Calahan's Pregnancy & Birth Story
~ Pregnancy ~
My Ex and I knew we wanted kids. And after we got engaged, we started "trying" for them. Even though we were both 18 & 19. It didn't take long at all. We were engaged February 19th, 1995. That month we were disappointed when we found out we weren't pregnant. But understood. March, I knew I was pregnant. Suddenly things started changing, and I just knew. The end of March, something happened, and I went through one of the most difficult things of my life, my first miscarriage. The horrible cramping, unbelievably painful, the heavy bleeding, I knew .. I knew I was losing my baby. I had My Ex call me into work, and tell them that I had food poisoning. I was too much of an emotional mess, and in too much pain to even attempt to work.
The end of April, I felt weird. The pregnancy symptoms never went away. I didn't know what to do, so I went back into the DR. They did another pregnancy test (after numerous negatives at home from March to then) and I still remember the moment.... I was sitting in the little waiting room across from the lab. One of the lab techs, a woman with blonde hair, came in and said "Annissa?" and I said "Yes." She said "It's definitely positive. Congratulations." And told me to make my first OB appointment on my way out. I was in shock. My Ex and my Mom were out in the main waiting area waiting for me. When I came out - I can't begin to imagine what they saw on my face as I walked up to the appointment counter and made my first OB appointment. I was in pure shock... I was pregnant.
A week later, I found out that I had been right. I was about 8 weeks along, and it had been twins. Counting back to the miscarriage was 4 weeks, it had been twins that I had been carrying and I had lost one of my precious babies. But I also knew that I was a little further along then they thought, by a week or alittle more. They didn't seem to want to listen to me, I'm sure they just saw me as a "kid" who didn't know anything and had gotten herself into trouble.
In May I had a horrible scare, It was about 2 weeks before our wedding, maybe a little less, and I started having horrible pains. I thought for sure it was going to happen again... I was going to lose this baby too. I was so scared, and all alone. I called the DR and they told me to lay down on my side and sip on some 7-Up, and if it didn't go away, to call back. I called my Mom, I was so scared. Woke her up. She ended up going to get me 7-up and coming down for a little while. Then she went home but told me if I needed her again, to call. She lived 5 minutes away. It was a little while before My Ex came home, and he got as worried as I was. He held me on the couch, and we watched movies, until the pains finally went away. All I could think of, was thank goodness they had gone away.
June 9th, the day before our wedding, we heard our baby’s heartbeat for the first time. What a wonderful wedding gift from our baby.
June 10th, our wedding day. It rained all morning, and we were having an outdoor wedding. The weather man promised it would clear up late morning, and possibly come back late evening. Our wedding was at 3pm. It was cloudy and overcast all day, sprinkling on and off. I remember being nervous, not knowing what we were doing, because we hadn't had a rehearsal. We swung it rather well, not knowing exactly. And when I stepped out, infront of everyone, the clouds parted and the sun suddenly came out. God was blessing us, our marriage, our family. The sun stayed out for the wedding, and for most of the pictures. After we went inside and sat down for the dinner, it started raining again. It was a wonderful night. Even though we tried to keep it small and cheap - I wouldn't trade that for a bigger wedding. After the dance, we headed over to my G'ma and Mom's apartment to drop of the gifts for the gift opening the following day. I was not feeling well. We got home, to our little apartment, and starting that night, came the morning "all day" sickness. I was 12 weeks pregnant, and for the next month, I was throwing up 2 to 10 times a day, everyday. And it magically disappeared 4 weeks later.
August - we felt our first movements. Flutters, like butterflies - or bubbles popping.
The first time I felt a REAL kick was not too long after. I was walking in the mall with my best friend, Casandra, and Cyndi. We were sitting down, having pretzels the first time it happened. It felt like someone had come over and poked me in the belly.. but no one was around. I didn't know what it was, so I just brushed it off. Then as we were walking, I remember I was a few feet behind them, it happened again. It felt like someone had poked me in the stomach. I stopped, and so did they. Confused, I said to Casandra, did you just poke me in the belly? She looked at me funny, and told me no. Then it dawned on me, it felt like it was from the inside out... and I realized, that was the first hard kicks.
It was soon after that, that I started getting really sick. I was so dizzy all the time, my vision was blurring, I had no energy, and so many other things. I ended up at the DR and found out my blood pressure was shooting sky high, and I was scared. Turned out I had something called Pre-eclampsia. I was only considered borderline though, because I didn't have the protein in my urine. But I had all the other symptoms, including the rapid weight gain (by the end of the pregnancy, I gained almost 70lbs). For the rest of the pregnancy, I was on and off bed rest, in and out of the DRs a lot, and considered High Risk. I just wanted everything to be ok, I just wanted my baby to be healthy.
We hit December... the month we were due. Due December 25th, Christmas Day. I was at the point where I just wanted to see our baby. I spent December literally jumping up and down, trying to get something going. I was already almost 2 cm dilated and 90% effaced... and being told "any day now"... I wanted my baby. The only thing I managed to do, was to get my water to leak, and end up in L&D 4 different times with them telling me "No, it didn't break, and there's no signs of it leaking." Yeah, well, I know it was leaking.
Our due date came and went ... and so did the New Year. January 4th I went in for an ultrasound. DR wanted the baby's size checked. So we went in... saw our baby again. We were going to go in and be induced on Jan. 8th, just a few more days until we got to see our baby. Until we saw the tech's face change a little, and she asked us to wait in the waiting room until she was able to speak with the DR.
We sat there for about a half hour, then we were told that the DR would call us at Home. So we went straight home from the hospital. When the DR had finally called us at home, she told us that the baby had very little fluid surrounding it... and we needed to go into the hospital that night and be induces, or we'd be risking a dry birth. We needed to be there 6pm.
~ The Birth ~
My Ex tried to get some sleep, and I was too wired to do much of anything. I checked my bags, made sure we had the carseat and diaper bag. And waited, it seemed endless. We got to the hospital at about 5:30 and went through all the initial stuff. They got the IV going (after poking me 4 times trying to do it) and things got going. They put pitocin suppositories (that's what they told me) into me, next to my cervix. They put one in there, and things started happening almost right away. They put me on monitors and had fluids coming through my IV, were basically were just hanging out. My Ex, his Mom, & my Mom were all there.
I wanted to get up and walk around, and kept being told no. But I was rather insistent on doing it, and so finally they took me of the monitors so I could walk for a little while. My Ex and I walked around. The contractions started hurting, and that just made me happy, because I knew things were going along.
At about midnight things started getting painful, where I was having trouble handling the pain. They put a shot of something into my IV, saying it would help take the edge off. It did and it didn't. I got up and moved to the chair - and My Ex laid on the bed for a little while. I was still at the point where I could handle the contractions - I didn't want an epi or anything else. But they gave me another shot of the stuff to take the edge off the contractions. It just wasn't working... but somehow, around 1:30 or 2am I managed to fall asleep. I remember being in the chair, sorta in and out of sleep, and I remember hearing the nurse come in, and check the tapes from the monitor, tell my family that my contractions had completely stopped, and that they'd let me sleep for a little while, and re-induce me when I woke up, or in the morning. After hearing that, I just went back to sleep.
My Mom says that as I was sleeping, My Ex's Mom decided she wanted to go take a walk (have a smoke) and asked My Ex to go with her. So he did. Mom says they couldn't have even been at the elevator when it happened. Suddenly I woke up - my eyes wider then wide - and I grabbed my stomach. I just remember waking up to this horrible squeezing in my belly, it hurt sooooooo bad!! My mom was immediately at my side asking me what was wrong, she buzzed the nurse, and they managed to get me back into the bed. I had went from nothing, to hard labor. I started shaking, and throwing up with each contraction. I was scared, and I was in shock and pain. It was too much for me and I started asking for an epi - only to be told it was too late now.
My Ex and his Mom got back up and were shocked to find me the way I was. They had only been gone for a few minutes. My Ex had told me before hand that he didn't think he'd cry, but the only thing that could make him cry, he thought, was seeing me in pain. And sure enough, when he saw me in pain, he started crying. He just wanted to see it over, he didn't like seeing me in pain.
I labored like that for a few hours... ice chips, wet wash clothes, throwing up and shaking so bad that 3 nurses and my Mom couldn't hold me still. But at about 5:30 I was told to let them know if I felt like pushing. It was shortly after that, that I realized I was pushing with the contractions. So I told my mom, and she got the nurse. I was told I was complete, and could start pushing. It was 6am. It felt sooooooooo good to push. It put my mind on something other then the pain.
I pushed, and pushed and pushed through the first hour and a half. Finally the baby's head was crowning and the end was near. My Ex was by my side, and I couldn't keep him from looking. He thought it was so interesting, watching our baby come into the world. At about 7:50 I pushed and the baby's head was coming out, but didn't come all the way out. I was told his head was out - and the contraction stopped, so I stopped pushing.... then I heard the slurping sound. I looked around and said "What was THAT?" and the DR said "It was the baby's head going back in." I was sitting there - thinking - EXCUSE ME??? It's NOT supposed to DO THAT!!! And when the next contraction started, I pushed and pushed - and his head came out, they told me the contraction stopped I could stop pushing. I said "No way!" and kept right one pushing and pushing until he was out. No way was he going back in again that time. The baby slid out at 7:56am, January 5th 1996.
The DR yelled "It's a BOY!" and we wanted a girl. I sat there, in shock a moment, and though, put it back until it turns into a girl - then saw my baby, my little baby boy. My Ex says I didn't even hesitate... I grabbed him and he was mine, there was no way I was gonna let anyone else at him. He was crying - and pink - and he was ours.
It took another half hour to deliver the placenta, which the DR slowly tugged and I eventually had to push out. And get stitched up, because I didn't give the DR a chance to cut me - and I tore badly. But I didn't feel any of it - I was too busy watching (and taping) my ex husband give our son his first bath.
Calahan Joseph was 8lbs 7oz and 20 1/2 inches long. He was healthy - and amazingly beautiful. He was such a peaceful baby. Quite and looking around, always wide eyed and taking in the world around him. He lifted his head for the first time the day after he was born. He just amazed me from day one.
Calahan was circumcised and there were issues getting the bleeding to stop. This meant nothing to me until later in his life...
When Calahan was 6 months old, I took a bad fall with him, and he injured his shoulders. Because of that, we found out that he had broken his shoulder, during birth, and we had never known. That still bothers me a lot, to this day. Thankfully it had healed correctly - but it still bothers me that we had no idea.
But I was just thankful to have my baby boy :)
Years down the road.... after he started to suffer from Night Terrors (which are completely different then Nightmares), and started to have bloody noses excessively, on top of bruising from the moment he could walk... at 2 1/2 he got multiple nose bleeds in a day and I took him into the ER. They finally got it to stop, did some lab work, told us to go in see his Ped, after bleeding time tests that he failed, blood tests that were not right... his Ped referred us to Oncology in Rodchester, MN ... Mayo Clinic.. after going down and talking with them, I felt a little better.. they thought he might have some bleeding disorder, or nothing... so more bleeding time tests, more blood tests... and then we went home... the next day I went to work and was about to experience one of the worse days of my life. The day that I was told, via a phone call from My Ex ... that the DRs called and thought our 2 year old son had Leukemia... they wanted us to make the 4 hour drive, again, the very next day to get a bone marrow test. His white cells and red cells were off, he had odd cells, his bleeding time test had exceeded the 15 minutes... both times it was done... they thought there was such a high probability based on his tests, they wanted us there NOW. So - we went... and went through the tests, the bone marrow test in his hip... the excessive tests ... he was traumatized very suddenly... would scream whenever a DR would come near.... but luckily (sigh of relief) his tests came back fine...
...... still had no clue what he DID have though...
At the age of 4, and some very violent behavior - he was diagnoised with ADHD & ODD... he started on medication at the age of 5 - and I was VERY anti-meds... but I have to say, they help him out SO MUCH!!! It's amazing how he is two different kids on and off the meds.
And finally, we found out he does have a bleeding disorder called ITP ...
Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura ... We recently found out I have a Qualitative Platelet Disorder myself, which is what ITP is....
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