The Beginning

Dean and I started trying to conceive in November 2006. It didn't take us but two months before we found out I was pregnant. My pregnancy was uneventful. I didn't have morning sickness, just felt a little nauseous in the afternoons but that went away after the first trimester. Sunday, July 15, 2007 I got up for the day. After I had done my business in the bathroom, I got up off of the toilet and a gush of water came out. It wasn't a big gush, just enough to make me think I lost control of my bladder so I didn't think anymore of it and went downstairs to eat breakfast. I sat down to eat and about 10 minutes later when I went to get up, another gush came out. I told Dean who then looked it up in the pregnancy book and it said to "call your doctor". He was really worried since I didn't want to call because I thought it was my bladder. After a few minutes of thinking about it, I put a call in and waited for the doctor to call me back. I started curling my hair and putting my makeup on in case my doctor wanted us to come in (haha, I know I'm vain). When my doctor called back he told us to get to the hospital right away. When we arrived at Labor & Delivery they did a color test to test the fluid and it turned blue instantly which meant it was amniotic fluid (my water had broke). I remember the nurse having this look of fear on her face. My doctor came in a few minutes later and explained that my water had broke, most likely because of an infection and we would be having a baby within 2-3 days. Dean and I looked at each other as soon as he said that and we both started crying. I remember saying "we're not ready, nothing is ready, his room is not ready, we don't have anything." I looked at the nurse and she had tears in her eyes and said it would be okay and she would pray everything turned out alright.. My doctor said he was going to transfer me to the hospital 20 minutes away which had the Children's Hospital right next to it. I told Dean to call my parents and when he did, all he could get out was my mom's name and then he almost started crying and could not say anything else so I took the phone from him and told my mom what was going on. They live right down the road so they were there (along with my brother) within 10 minutes.

The ambulance ride was pretty neat…the cute EMT's, all the equipment, the cute EMT's--haha..of course I’d rather not have been in the situation of ever riding in an ambulance but I thought I better look on the bright side. I remember mostly looking out the back door/window and seeing the caravan following, Dean in our car, my parents in their car, and my brother in his car…it was quite the sight.

Once at the other hospital, I was given Steriod shots to help develop Ryan's lungs, Ampicillin and something else for infection and they refreshed my IV fluids which were started at the other hospital. I was on bed rest of course, except I could get up to go to the bathroom. We settled in, me in the bed and Dean on the uncomfortable pull out chair. At some point during the night, we talked about the baby’s name. Up until this point, I had come up with 3 names I liked but when I asked Dean to come up with names, he would say “we have enough time to decide”. Dean actually wanted his middle name to be Ryan's first name (Michael) but I did not. So we compromised and settled on Ryan Dean. Monday morning I had a sonogram to measure the baby and get a weight. The technician told us he weighed about 2 lbs. 3 oz. and we were able to see him moving around & confirm he was still breech. That evening one of the neonatologists from the Children's Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit stopped by to introduce himself and go over what may happen after Ryan was born. Even at that time, it didn't set in that I would be delivering my baby and that he would be so small. By very early Tuesday they took me off of the IV fluids and monitors since I was stable. I told Dean to go home that night since it seemed I was fine. BUT Ryan had other ideas. At 3 am I woke up with severe cramps and called the nurse in. She put me on the monitor but it was not picking up any contractions. After over an hour of her coming in and out of my room and me having severe cramps she called the head nurse in. The cramps (which I now know were contractions) were getting worse and closer together and I felt like I had to go to the bathroom. Finally, they got the doctor on call in there because I was practically screaming in pain and she checked me and all I remember is her saying was "she's fully dilated, get her to surgery" and they wheeled me off as I was telling the nurse to call Dean. I remember them telling me to breathe big breaths as they were giving me general anesthesia. I then woke up with Dean walking in the room. Dean made it several minutes before Ryan was wheeled out. Ryan was breech so we knew I would have a c-section but I didn't expect it to be like that…I didn’t even get to see my son be delivered. I am thankful, however, that Dean was able to get there in time to at least see Ryan being wheeled out.