From the beginning.... 

Chris and I got married almost 5 years ago. We waited a few years for me to get a teaching job and when it didn't happen for the 3rd year in a row, we decided to start a family. It only took about 6 months before we found out we were expecting. 

We were so excited. We went to my Gynecologist to confirm the pregnancy and she snuck us into our future OB's office to get an early/bonus ultrasound.  We later went to that OB and had our first official ultrasound and the a-ok to tell the family once we were 8 weeks along. 

We were about to burst! It was around Christmas time and we had to wait until we got back home from Memphis with his family before we could tell anyone. Lots of baby jokes and  questions about us starting a family came up during Christmas, especially with Chris' cousin bringing a new baby in the family that we were playing with.

When we got home, we decided to make bibs for the family that said I ♥ My ____(grandma, aunt, uncle, etc).  We wrapped them up with a picture of the ultrasound and gave them to the family as a belated Christmas gift. 

We headed to my mom's house first. My mom and dad were so excited and had to hold it in a few days until we could get to his parents house to tell them.  Everyone was thrilled! 

The Pregnancy

Everything about the pregnancy was so smooth. From never having morning sickness to every single ultrasound we had, everything seemed so perfect.  

Gender Reveal

At 20 weeks we had our Anatomy Ultrasound. We wanted to have a Gender Party and didn't want anyone in the family to know the gender until the big reveal. We went to the ultrasound with a big secret envelope I made. 

The doctor sealed up the ultrasound in the envelope which we passed off to my brother to take to Kroger, where he works, to have the cake made for the party. The cake had blue or pink icing inside depending on the gender. 

We had the party at Jessica's house with just the family. It was absolutely adorable and she did a wonderful job. Everything was blue and pink themed. 

We even wore blue or pink depending on what gender we thought it would be or wanted it to be. 

I wanted a boy first and was just convinced it was a girl, so I wore pink. Chris wouldn't ever wear pink, so he wore blue. :) 

So we had a family member video the cutting of the cake. I guess you can say I was pretty excited!

It's a Boy!!!

We already had a name in mind for a boy. We decided on Nolan Ryan Fachman.  The name Nolan started as a joke with Chris' mom about baseball players. We are huge baseball fans. But, as soon as the name came out of my mouth it stuck.  The middle name Ryan also happens too be Chris' middle name.

We were advised to take a new mom and dad with us to register and so we took our friends Eric and Brittany.  We registered for everything you could possibly need for a baby and then some. We had all of our shower dates booked and we were really getting excited. 

Our first shower was in Memphis with Chris' family. Everyone was thrilled and very generous. 

Week 28

The dreaded glucose tolerance test. 

We went to our appointment as usual and I downed the nastiest drink ever. We went back to the exam room and waited for the Dr. to come in. He came in and pulled out the doppler so we could hear the heartbeat again. He began to move it around my stomach and could typically find a heartbeat within seconds. He kept moving the wand around from one side to another and back again. By the second go around I was getting very nervous and asked "Why can't we hear anything? We always hear something".  The Dr. put the wand away and said that he wasn't sure and directed me to the ultrasound room. 

I already knew that something was very wrong. The ultrasound confirmed that Nolan's heart was no longer beating. The Dr. said from the looks of it that Nolan had been gone for almost 2 weeks. 

Previous to this...I had noticed that Nolan's movements were different. He wasn't moving as much and when he did it was like a pushing motion that would last about a minute and then subside. It wasn't painful just different. 

 Our doctor was very shocked by it all as well, and told us that he had not had a patient lose a baby after 20 weeks in over 6 years.

The Dr. began to tell us what we needed to do. He said because we are so far along that I would need to deliver.

I was terrified. I had always imagined giving birth and the pain it would bring, but this was not what I wanted to do. The pain is supposed to be relieved by the crying of your newborn baby, and I knew that I was not going to get that experience this time. The Dr. told us what we should expect when we got the the hospital. He described the process we had to go through in order to induce labor. 

He told us we could wait until Monday (it was Friday) if we wanted to, but the church was hosting our shower on Sunday. So I said we just needed to do it right away.  

So Chris drove me over to the hospital a few blocks down the road where they were expecting us. It was about 10:30 in the morning when we arrived.  We got a very nice private room and an amazing nurse team that took care of me.  

At this point we had not contacted the family yet. We didn't want this to be a phone call, it had to be in person. So, I called my friend Jessica M. and Chris explained to her what had happened. She left work and came to sit and cry and pray with me until Chris could reach the entire family. 

Luckily it was Dana, Chris' dad's day off and Chris' parents were home. He told them the news. They left to go tell my sister-in-law, Jessica, while Chris headed back to my parent's house to tell them. 

It was around 1:00 before everyone was at the hospital and we began the grieving process. We cancelled the shower for Sunday, where our youth pastor Josh and his wife Brenda went to the church and began to take down the decorations our family and friends had worked so hard on.  

By this time, we had already began the process of inducing labor. The Dr. had told us it would be a very long process and he wasn't joking. 

The medication was called Cytotec. It was given to me about every 6 hours to promote dilation. Multiple hours had gone by and the nurses would check how much I had dilated and every single time they said none. The contractions were coming closer together and the pain was gradually getting worse, so they fed me a pain medication through an IV. 

We have some really funny stories from me being on pain meds, but we will save that for another time. 

Not only was I in pain but I was really hungry because I had to fast for our glucose testing, and I wasn't allowed to eat anything but popsicles for fear of aspirating. Eventually the medicines I was given made me very sick. 

Everyone was still at the hospital as far as I knew. The labor went well into the night and into the next morning. We tried to sleep as much as possible with my family taking shifts on the highly uncomfortable "bed" in the corner. Some of them even occupied the empty room across the hall. 

By the next morning, I was still not dilated and the Dr.'s decided it was time to break my water.  Chris held my hand through the entire process. 

We thought it was going to be quick after my water broke, but it wasn't. They finally dosed me with Pitocin, a stronger labor inducing medication. After the Pitocin, the pain increased significantly and we called for an Epidural. The nurses said the anesthesiologist had just gone into a brain surgery and that it would be about an hour before he could get there. In the meantime, they gave me the pain medicine again, which made me weak and loopy and the anesthesiologist walked in the room 5 minutes later. Chris had to hold me up while they gave me the epidural because I was so out of it. (He did not enjoy seeing that. Sorry honey.).

 After the pitocin, things went VERY fast. Unfortunately, Chris had gone downstairs to get a coffee and someone had to run to get him.  

Nolan arrived around 9:00 in the morning on June 8, 2013.  He was beautiful. 

The Dr. had told us due to the amount of time he had been gone that he would be red and his skin would be peeling, which was true. But, he was the most beautiful baby I have ever seen. 

We held him and cried and passed him to the family who held him and cried. 

There was a photography service at the hospital that offered to take pictures for us. They found him some clothes and a tiny little diaper to wear. Someone had gone to our house and picked up a few things we wanted in the pictures. 

He was so small. 

We were discharged from the hospital around noon that day after the epidural wore off and headed home empty handed. It was a very difficult time for us. 

Our church family and our friends surrounded us with so much love and we are so grateful. 

Barry's Funeral home helped us out with a casket and my grandmother gave us a plot beside my Papaw at Bookwalter's Cemetery. 

Questions and Answers and More Questions

We still had so many questions, the biggest one being "What happened?".   

At some point or another we were told we had a placental abruption, 80% abrupted to be exact. This pretty much means that the placenta had torn away from the cervix about 80%. It is supposed to be very painful and cause massive bleeding.   The question I kept being asked at my appointments was "You didn't feel any pain or you didn't have any bleeding?". My answer was always no. The only thing that was different was his movements. That was it.   My answers seemed to always baffle everyone, as if I was lying to them or something. 

Some things we do know: 

1. Nolan's umbilical cord was around his neck- this is not uncommon and is not supposed to cause any harm because things are so "slippery" in there. 

2.  Nolan's umbilical cord was very narrow and pinched right next to his stomach for about 3 inches up. (Our Dr. told us he didn't see this as a big problem).

Follow-Up Visit

We went back to the Dr. after 6 weeks and I was cleared physically.  We had done some bloodwork and our Dr. said I had two clotting disorders: Mthfr and PAI1. He recommended that we begin taking baby aspirin every day and when we become pregnant again, we would take daily shots of Heparin.  I didn't look forward to this, but if it helped us have a healthy baby we were willing to do anything. He told us we could start trying to have another baby right away if we wanted to, so we did.

I never had any follow up calls from my Dr.'s office and after a few months I had a quick question to ask, so I called. I wanted to know which High Risk Dr. he was going to refer me to the next time. His answer astounded me after all that we had been through.  In so many words, he wasn't going to refer me to a High Risk Dr. and we were going to treat the next pregnancy the same as last time. 

At this point I knew that I wanted a different Dr. and so we began looking around. We settled on a highly recommended Dr. at UT Hospital, which we passed on the way to Park West anyways. 

I scheduled my appointments with the new OB, who quickly ran every blood test known to man. After several months, my periods became erratic and after more tests we were told we were not ovulating.  

She sent me to High Risk Obstetrical Consultants at UT to have a consultation.  We described our story to the High Risk Dr. as well as a Genetic Counselor and we were given a few options to try to get us ovulating again. 

The big thing we got from there was an answer that made sense. 

Answers

After discussing our story with the Dr., she asked a few questions and clarified a few things with us. One of those questions was "Who told you that you had a placental abruption?". Chris and I just looked at each other and we weren't really sure. We didn't know if it was our former Dr. or a nurse. We told her we just knew someone had told us that we had an 80% abruption.

  

She went on to tell us that we didn't have an abruption, but that we were 80% abrupted.  You are probably wondering the same thing we were, "What's the difference?".  

She explained that an abruption is sudden and painful with a lot of bleeding. Something I never had.  She then told us that by the time we discovered that Nolan was gone, my placenta had gradually torn away almost 80%. Because he had died, the placenta had no reason to hold on anymore.  The "movement" I had felt during those two weeks was most likely very light contractions, I just didn't know any better.   She had asked us earlier if there were any problems they noticed with Nolan after I gave birth and we told her about the cord. She said there is no way to 100% guarantee it, but she is certain we had a cord accident and he wasn't getting the nutrition and blood supply he needed so he just passed away. No pain, no bleeding.  It was all making sense now.

 A huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders that day. I felt like I didn't have to keep trying to find things that I might have done to cause this "abruption" that made us lose our son.  Mentally I was tearing myself apart wondering what I did wrong.  

So much of what she said was like putting together those missing pieces to the puzzle and the picture was finally becoming clear. 

We also found out that the two clotting disorders I have are no longer tested for with pregnancy losses and that one of them is actually a good one to have. 

So now, our only obstacle was getting pregnant. 

Next post.... Presently