The story of Declan
We were both VERY excited to being having a baby, we got a due date of November 21, 2011. Little did we know that we were in for a very eventful 9 months!
We had our first appointment and ultrasound on April 12th, at 8 weeks 1 day, baby had a strong beating heart and was measuring a few days ahead of schedule. Within less than a week, on the evening of April 17th, I had a scary night with bleeding. That night I laid in bed, crying, and praying for the strength to face whatever was coming. Jason had just fallen asleep, when I very strongly felt "everything is okay, he's going to be alright". I was shocked at that moment, and I was able to go to sleep within a few minutes. The next morning we were able to get in to the dr, and within seconds our fears were put to rest, Jason saw baby wiggle on the screen as I saw the flicker of a beating heart. Dr found a subchorionic hemorrhage, which was causing the bleeding, and told me to take it easy until 12 weeks when the risk of miscarriage would decrease significantly. We were then able to finish the first trimester, in all my queasy glory.
On May 31st, at 15 weeks 1 day, we took the big boys up to Wasilla, and into an office. We had not told them what we were going for, so the three of them sat down on the bench in the office and looked up at the big screen. Within a few moments, their new sibling appeared on the ultrasound screen. We were finding out- together as a family- who our new addition would be. We had picked two names, for a girl it would be Brynna Louise, for a boy Declan Cecil. We were all excited and anxious to know. The ultrasound technician turned to me as she pulled up the shot between the baby's legs and asked if I knew what it was. I said "I have four of a kind, don't I?" she said, yes. I turned to the boys and told them they were going to have a baby brother. Jason told them his name would be Declan Cecil. It took a little bit for Avery to warm up to the idea, he was really hoping for a little sister. Payton and Rylan were happy and content though. We left there and went back into Anchorage to Kohl's, where they each picked out an outfit for their baby brother.
Things were pretty smooth sailing at that point. I was feeling a lot better from the morning sickness wearing off. I was looking forward to having another sweet son, and I was busy planning his nursery. I was quite surprised when I woke up one morning in June to blood gushing again, at 18 weeks 5 days gestation. I immediately put on clothes and wasted no time getting to the hospital. At L&D they started running tests. The first thing the nurse did was wheel in an ultrasound and take a look. She said something looked funny with the placenta but she wasn't an expert. An ultrasound at radiology was ordered. The technician down there didn't find anything wrong with the placenta, it looked like a normal pregnancy to her. I ended up being sent home. That night, I had the instinct that something just was not right. I was having little contractions and more cramping and bleeding. We decided to go back to the hospital and while walking in from the parking lot, I had shooting pains across my belly. I told them that I felt like something was just not right. The doctor on call, Dr.Gibbs, decided to keep me for the night, she was glad I had come back in. Jason had to leave for work, so I stayed the night in L&D triage until the perinatologist could come in the next morning. I didn't get much sleep that night, I was so worried about what was to come for this little boy we were already in love with. At less than 19 weeks, we were weeks away from the pregnancy being viable. He was far too little to make it.
In the morning Jason was back, and we met Dr.Richey, the perinatologist. She did an ultrasound, and within seconds found a placental abruption on the left side of my uterus. The placenta was pulling away from the uterus, causing the bleeding. She also found several blood clots (subchorionic hemorrhages). She immediately put me on strict bedrest. At this point, Declan was measuring ahead, giving us all hope. She wanted to see me in her office in a few days to take another look at the abruption and monitor our progress and we were sent home with this grim news. We held back the tears until we got home. It was a quiet car ride, and then a very rough day for both of us. I remember just hugging and crying. We were both so scared for what was to come.
Strict bedrest started, I was allowed to get up for bathroom trips only. Once a day I could shower. Jason had to bring me all my food. I passed the time watching TV. Thank goodness for netflix, I spent a lot of time watching tv episodes. I also spent a lot of time crying. I tried to prevent myself from reading about placental abruptions, but the planner in me won out in the end. I wanted to know what we were facing. I didn't like anything I read. A lot of women seemed to get their abruptions to hang on for an average of 10 weeks before it would start to abrupt further. That would put us just short of 29 weeks. A lot of women with abruptions bled out and lost their babies. I cried hysterically when I read those stories.
We went and saw Dr.Richey and Dr.Gibbs both that week. The abruption was holding steady. We were told we were shooting for viability, which was 25/26 weeks gestation. Then our next goal would be 28-30 weeks at which point he would face the best chances for survival without long term disability. At that first appointment with Dr.Richey we all watched Declan kicking like crazy on the ultrasound. He was literally beating up the placenta. I remember Dr.Richey saying "that's right little guy, you're going to have to be a fighter". I started to think of him as our little fighter, and I knew I was going to have to fight too, to beat these odds. We settled in to seeing Dr.Gibbs once a week at first, then every two weeks. Dr.Richey appointments were every month. In that first month, my body hurt, I had a lot of tenderness in my belly, and I ached whenever I got up. After time that pain and achiness subsided. Each appointment brought the promising news of stability. Time was being bought, each appointment with more good news of stability, I was increasingly grateful for the prayers and support we were receiving from literally everyone around both of us. The positive words from so many people brought me through my worst days, my scariest days. With each ultrasound- 19 weeks, 20 weeks, 23 weeks, 29 weeks- Declan was growing, and his abruption wasn't. At 29 weeks, Dr.Richey lifted my bedrest and I was allowed to slowly resume activity. I hugged her that day. It took awhile for me, it was hard to be up and moving after being in bed so very long. It felt so good the first time I made dinner for my guys, and the first time I did laundry and went to the store. It was great to get out and do things with the family again. I was thrilled.
The day after I got pulled off bedrest, I was saddled with the next speed-bump. Gestational diabetes. I was emotional about it at first, but reminded myself that at least I was off bedrest. I spent the rest of my pregnancy poking my finger and dreaming of cupcakes.
Who would have thought that the end of my pregnancy with Declan would end up being the easiest part for me? It's usually that I have smooth sailing until the end instead. October and into November I was doing alright though. I was growing, a little ahead of schedule but nothing like with Rylan when my belly was measuring 5 weeks ahead. Our last ultrasound with Dr.Richey was on October 5th, at 33 weeks 2 days. Declan's head was measuring 5 weeks ahead, and he was measuring right around 6 pounds. Clearly, the placenta wasn't affecting his growth and development at all.
My only fears for the end of the pregnancy centered around Jason. He had a business trip to Texas in my 38th week. I reminded myself that I had never had any of the boys early, and I should be fine. On Sunday, November 6th I brought him to the airport late at night, and just prayed that I would make it to early Friday morning, the 11th, when he would return. On that Tuesday, I had a dr's appointment, and was told it should be a quiet week. I was 1.5 cm dilated, hadn't changed or progressed at all from the previous week. I took it so very easy that week, spent most of my time sitting and doing homework. Each day passed and I got the confidence that I would make it to Friday. I just kept willing myself through that snowy, emotional week. I think it was my will that did it because I'm pretty sure my body and Declan were both ready.
It started on Thursday, November 10th.
On Thursday, part way through the day I started to feel a lot of cramping. I attributed it to sitting too long doing homework and blew it off. It was a busy night, I picked the boys up from school, brought them to Jason’s mom, and drove out to class in Chugiak. It was hours of running and driving around for me to be in class for an hour and a half. The weather was horrible, the roads were icey, people were driving bad, and the entire night I could see the full moon taunting me through the windshield. I didn’t get the boys home and in bed until about 10:15 pm. At this point, I had been having regular contractions for hours. I left the boys in bed with Chelsea in the house with them and headed towards the airport at about 12:15. In the airport parking garage, on the lower level, I found a snow bank, bent over and threw up. My body was just about spent. Knowing Jason was so close, I just made myself get inside. His flight was a little bit delayed, but a little after 1 am, he came through security and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I was 38 weeks 4 days, and my husband was home with me. I had made it. We went home and I literally felt like I had hit a brick wall. I couldn’t even get undressed without his help. We got into bed and he rubbed my lower back so I could fall asleep.
When I woke up at 7:20 Friday morning, I felt very off. My right arm was cramping at the elbow and going numb. I couldn’t feel my fingers. I ended up calling the dr’s office, and the nurse told me to come in at 8:10 to see my dr. I rushed out the door, leaving Chelsea with the boys again. I got into the dr’s office, and was sent to give my 80th pee sample of the pregnancy, I sat down on the toilet and realized that I had lost my mucous plug. I sat there in utter shock. In my previous pregnancies, I lost it for one of two reasons. 1- I was on the brink of going into labor (Avery). 2- I was trying every self inducing labor technique out there and getting my membranes stripped (Rylan). I had done NOTHING at this point, because Jason had been gone- there had been no membrane stripping, no evening primrose oil, nada, I had been taking it as easy as I could. I told my dr what happened in the bathroom and she had a smile on her face. For the first time I was actually hopeful of going into labor on my own. I texted Jason at work and told him not to go far from his phone today. My full moon contractions were picking up in intensity. By the time I got home, I was having regular time-able contractions a few minutes apart. I started cleaning, packing a bag, Chelsea helped clean the kitchen, and I asked Jason to come home for lunch and stay. I told him I thought we would be going to the hospital today. He came home, his parents came to get Rylan and pick up the other boys from school. Meanwhile I bounced on my exercise ball. For hours. Finally in the afternoon, I was ready to make the trip to L&D. Contractions were picking up and getting more intense. We got there, the nurse said I looked to be in early labor. She checked me, and I was at 3 cm. Since I had been 1-2 on Tuesday she said it was likely it, but that the dr suggested that we walk for an hour and then get re-checked. We walked the halls of Providence for an hour and came back. I was so devastated when she said I was still at a 3 but that my cervix had come forward. The dr ordered some meds to help me relax, and I was told to go home and come back when I went into active labor. The nurse suggested food and sleep and said she would see us soon. We walked the mall for several hours, me with tear stains on my cheeks. I felt so discouraged. It felt like it was “it”, why wasn’t my body going into active labor? We went home, and went to bed and to my extreme disappointment the contractions fizzled out.
I woke up Saturday morning just angry. I was back to Braxton hick’s contractions. The only thing out of the ordinary was the extreme amount of tinted/bloody goop I had been consistently losing since I had lost my mucous plug. Every bathroom trip produced more and it taunted me that entire day. We went over to Jason’s parent’s house that day, and I decided to just relax on the couch. Jason’s sister Tina walked in, took one look at me, and went straight to the kitchen. She made me a cup of basil tea, and then sat down in front of me and said she was going to work on my feet. She does reflexology and has put women into labor before so she thought she’d give it a try. She brought my swollen feet back to looking normal again, and when she pushed the pressure points to induce labor I felt instant contractions. The contractions stopped when she took her hands off though. After this, my feet and ankles felt amazing. After about 30 minutes I asked Jason to go for a walk with me. Through the falling snow we went. I was quite the statement of glamour in my pj pants, snow boots, and my classy belly hanging out of the bottom of my shirt, holding my Columbia jacket wide open. We came back to his parent’s house, his mom offered to keep the kids overnight, and we decided to accept and go home. On the way we stopped at walmart and I succumbed to the desperate attempt at castor oil.
We got home, I made a lemonade mixed berry icey blended drink laced with 2 oz of castor oil. I sucked it down, haunted by the memories of my desperate attempts with Rylan that just made me miserable. I stayed awake for hours, waiting. Jason fell asleep on the couch, I cleaned up the kitchen, cleaned the bathroom, packed the rest of my hospital bag, and finally took a bath while listening to Christmas music. At about 1 am, I gave up. I woke Jason up and we went down to bed.
At 8 am I woke up. Even more angry than the day before, I thought “yep, I’m going to be pregnant forever”. Jason was already upstairs so I climbed the stairs, went to the bathroom, and all of a sudden the mother of all contractions struck. I got myself up to the couch, and they kept coming. You know it’s bad when I ask for Harry Potter to be turned off. Jason hit pause as I headed into a bad contraction. As I was bracing myself in pain, head tilted back, we both heard (and I felt) a pop on the lower left side of my belly. I got through the contraction and we both figured it was my water. I stood up, but no gush of water, but instead bright red blood. I was confused. Back out to the couch I went, sat down, and the contractions continued. We timed them for a few and they were 4-5 minutes apart, lasting 1 minute to 1 minute 10 seconds. I decided to get in the shower and get ready to go in. I wasn’t moving very quickly, the pain was stopping me in my tracks. I got in the shower and the thought hit me. I heard a pop, I have a placental abruption on that side, and now I’m bleeding. My hands immediately went to my belly, where I realized Declan hadn’t been moving through the contractions. A 38 week 6 day pregnant woman has never waddled faster than I did at the point, across the house to find my Doppler. Jason looked at me like I had lost my mind as I stood in the living room searching for Declan’s heart rate. I found it, looked up at him, and told him I was not leaving the hospital without my son today. I went to get dressed. He moved up off the couch real quick and started getting ready.
We headed in to L&D triage, I told the nurse at the desk as I was getting weighed and checked in that I had a placental abruption, that I had felt a pop, and was now bleeding. She came right into the room. I told her that whether I was in labor or not- I would not leave the hospital until I was not pregnant because I wanted my son on a monitor until he was born. She left to get the doctor on the phone. As the whopper contractions continued, I laid in that hospital bed praying that the doctor wouldn’t send us home. The nurse was only gone a few minutes when she walked in and said “Dr.Kim is going to induce you today”. I almost cried. I was dilated to 3 cm still when she checked me at 11:00 am, and was 60% effaced. She said that Dr.Kim had mentioned pitocin on the phone, and that since the baby hadn’t fully engaged his head, just breaking my water was not an option. She also showed me the monitor strip since we had come in, and the baby’s heart rate was concerning both her and the dr. He was having some decels with my contractions and between that and the bleeding, c-section was already mentioned. 
She got me ready and in a wheelchair to be brought to the actual L&D unit. We met our nurse right away, and she started the admission process. She was waiting on Dr.Kim to come, as he hadn’t given his orders over the phone yet whether he wanted to go straight to pitocin or not. She started running labs while waiting for Dr.Kim to arrive. The contractions continued, and the doctor came in at 2:00 pm. He checked me, I was at 3.5 cm and 70%. I was in labor and making progress! He broke my water to try to get my labor moving, as in the three hours since my last check baby had moved to -1 station. The nurse said that between my regular contractions and my labs showing an elevated white blood cell count- I had been in natural labor already. My response “I’m not defective!” It was a great feeling.
With my broken water, my labor contractions stopped dead in their tracks. In any other labor, I would have fought for my chance to walk, bounce, shower, etc to bring back my contractions. This was not a normal labor or pregnancy, and the blood I was continuing to lose from the placental abruption made this more complicated. It was not in my plan, but I had said from day one of the abruption that I would do whatever it took to bring Declan here safely. The dr put in the order for pitocin, and I knew it was the right thing to do. The pitocin drip was started, and my contractions had started to come back right before it was put in my iv. The nurse told me the plan to increase the drip steadily every 20 minutes. It was at that moment that I asked for the epidural. The number one thing on my mind was getting Declan out and ridding him of the placenta forever. It was the quickest way to get me to relax and let the pitocin take over. In came my new best friend Dr.Jensen, and before I knew it- I had my first fully functioning epidural. Jason was laughing at me as I was finally out of the pain I had been in since Thursday when he came home, and I was in a state of bliss. With the epidural in place, the pitocin was cranked pretty quickly. Declan’s heartrate continuously beeping on the monitor was music to my ears. I just wanted him to be in my arms, safe.
The next time the dr checked me, it was 7:30 pm. I was 7 cm. Baby’s head was not descending and the dr started to look concerned. I started to have fears that, like Rylan, he would get stuck. It was the last thing I wanted. Every time the dr had come in since he broke my water he said the same thing “this not a small baby”. I tried to push the fear out of my mind and just prayed for a safe and quick delivery.
The contractions started to peak in pain, over the epidural. The nurse pushed the button for me to get more meds through the line, and sat me up in bed. Each contraction brought a little bit more pain coming through the numbness, not uncontrollable by any means, just building. At 8:12 pm Dr.Kim came in to check me again, he simply turned to the nurse and said “we gonna have a baby now” as he broke down the bed. On the next contraction, my nurse Kim told me to go ahead and push. As I pulled myself into a push, the dr’s eyes got wide and he said “No! not yet!”. On the next contraction he told me to push, I pulled my legs back- Jason was on my left, nurse Kim on my right and I beared down and pushed. When the contraction stopped, Dr.Kim said “next contraction we have a baby”. I was SHOCKED. I wasn’t feeling much for pain or pressure at all and unlike the previous deliveries I couldn’t feel where his head was, I felt like I was pushing in the dark. I felt the contraction build and I pushed with all my might, catching my breath twice I heard the encouraging words “ALMOST!” from Jason. I pushed with all my might and I saw Jason’s face light up- I knew the head was out. It went quickly, I pushed out Declan’s shoulders and I heard the dr tell the nurse to take him straight to the warmer. I saw his body, rolls everywhere, quickly whisked away to the warmer. Declan’s cord had been wrapped twice around his neck and he was having trouble breathing. His initial apgar was 7, as they suctioned him out, and got him crying he was up to a 9 quickly. He weighed in at 10 pounds 3 ounces 21 inches long. I delivered the placenta while Declan was being taken care of; I have never been more thrilled to get something out of my body and away from my child.
Declan is amazing, worth every single second of worrying we went through during our difficult pregnancy. I spent much of that first night looking down at him crying. What an amazing blessing. I would not change one thing, I have not one single regret, Declan’s pregnancy, labor, and delivery truly taught us patience and the importance of seeing the bigger picture. It taught both of us (me especially) that there is a plan, even though we may be scared and unsure of what is to come, there is a plan and we have to trust that we are taken care of. My desires for natural labors and avoiding pitocin didn’t matter this time, and I doubt it ever will again. What an amazing blessing we were given in our sweet son. Everyday for the rest of my life, I will be thankful that he fought as hard as he did, and that the placenta held on for him to make it to 38 weeks 6 days and over 10 pounds. He is truly a miracle and I can't imagine our lives without him.
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