Welcome!

I decided to start this blog as a place to safe my thoughts, sadness, and perpetual musings about losing and missing Connor. I'm tired of feeling like I'm whining on my Adventures in Life blog, so I decided to safe the sadder thoughts on here.

I guess I'll start at the beginning if you're new to these parts.

In December of 2006 my husband and I decided to try to start a family. We knew I'd have issues getting pregnant, but our naivety made us think that we would be pregnant by September of 2007. We figured a little time, a little time... we were in.

Things didn't work that way. We tried on our own until September 2007 and then began receiving help at a local Fertility Clinic. Cycles started in January of 2008. February 2008 yielded a chemical pregnancy and a small glimmer of help. Failures of Timed Intercourse and Clomid/IUI followed until October of 2008 when two wonderful lines appeared on the test. Our happiness was short lived when a repeat Beta showed that my levels were not increasing as they should. On November 1, 2008 I miscarried our first child.

After a small break, we continued with Injectable IUI's, received more failures and then, after a heightened response in January 2009, our IUI was converted to an IVF. 8 eggs were retrieved, 6 were mature, 3 fertilized, and 2 cleaved. On January 27th, 2009 2 beautiful embryos were transfered. On February 7th the beautiful double lines appeared again and on March 3rd two beautiful beating hearts appeared on the ultrasound machine.

My blissful pregnancy progressed. I feel in love with my belly and my two growing boys.

Time stopped on June 22nd when I visited my High Risk OB and it was discovered that my cervix was dangerously short. I was in danger of having my beautiful boys at only 23 weeks 2 days and was immediately put on strict hospital bed rest at home, with the intent of entering the hospital at 23 weeks 6 days.

I spent the next 4 weeks in the hospital and remained perfectly boring. Ultrasounds came back wonderful, monitoring revealed amazing babies, and I remained stable. On Friday, July 17th at 26 weeks 6 days my cervix was checked and I was discovered to be only 1 cm dilated, long, and semi-closed. The results were so encouraging that I was going to be released to home bed rest at 28 weeks.

However, the world crashed when, on Sunday, July 19th, at 27 weeks 1 day, I woke up to intense pain. Only after trying to ease the pain in the shower did I realize that I was contracting. Nurses and doctors were called, I was hooked up to machines, and after learning I was dilated to 6cm it was determined that labor could not be halted and that my precious boys would be born that morning. I was terrified and prayed that my boys would be delivered safely.

The morning was a blur, and before I knew it, I was in the OR and my two boys were delivered via emergency C-section. Connor graced the world with his presence at 11:56am at 2lbs 9oz. His baby brother Colby followed 2 minutes later at 11:58am at 2lbs 3oz.

Both boys thrived that first day. They were beautiful. I was in a daze, but they were perfect. We had a long hard road ahead of us, but we were ready to take it on together.

Monday, July 20th we visited with the boys, enjoyed their lives, and prayed that little Connor's body would heal. He was fighting an infection, high blood pressure, a PDA, breathing issues, and potential bleeding on the brain. The problems were under control and the head ultrasound was scheduled for the next morning.

He would never get to it.

On Tuesday, July 21st we were awoken at 4am by my favorite nurse with the news that Connor was not doing well. We were rushed to Connor's side in the NICU where he was fighting for his life. His ventilator was no longer sufficient, a nurse was bagging him, and his heart rate and oxygen saturation were dipping dangerously low. Over and over and over again.

Finally, after 3 transfusions, a few attempts back on the ventilator, tears, and heartache we made the difficult decision to let Connor pass in our arms. At 7:08am, after only 43 hours, we said goodbye to our first born son.

It was the hardest thing I have ever gone through.

To this day I still can't believe that this happened to us.

I can't believe that I am a 25 year old bereaved parent. I still think back to that morning in the NICU and think of what life would be like if the ventilator attempts had worked. If the transfusions had saved Connor. What it would be like to be a Mommy with two living babies.

But I don't know what that would be like because that's not the hand we were handed.

So now I try to deal with the life we are living with my little man Colby, my husband Johnny, and my angel boy in heaven Connor.

This is my journey though grief.