A Miracle for Christmas

So far I have had surgery... thanksgiving... another painful post surgical procedure... and made a decision for the future... but all that will come in due time.

Today, my dear friends I want to share a story with you. This is not my story, this is the story of a dear friend that I have come to love like a sister, the one I wrote my previous post too, I do this for you. She gave me permission to share with you this beautiful story that still brings me to tears.

To give you some backstory, Emily and I met years and years ago through friends of an ex-boyfriend of mine. We reconnected earlier this year (feels like much longer than that now) as everyone does, through Facebook. Em and I became fast friends, relating to the struggle of infertility through my blog. Although at that point she had not been pregnant before, she struggled as I did to even try to get to that point. Test after test, she finally had a diagnosis for her infertility, defective fallopian tubes that had to be surgically removed. Long story short, Em and I got to the same point about the same time, IVF was our only option. I began to feel closer and closer to her as time went by and we went through these procedures nearly hand in hand. We were exactly 5 days apart on everything we did. I went first, warned her of everything she was about to go through, lol... and exactly 5 days apart, we became pregnant together.

We loved and encouraged each other, complained to each other they way you can to only someone who is in your exact same shoes as the exact same time. We both pictured our children being born so close together and how they would be great friends because both of their mommies went to such great lengths to have them. Sadly,  you know how this story went for me. Between 4 and 5 weeks after we lost the first twin, our second twin's heart stopped beating. Less than a week later, Em's little one passed as well. 5 days later... as we did everything... we miscarried together as well. This being her first, I pulled myself out of the cave of sadness I was in and set my mind to get her through it. Encouraging her ended up benefiting me as much as it did her (I'm not entirely sure she knows that). It let me focus on someone else. I, quite literally, felt her pain... her heartbreak, I cried so many tears for her. I didn't want her to go through any of it, I wanted to go through it for her. I wanted to carry her burden as I had carried mine, repeatedly. I wanted it to be a dream and for her to have her perfect baby... I would go through it again and again if it meant she never had to. But you can't bargain with God.

The thing that changed Em as it did me with my first loss? With the proper mind in the situation she found herself closer to God than ever. I praise God for that every day, that she found the sunshine in the rain. My dear Emily, it takes someone very special to be the mother to an Angel. I'm so proud of you. It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it. As if that isn't miracle enough in itself... you're looking for a Christmas miracle here, and this story will not disappoint.

Emily did get a reason for her miscarriage, an infection. Something treatable. She had no uterine malformations, she did not have to undergo anymore surgery after her D&C... she had to be monitored and take antibiotics for a while, but it wasn't that long before she was cleared to try again, so they did. She had a frozen embryo transfer (FET) in November. They transferred two excellent grade embryos, then we waited. We joked about her not moving with her legs in the air to give those babies time to attach properly... I even joked with MY doctor about knocking up one of my friends, because I saw him the same day he did her procedure. He shook his head at me, as he does and giggles with all of my attempts at jokes. Because if we can't laugh about it... all we would do is cry.

Days and days passed until it was time for her blood work, to check her betas to see if there was a progressing pregnancy. There was! We were so excited. I knew those numbers would be good, I could feel it in my bones. The numbers kept going up and we rejoiced. My husband and I privately rejoiced for them, knowing everything they have been through, a rough road that we wish no one had to traverse. Then it happened.

Emily began bleeding. Heavily. I was at work at the time. I was not with her but I know what she went through. The first second you see the blood, the thoughts are the same. "No!" "No, no no no, Dear God please don't let this be happening." In that moment you can do nothing but beg God to spare your child. Every woman I have talked to about this, whether they believe in God or not, has this moment. You pray for protection, for everything to be okay, for the bleeding to stop. But it did not. More blood, more tissue was passed, until it gets to a point where there is no doubt in your mind that you are losing the pregnancy. You just know that you are miscarrying. You make your way to the doctor... they do the blood work, but it has come to a point where you know all the begging in the world wouldn't change the outcome of this nightmare. You are losing, yet another, innocent child. We cried, I was so worried about her and could have checked on her every hour of that night, but I knew she needed time with her husband. After I had asked her a million detailed questions that you can only ask someone that you have gone through such a journey with, I knew that she was at that point of coming to terms that she was miscarrying. So I went to God on her behalf, called all of our support group (without giving them details) to pray on behalf of one of our beloved friends. I prayed a million times throughout that night, on my knees, pleading with God to spare her child. Pleading with Him for her miracle.

To say she was depressed was an understatement. She just could not wrap her mind around the same question we all ask in that situation... "God why did you bring us here just to go through this again? Aren't we following your path?" These questions that we can't help but ask, went unanswered. If only God would speak audibly to us as He did in the Old Testament.

So a little time passed, they decided it was finally time to do an ultrasound. You see, the day she had the heavy heavy bleeding, it was still a little too early to do one. It was a Friday. I was cleaning the house. I texted her to see what time her appointment and ultrasound were, and the test had just been done. She would not be having one baby after that horrendous experience. She was having TWO. She had twins... both perfect... with perfect little sacs.... and most importantly two perfect little heartbeats.

I cried. I dropped to my knees and praised God for His answered prayers. For His miraculous intervention. They found nothing wrong with the pregnancy. The only explanation is that this was an old clot/hemorrhage that she passed. There was no more bleeding.

You see friends, miracles happen. I know you always hear about a friend of a friend who this and that happened to, but this is the first time it happened to MY friend. My belief in miracles has been renewed. Has yours? Emily's sure has. She is the living product of God's miraculous works. I'm in tears just writing this.

My dear friends, I ask you to come together with me in prayer thanking God for this Christmas miracle, and to place a hedge of protection around my dear friend and her perfect little babies. To my dear Emily, I love you so... and those babies... I'm still in awe of this outcome, as I know you are as well.

Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” John 11:40

 

 

"For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” Matthew 17:20

In due time, I pray we all receive our miracles. I know how many people desperately need to hear something good during this holiday season. Christmas is so hard for those whose children are no longer in this world, but we will talk about that another day. I hope you enjoyed this story as much as I enjoyed living it. After witnessing this miracle, my faith is overflowing. I feel such overwhelming joy for my sweet friend, and I feel so blessed to share with you the story of her miracle.

"And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs." Mark 16:20

If it's broken... fix it!

Hello everybody. Did you miss me?

Mike and I took a much needed vacation. For his birthday, a few weeks ago, I gave him tickets to see his beloved Buckeyes take on Penn State in Columbus, Ohio. We made a long weekend of it, since I am off on Fridays and got back LATE last night. It was amazing... exactly what we needed... to get AWAY!! We had an amazing time, and hubby especially loved seeing his Bucks win, by a landslide!

Now it's back to work... and back to reality.

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We had a follow-up appointment the past Wednesday, the week of our trip. I decided to put it out of my mind until we got back. But like I said, now it's back to reality. So... Here is what we discovered. After having some shaky looking labs in the beginning, with a scary increased prolactin lab result... the repeat labs were all normal. Our doctor is chalking that up to the retained products that I had after our D&C surgery. His is cautious, however, and will watch my labs even closer in the future. In other news, I had no clotting factors or antibodies towards the pregnancy. Good news.

Now the bad news. I had a repeat sonohysterogram, the details of the first time we had this done at my OBGYN's office, including details about the procedure itself can be found here, or you can go to the post entitled "An Interesting Case" written in March. These new results came out abnormal. So... either the measurements were inaccurate the first time, or the tissue that they first thought could be a septum has enlarged and become more of a septum.

This is the shape of a normal uterus:

This is the shape that they first thought my uterus was:

This is how my uterus looks now (or did before but just got a good plane of measurement):

So what to do... ... ...

My septum is a little over 1cm in measurement. By radiological definition a septum can only be called a septum if it is at least 1cm. My doctor says, that by itself, this is not too impressive. He likely would have gone on with the first IVF procedure even if he had known this from the beginning. Now that he has seen me pregnant, however, he thinks that it needs to be surgically removed.

Here is the problem with a septum: it is composed of fibrous tissue. Fibrous tissue does not have the normal extensive blood supply that the rest of the uterus has running through it. When you get pregnant and the egg implants, you cannot control what wall of the uterus that the egg implants into. So if the egg implants into the fibrous part of the uterus, after the placenta is forming (which is around the time of our loss) it cannot get enough blood supply and will die... and there's nothing that can be done. This is what our doctor thinks happened. You can see where a placenta will form by visualized where the yolk sac is located in the gestational sac, and little baby b... that yolk sac was in the area right along the area where the septum begins. Baby A... completely at the septum (we will never know if this is why baby A stopped developing or if there was some other abnormality) but it is very likely that this is what happened with our little butterbean (baby b). Had either baby attached to any of the healthy walls, this may not have ended in miscarriage. But that is only for God to know. He is the only one with any true answers... we can just give the best guesses that our scientific minds can wrap their ideas around.

Surgery here I come. It will be on November 8th, which is a Friday, my off day. It will be done on an outpatient basis at East Memphis Surgery Center. I'm nervous about it, but know that I will be in good hands. This is the center that all of my procedures have been done at so I know the staff is awesome!! I also will not have any abdominal incisions, it will be done via hysteroscopy.

Hysteroscopy is preformed by inserting a flexible lighted tube into the vagina, through the cervix and into the uterine cavity. I will be under general anesthesia (asleep) for the procedure. My uterus will then be inflated with either saline or gas for better visualization of the septum. Then they will slowly cut away the fibrous tissue until they get to the normal tissue,and ultimately will give me a normal shaped uterine cavity. There is the possibility that a laparoscopy will be preformed at the same time if there are any complications. (A small incision is made into the abdominal cavity with an inserted lit tube to visualize the outside of my pelvic structures). The recovery will be similar to a D&C recovery... several weeks of bleeding and cramps, the worst of which will be the first few days after the procedure. I hope to be able to return to work the following Monday after the surgery. Please pray for that.

The hope is that, with the septum removed, I will be able to have a normal pregnancy. Now that I have had recurrent miscarriages... I feel like this is the right thing to do.

We ask for your prayer during this time for a successful surgery and a fast recovery, and that it may increase our future success!

God has led us so far in this journey... we know that He will be with us through every moment of this! Thank you for letting us share the good and bad with you.

"The joy of the Lord is my strength!" Nehemiah 8:10

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Please feel free to come with us with any questions you may have... and if you find yourself in our shoes... we would be HONORED to pray with you and for you! We can be reached any time at thejewells319@gmail.com