Thursday 27 February 2014

34 WEEKS

So smart phones are awesome these days. You can download pregnancy apps to guide you through. So today as I reach 34 weeks I get a reminder from My Pregnancy.

Fatigue has probably set in again, though maybe not with the same coma-like intensity of the first trimester.
Now's the time to slow down and save up your energy for labour day.

Well, today, without my son... how do I feel. I have fatigue... A lot of fatigue. A lot of sleepless nights and dark circles under my eyes. Today I have a lot of tears.

Slow down and save my energy for labour day? Well, today would have been my labour day. My Dr told me if we could push to 34 weeks, that would be great and we can do a C-section week 34. So since its week 34, and exactly on Thursdays when he does his C-sections, today I would have held my boy in my arms. I can almost feel him and see him in my minds eye. (Teary eyed)

I need a place to vent, to cry, to be supported, to talk to those who have been through what I have. Today I cant be the strong woman everyone knows me to be. Just for today, can I be a mourning mother for a son I lost? The Bible says blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. Today I would have had a son. 27 Feb 2014.

I had a son...
I had a son but I will never see him smile
I had a son, but will never hear his voice
I had a son I can never sing "You are my Sunshine to"
I had a son I can never tell "Stop teasing your sisters"
I had a son, he can never put his face by mine and tell me wake up mom
I had a son who will never tell me he loves me
I had a son who will never, never know how much I love him

But... I had a son... I had a son
His name was Cayde

Tuesday 18 February 2014

What is Placenta previa

According to the University of Rochester Medical Centre

http://www.urmc.rochester.edu/Encyclopedia/Content.aspx?ContentTypeID=90&ContentID=P02437

What is placenta previa?

Placenta previa is a condition in which the placenta is attached close to or covering the cervix (opening of the uterus). Placenta previa occurs in about one in every 200 live births. There are three types of placenta previa:
  • Total placenta previa. The placenta completely covers the cervix.
Illustration demonstrating total placenta previa
Click Image to Enlarge

  • Partial placenta previa. The placenta is partially over the cervix.
Illustration demonstrating partial placenta previa
Click Image to Enlarge

  • Marginal placenta previa. The placenta is near the edge of the cervix.
Illustration of marginal placenta previa
Click Image to Enlarge

What causes placenta previa?

The cause of placenta previa is unknown, but it is associated with certain conditions including the following:
  • Women who have scarring of the uterine wall from previous pregnancies
  • Women who have fibroids or other abnormalities of the uterus
  • Women who have had previous uterine surgeries or cesarean deliveries
  • Older mothers (over age 35)
  • African-American or other minority race mothers
  • Cigarette smoking
  • Placenta previa in a previous pregnancy
  • Being pregnant with a male fetus

Even in the stars... Tori Spelling

Tori Spelling Thought She Was Dying From Placenta Previa


Celebrities Arrive At The "Today" Show
Tori Spelling has opened up more about her ordeal with placenta previa – a condition in which the placenta covers all or part of the cervix. When she was 20 weeks pregnant with Finn – she experienced bleeding which led her to stay on four months bed rest until his birth.
Describing the night when she woke to find “massive” amounts of blood – she recalls to People, “I stumbled to the bathroom, dizzy from losing so much blood. When I got there, I thought, ‘This is it,’” there was so much blood I thought, ‘I’m dying. Not just [losing] the baby, but I’m dying.’”
She then asked 4-year-old Stella to get help from dad.
“I had to scream for Stella and I’ll never forget the look on her face when she saw me surrounded by blood everywhere. I didn’t want to panic her and I said, ‘Baby, will you go get Daddy? Just tell him I’m bleeding.’”
She continued, “Her eyes were as big as saucers and — this is going to make me cry — she looked like such a little toddler warrior. She said, ‘Okay, Mama’ and she ran. And two seconds later Dean came in and basically had to wrap me up to get me to the hospital.”
Spelling credits Dean with keeping their family intact. She told US Weekly, “Dean’s a super dad. He’s a mom and dad all wrapped up into oneand added, “He was dealing with so much, but he was always really positive. We had date nights every Tuesday . . . Dean would spend the night at the hospital on a cot next to me and we’d talk.”
While on bed rest at the hospital – she designed a new collection and planned Stella’s birthday party.
She explained, “It was hard because [blogging is] such a personal thing and I’m so open with everybody. I’m writing about Stella’s Fourth birthday, but no one knows that I’m in a hospital bed. I planned the whole thing, but I [was] on Face Time and not actually there. Those were things I couldn’t share, so it just felt like this big secret lie that I was keeping from everyone.”
Just two weeks after Finn was delivered on August 30 at 37 weeks – she was rushed to the hospital again after her c-section burst open.
“My intestines actually came out,” she said. “I was like, ‘Man, I’m being tested right now.’”
Now she’s just relaxing being a mother to Finn.
“It’s [been] almost six weeks and he’s smiling and grasping,” she reveals. “I just look at [Finn] and I’m like, ‘I hope you don’t ever want to go to camp or college because I’m not letting you go! Or you’re going to take me with you.’ I don’t want to be apart from him.”



Tori Spelling Dishes About Her Bed Rest Nightmare
Two months of bed rest may sound like a lovely spa vacation—unless it’s in a hospital, under doctor’s orders, and you’re having scary pregnancy complications. In that case, it can be total hell, according to Tori Spelling, whose new book Spelling It Like It Is describes her 50+ days of hospital bed rest when she was pregnant with her fourth child, Finn.
She told E! News, “I was flat on my back. I wasn’t allowed to even get up to walk in the halls. My bathroom privileges would be taken away. I wasn’t allowed to shower. Everything was stripped from you.”
And keep in mind she was in a hospital room that she describes as tiny, where she was only able to see daylight a little bit each day. Sounds more like a prison cell, right? So does Tori’s feelings of freedom when she finally got to leave the hospital. “I was like, ‘I appreciate the sunlight. I appreciate the warmth on my skin,’” she said.
Tori’s “lock up” was thanks to being diagnosed with a serious condition called placenta previa, which is when the placenta grows over the cervix, and often blocks the baby’s exit from the uterus during delivery. Placenta previa occurs in one in 200 pregnancies and can result in heavy bleeding, a danger for mom and baby. It can happen to anyone, but occurs most often in women who are pregnant with multiples or for the second or third time, who smoke or use drugs, who are older than 35, or who have had a C-section (At the time, Tori was over 35, on her fourth pregnancy, and had already undergone three Cesarean sections). Tori also became pregnant with Finn just one month after giving birth to daughter Hattie, which could have complicated things further.
Though Tori’s pregnancy with Finn was a struggle (to say the least!), there was a happy ending—he was delivered at 37 weeks and is a completely healthy  14 month old!

Saturday 15 February 2014

Put on my boxing gloves

So I have been frustrated. Feeling like I have to be strong. In my mind it feels like people expect me to be fine. Like over it. I'm sure it's not like that. But I just feel that way. I know I must look forward, but if you haven't been through it... You won't understand. So I hold back. Keep back my tears. But I have been frustrated.

 Thursday I left work. I got a message from someone who read my blog. Telling me she was heartbroken and cried at work. She was one of many who were touched by this blog. All saying they were in tears. So this was it. I cried all the way home. I went to my moms, put on my brothers boxing gloves, and hit that boxing bag like it owed me money. I cried and cried hitting it and hitting it. It helped... Even if just for that 30 minutes. 

Tomorrow is my sons memorial. Wish me luck... 

Wednesday 12 February 2014

My scar from the navel down

Tomorrow would have been 32 weeks. I feel like kicking and screaming and crying like a crazy person. I can't seem to get myself to do that though! Cry already man!!! 
Anyway...

I remember while pregnant preparing for a preterm birth. I had my hospital bag packed. Baby clothes and all. I had a feeling it would be February!!! Funny, that feeling was misguided. Every Thursday I grind my teeth and clench my fists when I realise it would have been a new week in my pregnancy. 

The 14th feb will be 2 months since my operation. My scar is horrible. Cut from my navel to my pubic bone. My doc says it's bad and will probably thicken. I'm on cortisone to heal it. He says it happens with some people and only if they know it will be a bad scar, they do something to prevent it. He said it costs R8000. Why didn't he tell me then!!! I told him for my body... I would have paid it. It's too late now. 

Another doctor was surprised to see my scar. He couldn't understand why he went vertically instead of on the same c section scar. He is an older man but even he asked "is your dr young or old?"  I said oldish. He just shook his head. He knew there is better methods probably. 

Now I will try to see how the scar heals over a few months and if it's still bad I will have to see a skin specialist or plastic surgeon. Let's see how it goes. 

Tuesday 11 February 2014

My struggle and blessing.

So I have been encouraged that I should not just speak about the bad that has happened but also the good that has happened in my life. I thus include another journey I had to undertake in my past which ended in a miracle from God.

This is unrelated to Placenta Previa, but nonetheless my journey. Gives me hope for the future too. Nothing is impossible

My story

I remember going for fertility for the first time. I seen a girl around my age sitting with her first baby scan. The invitro had worked and she was pregnant. It gave me so much confidence. A bit
of arrogant confidence that I believed in a month’s time that would be my fate too. I was deciding when my time would be. That was when I made decisions on my own strength... That was January 2008.
Since then I had battle after battle. I felt as though my promise land was also 40 years away. I forgot that one day long ago my God opened The Red Sea to let His people walk through. So I had doubt. That miracles don't really exist.  I put my faith in promises of other things instead of Gods promises. So I had a lot of "illnesses" I never thought i would have. 3 operations, invitro, artificial insemination, acupuncture, went to a herbal lady in Eldorado park, homeopathy......... (Sigh)... That was done in my own strength.
I had people all giving me different advice. Confusing me. Some saying wait on God. That’s not the way. Others saying go here. Do this. Do that. Let me not even say what I was told to do with my legs. Lol.
I listened in my own strength, but I was weak.
People would say have faith. I could never understand what they meant. I would say "do I not have faith as small as a mustard seed! I have faith. But what does God want me to have faith in? Doctors, homeopaths, patience... What?"
Then one random day, I had a eureka moment. Who cares what I choose to do. Whether i do homeopathy or go for fertility or do absolutely nothing, as long as I have FAITH in GOD, his will be done. How could something so simple, have been so hard to understand for so long.
I also decided to stop saying negative things. The power of the tongue is so powerful you know, that sometimes we curse ourselves with our own words. So every time, to hide the pain I would tell people I don't care, one child is fine etc, I was just taking a step back. So I began to affirm my desires. Through prayer and supplication I made my requests known to the Lord. I declared by Jesus stripes I am healed. I am pregnant I Jesus name. That I did in Gods strength.
John 14: 13-14 says whatever you ask for in my name that I will do that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
I woke up on 8 April 2011. I had to do a test to rule out pregnancy before I went to the doctor.  Anxiously did probably my 20th pregnancy test and seen something I hadn't seen for over 5 years... A positive result. It took me 4 tests that day to comprehend what the Lord had done for me.
Albert Einstein once said that we can live our lives as though nothing is a miracle or as though everything is a miracle.
When I told people I was pregnant through my joyful tears, they would say " you see all in Gods time" but... I know it was not me waiting on God, but God waiting on me. Waiting for me to believe in Him. To declare it and have faith in Him first and foremost.
I knew a long time ago that however this baby is conceived, it would be to glorify God. That I knew for sure. Doctors said my chances are slim. They didn’t give me hope, but nothing is impossible with God. So this is me glorifying His name. My story is not only for those in my position, but for those who feel they are walking for years to their promise land and are not getting there. Your storm goes on and on it seems?  Well whatever you are going through, remember that if God could open the Red sea for his people, are you not His child too? sometimes to see the rainbow, it has to rain first. My daughter was born 1/12/2011, healthy and in God’s Image
I am not a great Christian. All I know is, an average me, put my faith in God to give me something He promised me. He said ask and it shall be given. I decided to stop looking around for an answer but up. You know if you fall, the best way to get on your feet, is to start on your knees first.
In ending, I leave you with this beautiful phrase on  the definition of a Miracle...
A miracle is an event beyond the power of any known physical law to produce; it is a spiritual occurrence produced by the power of God. Billy Graham