July, 2007
Before John left for Iraq, we found out that I was pregnant. Wow, the emotions were high. We were still grieving Jeremiah, we were getting ready to say goodbye to John for 6 months, and looking ahead to the possibilities of another baby! Somehow we made it through those first months of 2007 without John and dealing with the pregnancy thousands of miles apart. Only a few people knew of my pregnancy. It was just too hard to share that news publicly, so we pushed forward and prayed that God would allow this baby to be born happy and healthy sometime in September.
Immediately, after finding out I was pregnant, I contacted Dr. Jason Collins of the Pregnancy Institute ( http://www.preginst.com/ ). He was a wealth of information. We arranged to visit him at 32 weeks into my pregnancy which fell during the second week of July. With John being gone, I needed some traveling buddies, so it was only natural, that my friends Nancy and Jennifer, who were present at Jeremiah's birth, would go with me to Louisiana, where I would see Dr. Collins. At the time, Dr. Collins was in the middle of his study on umbilical cord related stillbirths and their relevance in future pregnancies. I was the 42nd mother in his study. All had experienced previous stillbirths related to an umbilical cord accident.
Jennifer, Alisa and Nancy in a New Orleans Trolley Car
It was a great trip. I learned so much. Dr. Collins was an amazing gift to me during this pregnancy. He educated me on what to watch for to help guard against a repeat cord accident. He also sent me home with a home fetal heart rate monitor, and I began monitoring the baby and my contractions every night for 30 minutes and then sending the information by modem to his email and my local OB's email. This way, they both had instant access to what was going on with the baby. At that time, Dr. Collins research had shown that mothers with a previous cord issue in their pregnancy were 4 times more likely to have another cord issue in a subsequent pregnancy. Those numbers had already proven true for us with the loss of both Elijah and Jeremiah due to cord accidents. We would monitor closely to make sure this little one was not going to have similar problems.
Dr. Collins explains how we are going to monitor this baby.
Images of the umbilical cord.
August, 2007
John returned from Iraq when I was 35 weeks pregnant. This was the exact time last year that we lost Jeremiah. Needless to say, our emotional state was pretty fragile. We were adjusting to John being home and we were ALL anxiously awaiting the birth of this new baby whom we could hardly wait to hold. The kids all felt the strain and were dealing in their own way with their own fears. It was certainly a time when we were stretched by God. He walked alongside all of us as we waited. We continued to monitor the baby closely. I was traveling weekly to Annapolis to see a fetal and maternal specialist there as well as weekly visits to my OB, Dr. Alonzo in Prince Fredrick.
September, 2007
The weeks following John's return were pretty stressful as we waiting for the arrival of this baby. It was hard not to be anxious, but somehow we made it through those weeks.
On Sunday, September 16, I spoke with Dr. Collins at length about the monitor strips from the past few days. He was concerned about the number of contractions I was having. We would watch those closely and see what the next few days brought.
That night as I was monitoring, the baby experienced 12 minutes of hyper activity, hiccups and heart rate decelerations down to 60 bpm. This was very concerning and I was thinking that we might need to go to the hospital. Around 11:30 pm the phone rang. It was Dr. Collins. After reviewing my monitor strip he said, "Pack your bags and don't let them send you home."