It was awhile before I wanted to have another baby...Madeline has always been a joy to have but I was not prepared to think about having another until she was about three. In March 2008 I found out I was pregnant and the day after it was confirmed by my doctor I started to bleed. I went to the ER since it was after hours although I wish I had not gone...they couldn't do anything for me other than take blood. The next few days were spent not knowing if I was still pregnant or not, although my body was telling me I was because I was still having symptoms. We prayed a LOT and I fully believed that this baby would be born healthy and whole a few months later. After a couple of weeks that consisted of worry, prayer, taking it easy and an ultrasound (where an insensitive tech told me there was "absolutely nothing there"...gee thanks!) I took another home pregnancy test on the advice of my cousin who is an L&D nurse. It was negative and that's when I knew we were not getting the miracle we had hoped for.
It was hard and I was mad at God for awhile, wondering why this had to happen, and why weren't my prayers enough. I will never know until I'm in Heaven one day (and reunited with my baby) exactly why things happened the way they did, but three years later I can look back and see good things that happened as a result. Doesn't make it better but I can see that God's plan is better than mine. Had I still been pregnant I would have been due the end of October...but instead we were able to go to Scotland that October to see my Gran and other family members. I never would have gone on that trip that year if I had been pregnant and who knows if I would have made it to Scotland before my Gran passed away in 2009. In fact, 2008 was the year that my Dad and Uncle reunited after not speaking for 25 years over a silly matter that was made worse by interfering family members who told lies to both my Dad and Uncle. By October 2008 my Dad was in regular contact with 3 of his 7 siblings, something he hadn't had (or wanted to have) in years.
And...had I been pregnant in 2008 I would not have had Olivia in 2009 and I certainly can't imagine life without her though we also faced that possibility.
I found out in January 2009 that I was pregnant and almost immediately I was battling morning sickness...worse than I ever had with Madeline. January and February were pretty much a write off for me...sick all the time, asleep in the chair by 6pm...poor Andy and Madeline! I was told though that the sickness was a good sign of a pregnancy that would "stick" so I put up with it as best I could. When March rolled around things improved greatly and I felt like my old self again and I looked forward to an easy few months...after all, my pregnancy with Madeline had gone smoothly.
My "only" ultrasound was booked for Apr.22nd (my doctor only had one ultrasound done unless there was a problem) and we assumed all was fine so we were really only looking to find out if it was a boy or girl. We were sent to an ob/gyn in the city...he is the best there is and the only one who will tell parents the sex of the baby. While he was checking things out I heard him say the words "birth defect". My heart went into my throat but then I convinced myself that I had heard him wrong. Because Olivia was in the wrong position we were asked to leave for an hour and then come back and he would finish. He also said he would be calling our doctor and that's when I knew things weren't right. He explained what he had seen and though I don't remember him using the term "omphalocele" I knew from his description what it was. A few years before I had watched a show about births (filmed mainly in Toronto) and I naively thought "No problem...they'll just do surgery and all will be fine". I think it's because of watching that show that I was so calm. We walked out telling each other it was going to be okay, God was in charge and all would be well.
The next day we had an appointment with our family doctor and that is when things changed for me...he told me I would need to go to Toronto to have the baby and would be having appointments there. For some reason this news upset me more than the news of the day before but he was impressed by how calm we were.
We slowly told people what was going on...close friends and family were told right away and bit by bit we told people. I think we did that mainly because we were hoping for a miracle before we had to let everyone know and also because we wanted people who we knew had a strong faith and a belief in miracles praying.
Some days I would have lots of faith and decide that everything would be okay and others I would be full of despair. Those days were usually after a visit to Toronto...they would bombard us with information and tell us the worst case scenarios. Hardest to hear was that Olivia could die, especially if she was unlucky enough to have trisomy 18, which combined with omphalocele is fatal.
If you want to know the full story of the doctor's visits, etc. then please go to www.carepages.com/carepages/journeyofbabyc. It's all there for you to read. To make a long story short, Olivia was born on Aug. 28th (three days before her due date) in Toronto. For a baby that they said would be in hospital for 6 weeks to a year or more, she spent 12 days in the NICU, 8 days on the surgical floor and was sent home at 20 days old to grow and wait for surgery, which was done on June 2nd, 2010. To look at her today you would never know what she had been through unless you saw the scar on her tummy.
I know that there are people who think our prayers were not answered but they are wrong. Our prayers WERE answered...just maybe not in the way we wanted, but I wouldn't change the outcome. Olivia did not have the many problems that a lot of omphalocele babies have...and there are some who die before or after birth, but many have heart problems, etc. Olivia did spend time in the hospital, but not the months and years that some babies do. Oliva's "O" (guess I forgot to explain that an omphalocele is when some of the organs are outside the abdomen in a sac...Olivia's contained her liver and some of her intestines) moved inside quite a bit in the first four months which is one reason why I feel her surgery took just less than two hours than the four hours it was supposed to.
If it hadn't been for Olivia's O there are many people we would not have met and one gentleman that Andy met in the NICU waiting room when Olivia was three days old needed prayer...and Andy was able to share with him and pray for him and his family. He and his wife had their first baby a couple of days after Olivia and a few hours after he was born he was taken to SickKids for a problem they didn't know about before he was born. He had surgery when he was two days old. The interesting thing about meeting this man...I had met his wife earlier that day (finally put two and two together when I met the husband) and we learned they lived 45 minutes away from us and the husband grew up in our city and went to the same high school as my husband. 9 months later when Olivia had her surgery guess who was in the constant obs room with her? Their baby! This past June when I went for her clinic appointment, guess who I ran into in the hallway? This SAME family! Definitely a God connection!
I believe that both of my daughters have a special purpose that God has given them...it will take time to fully realize what that purpose is but both of them have already been used by God in various ways.
One passage that meant a lot to me during my pregnancy with Olivia is Psalm 139, starting at verse 13:
13 For you eformed my inward parts;
you fknitted me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.1
gWonderful are your works;
15 hMy frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in ithe depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your jbook were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
