Longing to Be a Mother!

prayhard79 - 02:44pm May 2, 2012 EST

My name is Tanya, and this is my story. First off, a little about myself. I’m 32 years of age and have longed to be a mother for as long as I can remember. The problem with that is I have endometriosis and PCOS, which had caused me to struggle to conceive for over 3 years. I had gone through many fertility treatments and surgeries in the hopes of becoming the mother that I knew I was destined to be. Some of the treatments that I went through include Laparoscopic surgery, multiple IUI’s, daily injections and In-vitro Fertilization. Every cycle I had my hopes up and really believed that this was going to be it, yet every cycle I would get a negative result or miscarry. This was one of the hardest and most trying times in my life. Everywhere I looked it seemed like others were getting pregnant; many by accident! I would often struggle to go to things like baby showers, family parties and even stores that had baby sections. I was really starting to believe I would never experience the joy of being a mom, and at the same time I was beginning to struggle with thoughts of how much more I could put my body through, both physically and mentally. Then suddenly one February day my miracle came! I finally heard the words I had longed to hear forever… "Tanya, congratulations you are pregnant”. I remember feeling like my knees were going to buckle beneath me while thinking “Can this be real? Am finally going to be a "MOM” or am I dreaming? If this IS a dream please do not wake me up”.

The days leading up to my first Ultra Sound were filled with so much anxiety. Will this baby be ok? Was it just a chemical or ectopic pregnancy? Will I see anything at this ultrasound? Will I be able to contain my emotions? “The Day” finally came and I had my first Ultra Sound. I went into a room at MGH and the doctor entered. “Are you ready to see your baby?” he asked me. Just those words set off my waterworks for tears. The words “My baby” were music to my ears. The doctor began the scan and on the screen I saw what looked like two circles. The doctor told me “Congratulations, you are having twins”. I was both shocked and so happy that I was going to have two precious little babies. After viewing the Ultra Sound a bit longer, he called in another doctor to check something. After the second Dr came in I was shown that one sack had a small “tadpole” in it (which is my baby) and then he moved over to the other sack and said “do you see the two tadpoles in this one? There are two babies in one sack, which means Congratulations you are having triplets!" My emotions got the best of me and my mind was spinning, what with learning not only was I pregnant but with three babies at once. Just looking at those little tadpoles (which is what they looked like at that point) I immediately fell in love. I left that appointment and immediately started telling my family and closest friends the great news. I no longer had to answer questions like “When are you going to start having children?” and “How is the baby making going?” I had a whole new set of questions rolling in and I loved it. My next appointment came and I was less nervous going in and excited to see my little babies’ progress. Unfortunately I did not get the news I was expecting. The Ultra Sound had shown that the two babies sharing the one sack were monochromic twins. This would put all three babies’ survival in jeopardy. The doctor informed me that they did not look like they were going to make it and only baby 3 was showing a heartbeat. As hard as this was, if they did survive the doctor had told me I would have had to make a decision regarding terminating the twins pregnancy in order to give the single embryo a better chance to survive. This was a decision I felt I would be not mentally strong enough to make. When I came back two weeks later for a follow-up it was confirmed that only baby 3 had a heartbeat and I was losing two of my angels to miscarriage. While I no longer had to bear the burden of choosing to terminate their pregnancy, I was still devastated upon learning of the loss of my twins. Knowing I still had one angel fighting and staying strong gave me the strength and courage to persevere.

As the days went by I quickly realized that my pregnancy was not going to be a walk in the park. Where it had taken so long and was so difficult to conceive I was hoping that my pregnancy was going to be easy, but as the saying goes, anything worth having in life never is. I became very sick during my pregnancy. I was unable to keep any food down, lost over 20 pounds, and ended up in the hospital many times due to dehydration. I had really bad heart burn (I was told there was an old wives’ tale that this was a sign I was going to have a baby with a full set of hair. This wives’ tale was true in my case). My blood pressure throughout my pregnancy fluctuated from borderline to high and would turn out to be my biggest issue as my pregnancy went on. Around Week 32 I started questioning if the headaches, lightheadedness, and swelling I was experiencing were just normal pregnancy symptoms or something I should be concerned about. I called my doctor just to ease my mind and he instructed me to come in to his office. I got to my doctor’s office feeling like something was not right. I was not sure what exactly, but I just knew SOMETHING was wrong. The nurse called me into a room and we went through the normal routine. When she got around to taking my blood pressure, it was a very high reading. She tried different arms, different cuffs, and even tried a different machine, certain that the reading was not right. The doctor was called in to confirm these readings. He did so, looked at me and said “it is reading 220/117. I am going to send you to the emergency room. You are showing signs of preeclampsia and we are going to need to run some tests”. I got to the hospital and was informed that my doctor was going to meet me up the hospital in a few hours. They started running tests, took blood work, hooked me up to a machine to monitor my blood pressure, heart rate, and my baby. I was told I would probably be on bed rest for the remainder of my pregnancy and have to be induced a few weeks early. So much was running through my mind but none of it was about me. All I could think was “is my baby going to be ok?” When all the tests results were in the doctor came into my room and in a gentle manner gave me the news: I did indeed have preeclampsia and that it was pretty severe at this point. In addition, my kidneys were already showing signs of failing and they were going to have to induce me immediately. I was told the baby was doing well and that they were inducing me to prevent my health from getting worse. They gave me my first injection to induce me and told me that it could take a day to kick in. I constantly watched the monitor in my room to see that healthy little heart beating away. The sight of my baby’s heartbeat, as it had done once before, gave me strength to make it through the horrors I was about to face. During the process of being induced I started struggling with my breathing. I felt like someone was standing on my chest. I thought to myself “How much did I miss out on from not attending Lamaze classes?” “Am I breathing wrong?” I informed the night nurse that I was really struggling to breathe and felt like something was wrong. The doctors ran some tests on me and found that my lungs had begun to fill up with fluid and this was why I was struggling to breath. They put me on a machine to help me breath and informed me they were going to have to send me in for an emergency C-section. As I was taken into a room for surgery prep, everything seemed to be happening so fast around me. Multiple doctors I had not seen before were being called to the room, and I recall one doctor saying “she is going into CHF”. So much was going on and I was so afraid that after I had made it through all of this I was not even going to see my miracle. I started crying, which made my struggle to breathe even more difficult. The nurse whom was on hand I really feel was a Godsend. She told me everything “is going to be ok, try to relax" and that everything would be going by really fast, but this is normal. Dr. Dakayonnis, another Godsend, constantly reminded me that my baby was doing well and that his mom needed to keep taking deep breaths. I was taken into the operating room and everything happened as fast as the nurse had told me it would. Suddenly I heard a little cry and was given a look at my baby. Although all around me was still chaos, at that moment all I was aware of was the feeling of love, SO MUCH love for a little baby whom, while only seconds old, had already changed my life.

Landon Alexander was born on 90210 and weighed in at 4 pounds. He was taken to the special care nursery at Melrose Wakefield Hospital and I was taking to the Intensive Care unit because they were afraid of me going back in to CHF-congestive heart failure. I was glad they had abbreviated it during my ordeal because if I had known what it meant I imagine I would never have been able to relax. I fell asleep after my delivery and woke up to my family looking over me. I could see in their faces that something was wrong. The nurse informed me that Landon was not able to breathe on his own and was going to have to be taken to the Tufts NICU, which was a different hospital from where I was. I felt so helpless. “Please take care of my baby” is all I kept saying as tears streamed down my face. I loved him so much already and knowing he was struggling was so overwhelming. I cried and begged to be able to go with him to Tufts, but due to my condition, with both my heart and my blood pressure being out of control, I was not able to be transported. I did not get any sleep that night. My heart and thoughts were with my little guy. I was given a phone number to the NICU department at Tufts and was told I could call anytime and they would giv