning I woke up and my wrist was hurting. You know how sometimes you sleep on your wrist wrong and it's sore the next morning but after a little while it goes away? I just assumed that was the case. However the next morning, I woke up with the same pain.It gradually got worse and worse to the point of my ankles hurting and it being hard to walk. Not terribly hard, just quite uncomfortable. Then I started feeling more numbness in my hands, fingers, feet, etc. I had trouble with my fine motor skills with my hands such as typing, brushing my teeth, etc. So I went to the health clinic here on campus and told them what was going on. They said it might be lupus. I freaked. Then I told them I started realizing the numbness shortly after starting birth control. They flat out told me that birth control can't have those sort of effects of someone. Obviously I believed them-they are doctors of course.
Anyway, Kevin and I decided that maybe I should stop taking the birth control and see if my symptoms went away and if I happened to get pregnant, then that was okay too.
That was in November of 2009. That following February we found out I was pregnant. We were so excited, but also scared out of our minds. How would we pay for this baby? Would I finish school? And tons of other questions.
Everything went great for the first 5 months. Then we got some genetic testing results back with a positive result for spina bifida. The nurse said that didn't mean the baby had it, just something in the blood work showed a higher chance. I freaked again. We set up an ultrasound appointment with a specialist in Idaho Falls for late June. Naturally I did some research on what can cause it and taking hot baths will basically "cook" your baby in a way. I never knew that, and I enjoyed several of those baths early in my pregnancy.
However, we never made it to late June for that ultrasound appointment.
At my 17 week appointment, my blood pressure was quite high. This is quite unusual so early on in a pregnancy, so they started drawing lots of blood and doing lots of tests the next few weeks in order to figure out why it was so high.
Then I had another appointment to check on my blood pressure and the nurse practioner checked the heart beat which was strong. But my blood pressure was still high so I set up another appointment for the next day.
The next day the doctor had trouble finding the heart beat with his little stethoscope thing so I had another ultrasound. His face looked a little off to me as he took measurements but I didn't think anything of it. I mean, I had just heard the heartbeat the day before and saw my baby kicking only a few weeks before in my last ultrasound.
Then the doctor said they baby had stopped growing right around the time of my last ultrasound. That was about 5 weeks prior. I freaked again,
We moved up the date of the appointment with the specialist to the next week. Over that weekend was Kevin's mom's birthday so we went down for the weekend. I started feeling a few cramps Sunday night, but didn't think anything of it really. On Wednesday we went to the appointment in Idaho Falls only to be told there was no heartbeat. I thought my heart might stop beating as well when I heard the doctor say that. He was kind of a jerk about it too. His exact words were, "What I see here is a baby with no heartbeat, so that means this pregnancy has been lost." And then he walked out of the room. I instantly started bawling. My helpless baby that had been fine just a few days before was now dead. I couldn't believe it.
I thought about all the people who already knew. I was 20 weeks the next day, so we had announced the pregnancy almost 2 months before. Everyone knew. Thinking about calling my mom to tell her was more than I could bear. I made Kevin do it. I still regret making him do it. Although I spent countless hours on the phone with my mom in the near future, I still wish I could have had that moment with her regardless.
I spent the next 24 hours in the hospital waiting to deliver a baby I wouldn't get to take home. I heard several healthy babies enter the world that night crying, and I myself cried along with them.
He was born one year ago today at 2:21 AM. From a medical standpoint, we can't be 100% sure he is a boy because he stopped growing at 14 weeks, but we both felt the whole time he was a boy and I'd like to think there was a little boy part that had started to grow down there. That being said, if there is a little girl waiting up in heaven for us, I'll have to apologize for putting her on the church records as a boy named Matthew Derek Elkins and referring to her as such until I die. But I'll still love her regardless.
Now onto the blessings part of the last year.
The reason why he died was because I have a clotting disorder which makes me prone to multiple miscarriages. All of my future pregnancies will be considered high risk and I'll have to take a blood thinner everyday in order to reduce the chances of developing a blood clot while pregnant. Because it's genetic, my sisters got tested for the disorder as well. One has it, one does not. The one that has it has had multiple surgeries in the past and her doctor said she should have died from a clot at some point. That alone is a huge blessing.
Another blessing is that Kevin and I have a much better plan for our future now than we did a year ago and I feel much more secure in our future plans than I did then. This may seem quite selfish, but we weren't ready to be parents really. Don't get me wrong, we would have figured it out eventually, but I think we're much more prepared now. Even though I know you can never really be ready.
Our relationship is so much stronger now than it was. Going through that kind of trial/experience (especially in the first year of marriage) is something I would never wish upon anyone,but it really brought us closer and more in tune with each other.
So you know how those doctors at the health clinic on campus said birth control can't cause those side effects? Yeah, I asked my OB-GYN about it, and without hesitating he responded, "Absolutely it can cause those kind of symptoms." I will never go to that health clinic again.
We went to the temple today to celebrate Matthew's birthday. He was definitely there. It was great to feel him so strongly. We're also celebrating with a cheesecake. We decided that will be our tradition every June 17th. Temple and cheesecake. Hopefully eventually our future kids will become part of that tradition too.
I'm sure I had more thoughts I was going to write about, but I'm all blogged out. This is by far the longest post I've ever written-pretty much a novel.
So happy birthday, Matthew. Daddy and I love you very much and can't wait until we actually get to meet you. Say hi to all your brothers and sisters that are up there celebrating with you today :)
