Harper's Birth Story

It is with a heavy, heavy heart that I tell you that Harper is now in Heaven with his big brother, Jonah. I am hurt and broken, twice over now. Words just can't express the hopelessness and disappointment that I feel.

On Friday, October 12, we were setting up for a yard sale that we were participating in the next morning. From about 10:00pm to about 12 I was baking brownies and bagging them up to sell at the yard sale. When I went to get ready for bed, I found that I was bleeding a little. I immediately went into panic mode and I remember sitting on the toilet crying to God that this could not be happening! I thought I was fixing to lose Harper. I came out of the bathroom crying hysterically and I told Aaron (my husband) what was going on. We got out the doppler to listen to Harper's heart and we found it immediately. I wish I could tell you that this eased my mind, but it didn't. We laid in bed talking and decided that I had probably just done too much that day and then I cried myself to sleep.

The next morning Aaron got up early and went to the yard sale. I got up and started getting ready but noticed that I was still spotting a little. So, I decided to call the on-call number for my doctor's office just to run it by them and see what they thought. I spoke with Dr.Reed, the on call doctor that weekend. She told me to come in and they would hook me up to a monitor and do an ultrasound just to make sure everything was okay. I called Aaron and he came home and got me and we headed to Thomasville to the hospital. Once there, they checked me in, found Harper's heartbeat with the handheld doppler and hooked me up to a monitor to check for contractions. They then sent me to have an ultrasound and I must say this was the loooonnngggeeessstt ultrasound I have ever had! When I got back to my room, Robin, the midwife on call, used a speculum to check me and also checked my cervix with her fingers. She told me she saw that there was some blood but they couldn't figure out what the cause was. They also informed me that I was having some contractions and they told me to drink about 100oz. of water daily because being the slightest bit dehydrated could cause contractions. They sent me home on pelvic rest. I found the couch immediately once I got home.

The spotting continued but I did not feel bad so I assumed that all the water I had been drinking was hydrating me and the spotting was just something that I should not worry about. I work at a desk all day so it is not strenuous at all. I went into work everyday from 8am to 1pm and then I would go home and get on the couch. On Wednesday, around 11am or so, I started feeling really crampy. I left work and went home and got on the couch. I called my doctor's office and spoke with the triage nurse. Since my pain was constant (like I fixing to start my period or like the first day of my period) the nurse told me that I should just lay on a heating pad and take some tylenol. She told me that if it got worse to come in. For the record, I am not so sure it makes sense to EVER tell a pregnant woman to lay on a heating pad for cramps! But, I did what she said all while chugging water to stay hydrated. My pain stayed consistent, but it did not seem to get worse so I never called back. I did not want to be the "girl-who-cried-wolf" and I had a doctor's appointment at Shands in Gainesville the next morning. We were going to Shands to have an echocardiogram to check on Harper's heart because the specialist that I see found a hole in Harper's heart and two choroid plexus cysts on Harper's brain. So, I thought that I would just mention how things had been going while I was there because surely Shands would know what was going on.

The next morning, Thursday, October 18, Aaron and I got up and got ready to head to Gainesville. I noticed that my cramps were not constant now but that they would come and go. We were fixing to walk out the door and I suddenly had the urge to throw-up, and I did. This was very strange to me because when I was 10cm dialated with Jonah, I started trying to throw up (since I had not eaten in a long time I was just dry-heaving). Anyways, we headed to Gainesville. The whole way there I would grimace through the pain. Once at the doctor's office, we waited for over an hour before we were called back. In the ultrasound room I started crying and I told the ultrasound tech what had been going on and that I have a bicornuate uterus and that my first pregnancy had ended in a stillbirth, etc. She did the ultrasound and the doctor came in and looked aroud and told me that Harper had a Ventricular Septal Defect (VSD), aka a hole in his heart. He told me that this could heal on it's own or it could require surgery after he is born but I should not worry about it. He told me that he wanted to send me to Pediatric Cardiology while I was there just so they could get a better look and also do the echocardiogram. I was on the brink of tears because of the pain I was in and because I just felt like something was wrong. He decided to do a vaginal ultrasound to check my cervix. He found that my cervix was shortened and dialated some (he never said how much). He was concerned that I could go into preterm labor as early as 21-22 weeks. I remember thinking, I am 21 weeks?! So, he wanted to admit me to Labor and Delivery and give me meds to try and stop the contractions that I was having and to stop the labor that was apparently beginning.

It took us about one whole hour to get from Dr. Eggerman's office to Labor and Delivery because we had to wait on a shuttle and what not. Once we got to Labor and Delivery I was admitted and put on Morphine and Nifidepene (sp?) and they gave me Zofran. The Morphine was for pain and the Nifidepene was to help relax my uterus so that it would stop contracting. I was in a triage room until they got me to another room. This room was a double room and about 20 minutes or so after I had been there a lady that was 40 weeks pregnant walked by to use the bathroom. She was in the bed next to me and they found her baby's heartbeat and started getting her ready to take to another room so that she could deliver. It sounded like they had her baby's heartbeat hooked up to a microphone and it was all I could hear. Aaron finally mentioned to our nurse that it was hard for us to hear all of that with losing Jonah and now being in preterm labor at 21 weeks. She assured us that she was trying to get us moved to another room as quickly as possible. Eventually I was moved to a room all by myself. Dr. Eggerman and a nurse came in after I had been given my three doses of Dilaudid to check me. I was told that I was 4cm dialated and that my cervix was shortening. I remember the nurse telling me that I needed to know that nothing I had done had caused this, nothing. I remember crying and shaking my head that I understood. They moved me to a delivery room, but I honestly didn't realize that was what type of room I was in. I remember thinking that the contractions were still not stopping and why?! I was in so much pain and I was so worried. Throughout all of this, no one ever told me that I was going to deliver Harper that day, no one. I just kept thinking why aren't the contractions stopping, why isn't this medicine working?

I threw up a couple times throughout all of this. The last time, I sat up in a hurry and started throwing up in this plastic cup thing. While I was throwing up I felt a sudden gush and I swear it sounded like the loudest thing in the world. I immediately looked at Aaron and started hollaring that my water had broke. Aaron told me it was okay and I hollared at him, in panic, "No! It is not okay! Aaron, my water broke, that is NOT okay!" and he told me it wasn't but it was, meaning I had to calm down. I remember feeling like I needed to do something but how could I? It was too early for me to be giving birth to Harper. The doctor at my feet told me to push if I felt like I needed to. I remember babbling about how I couldn't and then before I knew it, Harper was out and I could feel him moving a little. They immediately cleaned Harper up and gave him to us. Harper's heart was beating and he would move his little hands and arms every now and then and he would take breaths of air. He was so tiny but he was so beautiful. I remember staring at him and thinking about how my body, my cervix, my uterus had failed him and that if it weren't for my body, he would have made it and he would have been perfect. Aaron held him while a doctor dug around trying to get my placenta to come out. It was so painful and she just kept on until Aaron finally told her to stop, that I was in so much pain. They then decided that I would have to have a D&C to remove the placenta. Me and Aaron continued to hold Harper and they took some pictures of Harper and of us before they took me to do the D&C. Throughout all of this, I lost half of my blood volume. So, they kept me and watched me to make sure my body was replenishing its blood supply.

Harper took his last breath sometime around midnight while I was in surgery for the D&C. Aaron feels like he was holding him when he took his last breath, and for that I am thankful. We are left with thousands of questions and we are so broken down. This was the last thing we expected, even though pre-term labor, insufficient cervix and retained placentas are all linked with having a bicornuate uterus. Everything just happened so fast.

Harper's funeral will be tomorrow. We ask for your prayers not only tomorrow but in the days and months and even years ahead. This is SO hard, especially on top of losing Jonah just eight months ago.

Harper & Mommy: