The short life of baby Otis

On Saturday, April 28, 2012 we got our first positive pregnancy test. I took about 4 more in the following 3 days just to make sure ;) I called my doctor Monday and they had me come in to draw blood quant for HCG and progesterone. They had me come in 2 more times 2 days apart to make sure my levels were doubling as they should. They doubled beautifully, as they should :) We were ecstatic! 

On Thursday, May 31, 2012 we got to see our sweet little bean for the first time! I was 7weeks and 6days pregnant and the baby had the strongest little heartbeat just fluttering away at 141bpm. I cried when I first saw the little bean :) We heard the heart beating on my handheld fetal doppler on Tuesday, June 19, 2012. It was so fast and so amazing! Of course, I cried again. Just knowing this little baby was growing inside me, was amazing. I had officially fallen in love with this sweet little babe we lovingly referred to as "Otis" just for fun. I listened for "his" heartbeat a couple times a week and I grew to know just where to find it :) Very low on my right sided tummy. It was always so loud and so fast at around 159-167bpm.

I continued to have a couple of very uneventful weeks full of excitement over being pregnant with our first baby. I didn't experience a whole lot of nausea, just when I got hungry. So I ate and stayed un-hungry :)

On Thursday, June 28, 2012 at just 12 weeks pregnant I began to bleed a little bit. I immediately freaked out, called the doctor and they told me to go home from work and lay down until they could get a hold of my doctor. She was in surgery at the time. About 5 minutes after I got home from work they called me and told me to go to the Har-Ber clinic and get an ultrasound. I was still absolutely terrified, but I managed to drive to the other side of Springdale in tears the whole way to check on our Otis. The ultrasound turned out perfect. He measured 11weeks and 6days, 164bpm, moving around like normal. I had my 12 week appointment the next day and when I went in to see Dr. Collins, she went over the ultrasound, said everything looked perfect, listened to his heartbeat and sent me on my way until my 16 weeks appointment.

Unfortunately, we never made it that far :-/ This is where things took a turn for the worst.

On Saturday, July 14, 2012 Josh and I travelled to Broken Arrow to visit my sister, Derick, and Jake. We were also going to check on our Otis and see if we get lucky and see girl or boy parts. Josh, Derick, Jake, and myself went to Bass Pro Shops after lunch to kill time while my sister finished up at a craft fair. We spent some time looking at the "big fishies" with Jake. He loves them :) Then we went upstairs and checked out the camping goods, guns, and finally the bows. Josh was checking out the bows when he suffered a severe eye injury. The bows were all zip tied together so you couldn't pull the strings. Well, he happened upon one that wasn't zip tied. He pulled the string back, and brought it back to place. Pulled it back again, and it slipped out of his hand. A plastic cable slide flew off the bow and hit his eye. His vision went from blurry to gone in less than 60 seconds in his right eye. And the colored part of his eye filled with blood.

    Derick drove us to the ER at St. John's hospital where Josh was seen immediately. The ER Doctor was fabulous. She examined Josh's eye, told him she assumed it was a traumatic hyphema. This is where the anterior chamber fills with blood due to an injury. She gave Josh some numbing eye drops and made sure he was comfortable while she tried to get a hold of the Opthamologist on call. That doctor, and apparently another on call doctor, refused to see Josh. They told the doctor to send him home and have him follow up with an optho in Arkansas on Monday.
    Thank God, Dr. Cain wouldn't accept that answer and called the on call optho at OSU Medical in Tulsa. He said to send Josh over immediately, he would meet him in the ER. We quickly made our way to OSU Medical Center, in the ghetto of Tulsa. No joke. Actually, when we got there, the hospital was on lock down. :)
   Dr. Chamberlain came in about 15 minutes after we got there and evaluated Josh completely. We discussed with him our disappointment in the other two doctors and he assured us that issue would be adressed as that was unacceptable. He told us that this injury is grounds for admission and absolutely NOT something to mess around with, but if we could get his occular pressure down, he could go home as long as he followed up with Dr. Chamberlain Monday morning. Josh's occular pressure was at 44 when we got to the hospital. Over 30 is considered dangerous. He gave Josh a series of 4 different eye drops, 2 oral meds and check his pressure 1 hour later. It had dropped to 30. He wanted it BELOW 30 to go home. He gave Josh the drops and meds series again and checked his pressure about 30 minutes later and the pressure dropped to 26. At this point, he was able to go home with strict orders to return to clinic Monday morning at 9am.

In the meantime, on Sunday, July 15, we drove up to the hospital where my sister works and peeked in on our little Otis. As soon as she pulled him up on the ultrasound machine, we could see he wasn’t really moving much. I just assumed he was sleeping and didn’t think much of it. Ryan continued to poke and prod around on my belly and tried to get him to move. He just was not moving. I could tell she was worried, but I had just heard his heartbeat four days before this. It was beating at 164 on Thursday. I had just felt Otis move for the first time ever just three days before this on Friday. She told me to check for his heartbeat on Monday as soon as we got home and if I found it, everything was fine. If I couldn’t find it, call my doctor asap. At this point, I felt terrible for my sister. She was stuck between a rock and hard place. If she said something to me and got me all freaked out and the baby was ok, she felt terrible for alarming me. But, if she didn't say anything to me, and we found he had no heartbeat a week later at our 16 week appointment, she would feel terrible for not saying anything to me.

Well, Monday morning rolled around and we took Josh to his appointment with Dr. Chamberlain. He checked his ocular pressure and everything looked well enough for us to go home, but he referred Josh to see Dr Adams here in Springdale the following day.

We left Broken Arrow and drove home that afternoon. As soon as we got back home, I ran straight to get the Doppler to check on our Otis. I placed the wand exactly where I knew his heartbeat was….nothing. Just the beat of my own heart. I searched around a little, thinking maybe he moved…..nothing. I searched and searched from about 10 minutes….nothing. I called my doctor’s, in tears and freaking out, and they put me through to a nurse. I told her I have been able to find this baby’s heartbeat for the past 4 weeks and I could not find it anywhere. She assured me that sometimes it is hard to find the heartbeat this early. I knew this was true, but I also knew exactly where to find my baby's heartbeat. She told me to come in to the office right then and they would check with their doppler just to ease my mind.
   Josh and I drove to the doctor's office in tears and were seen immediately. The nurse searched with their Doppler and kept finding my heartbeat at 120bpm. She said she thought that was the baby’s. I kept telling her no it wasn’t, that was mine. They baby never had a heartbeat under140bpm. So she said let's go get a quick ultrasound to check on baby. We went to the ultrasound room and Dr. Hardman came in to do the ultrasound. As soon as she pulled that sweet little baby up, I knew my answer. He was so still, so peaceful. She tried for about 5 minutes to get the baby to move and to see the heartbeat, but it just wasn't there. She told us she couldn't find it, and couldn't see the blood pumping through the heart when she changed it to color setting. She told me our baby only measure 12weeks and 6days. I told her I should be 14weeks and 5days. She told us he had stopped growing 2 weeks prior at 12weeks and 6days. She apologized and said our baby had no heartbeat. He was gone. Just like that, he was gone. I told her we had just heard his heartbeat the Thursday prior to this. She said it sounded like he hung on for 2 weeks after he stopped growing. She said she had to have another doctor confirm our loss to make the next step. They told me that because I was so far along, I had no choice but to have a d&c. This is where they put you to sleep, dilate you cervix, and remove the baby and all placental tissues from your uterus.
    While we waited for the other doctor to come in and confirm our loss I had Josh make a call to my mama and we prepared ourselves for the worst. About 10 minutes later a nurse came in and talked to me about a D&C. I told her I wanted it done asap. I really don't care how terrible this sounds, but I wanted it out of me right then.
    Dr. Markell and Dr. Hardman returned a short minute later and performed one last ultrasound, which verified that indeed, our baby had stopped growing at 12weeks and 6days. His heartbeat stopped sometime between Thursday and Sunday. They both expressed their apologies and Dr. Hardman stayed and explained the procedure to me. She checked my doctor's schedule and said Dr. Collins could do the D&C the next day at noon. 

My sister was right to have been worried. I am so grateful that she was the one who found our baby not moving and no heartbeat. But, I was devastated that she had to be the one to find it. She told he how incredibly sorry she was and she wished I never had to know this pain. The pain she has experienced three terrible times. She was the biggest support I had through all this and she remains my biggest support.
   
That was the worst day of my life. Everyday since then has been a huge struggle. The next morning, (Tuesday, July 17, 2012), my mama and Ryan drove up here and took me to the hospital for my d&c. Josh’s mom came up and took him to his appointment.

While I was getting prepped for surgery, Josh got done at his appointment and came up to the hospital. I got to see him right before they wheeled me back. He just held me for a few minutes and we cried. We finally got a few minutes to mourn the loss of our one and only baby.

The next few weeks, Josh was on bed rest, vision slowly coming back, bleeds slowly clearing up, ocular pressure still far too high. I saw my doctor for a followup 10 days after my procedure and she referred me to a maternity and fetal specialist for a workup. I saw Dr. Canzoneri the following day and he ordered a huge list of bloodwork to be done the following Monday. He assured me that we would de everything we could to keep from this happeneing again.

All my bloowork came back normal, with the exception of the MTHFR mutations, which we already knew about. His plan is for the next pregnancy, God willing there is one, I will immediately be put on baby aspirin along with 4mg of folic acid, B6, B12, and a pre-natal. He decided my gene mutation did not need any more anti-coalgulant, thank God because it is expensive.

Josh got to return to work a few weeks ago. He is doing well. Still recovering, still healing, still no complete return of vision. He saw his doctor again yesterday and his ocular pressure was a 40! That’s almost as high as it was the night of the injury! We also had his followup appointment with Dr Adams and he decided the injury caused an angle recession, meaning the draining mechanism in his eye shifted and is not functioning properly. It’s not allowing the eye to drain the fluid properly, which is causing the eye to clog, which is causing the insanely high pressure. They referred Josh to Dr Vold, a glaucoma specialist to discuss surgery.  We see him on Friday, August 24, 2012. So it seems this will be a very long process of healing.

I have since quit my job at the Ear, Nose, and Throat clinic due to personal reasons. God placed the perfect part-time job in my lap and I started working at Ozark Dermatology the Monday after my last day at ENT Clinic. It has been the best change of pace for me. It is exactly what I need for now and my co-workers are amazing.

I can honestly say, I have never experienced so much trauma as we have the past  39 days. While my husband was afraid he may never see again, we experienced the loss of our only baby. My faith in God has never been tested this way before. I have never been this angry with life and God as I am now. I still pray to Him everyday, I still do my devotions when I can. But I am so angry. What makes me so incredibly angry is that God allowed this to all happen to us. He let this happen. I know there is a reason for the events that have unfolded, and I know we will be able to use this whole experience to praise God one day, but that does not make these days any easier to handle.

For now, we are putting trying to have a family on hold. We are focusing on getting Josh healed. I am focusing on finishing school. We are still mourning the loss of our sweet Otis. (Many of you asked if we really named him that, and how did we know he was a boy. This baby has been and will always be “Otis” to us. We called him that from the first time we saw him. We don’t know for sure he was a boy. We think we saw boy parts on the last two ultrasounds we saw. We feel like he was our “Otis”.)

I pray every day for God to wrap His arms around us and comfort us. We haven’t been comforted yet. We have all these people praying for us. Praying for peace and comfort. But, we haven’t been comforted yet. When does this ache in my heart go away? When does the resentment towards pregnant women go away? When does the bitterness and anger leave us?

I can truly say if you have never experienced the loss of a child, you will never understand the pain, the torture, and the terrible feelings you live with daily. I long for the day when God takes all this pain away from us and blesses us with a child we have so deeply wanted and prayed for. Until then, we will trust that there is a light at the end of this long, painful tunnel. 

Here are a few photos to remember our little man. Baby Otis Rust 7/17/2012 :)

This is the tattoo I got to remember him

This is at 12 weeks 4 days pregnant. I *loved* being pregnant. :)