Alyson's Story - Part 3

PART 2

I spent the next few weeks looking up information on Alyson's condition on the internet. I had a hard time remembering everything that the cardiologist told us so I needed to research it out. It was good for me to become more familiar with what was going to happen but it was also bad in a way. Information on the internet didn't give me the hope that the cardiologist did regarding Alyson's condition. I finally decided to Google Alyson's exact condition and I found a pregnancy site where this lady was due a couple months before me and her baby was diagnosed with almost the same defects. I left her a message with my email to contact me and she emailed me back within a couple weeks and we told each other our stories. She also gave me her blog to look at for her son's upcoming birth. When her son Ethan finally arrived, I was looking at her blog at least once every day to get updates on how her son was doing to prepare myself with Alyson's upcoming birth. Her son was doing so good and he was able to go home before he was 2 weeks old. These updates made me feel better as Ethan was doing so good and that's what I was hoping would happen with Alyson.

I had 16 weeks left until Alyson was to be born and the high risk doctor (the one that was the bearer of bad news on my birthday) said he wanted to be the one that started following me the rest of my pregnancy. I did not like this idea because I was already taking a lot of time off of work to go to all the various appointments we were facing already. I asked him if it was really necessary and why my current OBGYN couldn't just follow me and pass along the information if they found something concerning. He agreed and I kept my current OBGYN to follow me the remaining pregnancy which I was grateful for. Along with all of the regular pregnancy appointments, I had to go in monthly for ultrasounds to see how Alyson was growing and the 4-6 weeks I had to go in weekly to the Dr. office to have a non-stress test done. There were a couple of ultrasounds that were done on separate occasions that caused me to panic a little. One of them showed that there was fluid around Alyson's heart which I knew nothing about. I had to go down to PCMC on a follow up visit to have it checked out by the cardiologist and he said that it was normal for Alyson and the amount of fluid around the heart never changed. That made me feel better. Another time they were measuring a lot of amniotic fluid which I still am not sure how they get the measurements. Alyson was always laying on one side so of course there would be a empty area making it look like there was "too much". Nothing was done about this as the decided to just keep watching it each ultrasound I got.

With all of these appointments, I had lots of time to think about what was going to happen, why it was happening, etc. I started remembering back to the beginning of my pregnancy when I first found out I was pregnant. I would have overwhelming feelings of sadness and a feeling that something just wasn't right but I couldn't pinpoint what it was. I don't think I ever considered something wrong with the pregnancy or the baby but these feelings were weighing me down. I never felt like this with my pregnancy with Olivia.....I hated feeling the way I did and not being able to explain why. When I thought back to this, I was thinking my body was trying to tell me something was wrong without me actually knowing something was wrong.

Since Alyson needed to be at PCMC after she was born, I was scheduled to be in SLC on September 10, 2008 to be induced. This was my 39 week mark and they didn't want to have me go on my own to risk me going into labor and having to transfer me by life flight or ambulance. This was an exciting time because my sister-in-law was also pregnant. We were both due on September 17 and were both going to be induced on September 10, which also happens to be my mom's birthday. I would give silent prayers all the time to please have Alyson wait until the day I was supposed to be induced to be born. I again had nervous feelings that this wasn't going to happen and I panicked a little. On the evening of September 8, I finally felt calm and felt that Alyson really was going to be a good girl and stay put for one more day. I started getting our bags packed and getting stuff cleaned up and went to bed a little after midnight. Frank got home not too much later and couldn't sleep so he went downstairs to watch TV for a while. Around 3am, I woke up to feeling Alyson making weird movements. I was frantically thinking "STOP Alyson! My water is going to break if you don't knock it off". Maybe I should have been verbal in this thought instead of thinking it in my head because a few seconds later my water broke and I laid there thinking "Oh no! Did that really just happen?" I screamed Frank's name with no response. I screamed again louder this time and he came running up the stairs. I guess he was ignoring me the first time because he thought I was yelling at him to turn down the TV and when he heard the second scream he realized it wasn't a "turn down the TV" scream. :) I called my mom to come get Olivia so we could get to our local hospital.

I was shaking while I was pulling the rest of our stuff together because I was still in shock. When we got to the hospital, I told them right away that they needed to call the ambulance for me because I had to deliver in SLC. I'm pretty sure I seemed little on edge with them when they were doing all of the "routine" stuff, but I kept trying to get them to understand that they needed to hurry because I wasn't to be admitted there. Finally, an hour and a half later, a nurse came in to my room saying that an ambulance was there to transport me. I felt helpless because Frank wouldn't be there on that ride with me.


PART 4