Farewell to this blog + Birth Story

Obviously I haven't updated in a while, and that's because I delivered Isaac at 35w1d due to some unforeseen, left field circumstances.  I'll be taking a break from this blog, but leaving it up and checking occasionally because I feel there is lots of information here about the TAC and hopefully that is useful to someone.

The TAC got us to 35w1d, I have NO doubt about that!  If what happened to me hadn't happened, we would have definitely made it to 38w3d, to our scheduled c/section.  No doubt whatsoever.  The TAC totally did it's job, and my cervix was ROCK STAR the whole pregnancy!  My c/section was performed by the on-call OB, who did a great job although had never seen a TAC before.  My regular OB had talked to Dr. Haney and got some information on the delivery, so I was a little worried that some random OB performed my c/section, but it turned out great. 

Here's what happened (copied and pasted from private blog, so hopefully it's clear):

So, placental abruption is NOT what happened. I believe, based on the presenting evidence, that my OB called a placental abruption because it seemed to make sense and gave us somewhat of an answer at the time.

However, she was incorrect. The Maternal Fetal Medicine (MFM; a High Risk OB) doctor who was on call that night had been trying to reach me ALL day Friday. He reviewed and reviewed every step of our admittance day and reached a different, more rare conclusion. He came to the NICU looking for me as my mom and I had just stepped out for lunch, he called my cell 3 times without leaving a message, and finally reached us at home on Friday night at 6 pm.

He diagnosed the situation as a massive fetomaternal hemorrhage. I googled it and only a few case studies came up. The gist of it is that basically his blood hemorrhaged into mine, causing him to have severe blood loss. The only indicator is low or no fetal movement. There are no other warning signs. By the time it’s diagnosed, the baby is usually already dead. This happens in 1:5,000 pregnancies with the amount of blood loss he experienced. He used a garden hose as an explanation, which illustrates Isaac’s cord. There was a microscopic tear somewhere and the pressure caused Isaac’s blood to just rush out of his body straight into mine. The hemorrhage is somewhat common, but the amount lost was off the charts. In the 3 case studies I read about, the highest one was 207mL of fetal blood circulating in the mother’s bloodstream. I had 300mL of Isaac’s blood, not the 250 I was previously told. Yikes. It’s about 10 ounces, which explains the 11 Rhogam shots.

All babies are miracles, but Isaac is OUR miracle. He had some serious help from God’s angels, that is for SURE.  He spent 17 days in NICU, received 2 transfusions, was intubated, sedated, had a feeding tube, had lung issues, but FINALLY overcame it all and is now home with us 100% healthy.

Here's a picture of our little man at delivery (he was 6lbs 1 oz, so not terribly little), a picture during his 17 day NICU stay, and one of our healthy, take home baby boy.

Note that he had zero cord blood, and how pale (and severely anemic) he was at birth.  The transfusions happened within a couple of hours of his birth.

The worst of his NICU stay, when he was fully intubated, unresponsive and on morphine for over 24 hours:

And, our perfect little guy today: