Sheila's infertility journey and birth story.

I apologize for how long this is, but here is our success story including our infertility journey and birth story. So let's start from the beginning. Shawn and I started our serious relationship and fell in love New Year's Eve of 2007.We knew God designed us to be husband and wife after dating for just a short while. We got engaged that next New Year's Eve in 2008 and got married that August of 2008. After some amount of time passed, we desired to grow our family. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage right? Well....not so much. For us came infertility. I will sum this up as quickly as I can while still conveying our struggles. No words can explain empty arms. There is a quote "Empty arms is a heavy load to carry", those words are so incredibly true. We tried for years and years with no success. Spending countless hours and dollars on hundreds and hundreds of ovulation tests and pregnancy tests,  peeing on more sticks that you can count. I went to so many baby showers where I was truly happy for the mother to be, but would have to sneak a way for a moment to silently cry for the sadness of the emptiness I was feeling and the longing to be a mother. Lying awake in the middle of the night on some nights, longing to have a crying child in your arms.  Passing a room that should be your baby's nursery,  wondering if you will ever have that opportunity as you peer into the room bleakly. Friends began having their first babies, then second babies, third babies and so on and you still remain childless. It already was hard for me from the beginning to know my child(ren) would never know their grandmother, my mother as she passed away when I was 15 years old. Then my father passed away when I was 24, making this even more painful now knowing my child(ren) would never know their grandfather either. I was never able to give them the joy of grandchildren.  Younger family members and peers continued having babies, while we could not. Even people who were in elementary school when we were married, were now having babies. That's a tough pill to swallow. Finally we became pregnant and saw those 2 pink lines and the word pregnant on pregnancy tests, but then I began bleeding. After multiple blood draws, my beta HCG (pregnancy hormone) kept raising but my bleeding kept getting heavier, so we were not sure what was going on. After a few weeks of waiting to see what was happening, my hcg started dropping and our miscarriage was confirmed Father's day weekend. That was so tragic for us. Rather than celebrating Father's day that year, I went out to get my husband a sympathy card and we just held each other and cried mourning our loss. Miscarriage is a constant reminder that you are losing your child, every pain, every trip to the bathroom, every baby you see or anything baby related.... constant physical, and emotional and painful reminders. I am fortunate we only suffered one miscarriage, whereas many women sadly encounter multiple losses. So after 5 or 6 unsuccessful medicated clomid cycles, many diagnostic tests, pelvic exams, countless blood draws, some male factor issues and 8 unsuccessful rounds of medicated letrozole cycles, we decided to proceed with an IUI medicated with letrozole and a trigger shot. This finally got us pregnant!!! This was the magic cycle that we conceived our son. I became high risk later in the pregnancy,  resulting in twice a week non stress tests, weekly doctor appointments (eventually twice a week appointments), added medication, a referral to a high risk fetal maternal medicine specialist and constant monitoring. Then at 34 weeks I began having some new symptoms and concerns. A few slightly high blood pressure readings, some protein in my urine, and a bad headache. After a time of triage and observation in the hospital,  my symptoms began getting worse although my blood pressure was normal and urine wasnt too abnormal although it did still have elevated protein and elevated leukocytes. My headache continued to worsen however despite 2 medications and then I began having hyperreactive reflexes indicating that I was presenting symptoms of severe preeclampsia and I was immediately prepared to be induced. Shawn was in Michigan on a work business trip and I was hysterical, but he luckily got to the hospital in time after a very fast drive home. Shortly after my contractions began, I began having labor shakes. Shawn kept repeatedly asking me if I was cold lol. I tried to get epidural during labor, but it never worked. It was replaced and moved several times, and they tried several different medications. The anesthesiologist spent the last few hours in my room trying different things with no success. I began getting very nauseous and bad heartburn...they gave me a very sour medication for the heartburn....a few second later I began vomiting despite over 30 hours with no food lol. One medication that was tried to relieve my pain, caused me to be veryshort of breath and the nurse did not like the way my lungs sounded, so I was put on oxygen. for a little bit. The anesthesiologist kept working at trying to get my meds to work, but nothing ever did help and it was time to push. During labor my blood pressure dropped very low, while I was pushing, the babys heart dropped to an alarming critical level below the teens. I was immediately put on oxygen and turned on my side, and the emergency NICU team was paged to my room stat. After I delivered his head, the doctor then vacuumed suctioned his body out so that she could get him quickly. The baby was gray/blue, not breathing, limp and lifeless. His cord was wrapped around his neck and body. There were no sounds of crying. I looked over to the incubator as the emergency NICU team worked on him for 5 minutes according to report, and they finally got him breathing and stable. Those 5 minutes were the longest minutes of my life and felt like an eternity. When I finally heard the faintest tiniest cry, I cannot begin to explain the relief we felt. We finally had a few minutes to hold our miracle baby that God blessed us with that we prayed so hard for. We welcomed Zion Josiah at 34 weeks 5 days gestation, weighing 4 pounds and 6 ounce and 18.7 inches long. The name Zion was a tribute to my late grandfather who passed away this past February while I was pregnant. The last church he pastored was called Mt Zion. He felt very honored and loved his name when we told him. Zion respectively means "Mount/ Monument of God" and Josiah means "God has healed". Our child certainly already has lived up to his name.  After a 2 week stay in the NICU, we brought Zion on home on Father's day. This was a very bittersweet day as the previous Father's day we had miscarried. We finally have our precious miracle baby on our arms.

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