Happy Mother's Day

I am very pleased that for my 100th post that I get to wish all of you a Happy Mother's Day.

Jasper's name and a beautiful website

In just a few short months I have gotten so many pictures with Jasper's name that I have not been able to keep track of them all let alone post thank you’s to everyone. I can't even begin to tell you just how much I LOOOVE seeing his name, and to know that other people think of him is priceless. I will be making another video with all of them very soon. That will be my thank you to everyone.

I wanted to introduce you to an absolute beautiful website I stumbled upon on facebook. If you are friends with me there you probably have realized that I join a lot of groups and pages. I’m addicted! If it sounds interesting, has a subject that I can relate to, or has anything to do with baby loss I join. I recently joined a group called Treasure Beans by Casey Doiron and on there I found her website. She is an absolute treasure.

March of Dimes

I have been trying to write this post now for almost a week now; I tried every single day that I was off work since the day that I walked for the March of Dimes. We did real good I had originally set my goal to raise $250, but after all was said and done I raised $300. I want to thank each and every person who was able to donate to Jasper’s walk for The March of Dimes. When we got there I was beside myself to see how many people where there. I have no idea what made me think that it was going to be smaller, but I did. When I signed up to walk I never even thought about the NICU Grads until a fellow blog member brought it up in one of her posts. Truthfully, I’m really glad she did otherwise I would have been freaking out when I got there. I had time to process it all and thought I would be ready for it, but actually you can never be ready for something like that. Ever!

There was one NICU Grad there that made me think about everything we went through with Jasper. The little guy was about the age Jasper should be right now. The team for him was wearing shirts with his age (1 year old), how early he was born (16 weeks early), and his weight (1 pound 1 ounce). What is upsetting to me in a huge way is the fact that he was only 4 ounces bigger then Jasper. Now, I don’t know how the doctors or nurses treated the parents or that little boy, but they treated us like Jasper would never survive. Even before I had to have the emergency c-section they kept telling me over and over that Jasper would not make it, it is too early. Blah! Blah! Blah! When Jasper was born it was like they didn’t even care what they where doing because they had it in their heads he would never survive anyway. I have convinced my self that they just didn’t care at all. I am and will always be grateful for the amount of time I did get to spend with Jasper.

The place where we walked was absolutely stunning. Click here to see the pictures.


Every month for the past year I have been getting a How do you feed your baby survey in the mail and I just usually just shred it. This month I didn’t I opened it to see if there was an email or number to call to get them to stop sending this to me, but there wasn’t. So, what I did was wrote in nice big letters on the front was “Please stop sending me these my baby passed away and getting these every month is a real nasty reminder.” I wonder what the person’s face looked like when he/she opened it and read it.

Being blah can be dangerous

I'm feeling very blah today and that could be a dangerous thing. It leaves me to think and wonder. Jonathan had mentioned to me that he doesn't think we should wait until we see that OB in North Carolina. The way I see it we would probably only have to take a month or two off, but Jonathan has a point. He thinks that any month we take off is a waste and he is right. I don't want any wasted months, but if it ensures that maybe one day we could have a healthy pregnancy and our take home rainbow baby then why am I so upset about a month or two of wasted cycles? Well, I'm not getting any younger and neither are my eggs. A wasted month means my eggs are another month older.

It is very hard for me not to wonder what Jasper would be like right now. He would be 13 months right now or if he was born when he should have been he would be 10 months. I have been around babies enough to know milestones, but I do know babies develop at their own rate. I wonder what Jasper's milestones would be right now. Would he be crawling? I wonder about his weight, height, sleep habits. I want to know what his smile would've looked like and well just anything and everything about him. I hate the fact that I will never know these things.

Clothing drive and medical records

While I was in Gainesville we were finally able to drop off the donations from Jasper's clothing drive. The reason we didn't drop them off earlier like planned is because Jonathan knew we were going to be out there for my Appt and didn't want to make more then one trip out there because it is a long drive. I was able to give the NICU more than 30 pieces of clothing and I had gotten 15-20 blankets from Stephanie at Sweet pea project. I would consider the drive a success.

While I was at the hospital I went to Medical Records and got mine and Jasper's medical records. I have to admit I was a bit hesitant to look at them at first, but I did.

Mine had all my blood work which is really what I needed to see. I have always needed visual proof and now I got it. They are saying that I had Severe Pre-eclampsia with Class 3 HELLP. I think I was pretty lucky that I had class 3 and they are saying this because my Platelet counts stayed close to the normal range, but my liver enzymes were way high and they were the highest starting the day before I delivered and continued until after I delivered. That would explain the upper right quadrant pain! *sigh*

Jasper's was very good. I have to say that my little man was perfect in every way. Everything is where it should have been for his gestational age, well except for his weight of course. His Apgars were 8 and 8 at 1 and 5 minutes that is better then most babies born under normal circumstances. His PKU was perfect. I finally got to find out that Jasper was 11.2 inches. I have to tell you that I was absolutely mad that the hospital never gave me this information before.

Update on my appointment

I will start with the blood clot in Jasper's placenta. What Dr. L told me was that being on Lovenox doesn't necessarily keep you from getting blood clots. In my case what had happened is considered pretty rare. For some reason that we will never know a bleed happened in the placenta and being on the lovenox made it keep bleeding and getting bigger and bigger. The reason why it was never found is because it was actually inside the placenta. He said that the only ones you can really see with a ultrasound is the ones that are in between the placenta and the uterus. It was actually so nice to finally have someone tell me something about this. My old OB wouldn't say anything except that she had no idea and my new one said that my OB probably knew about it, but just didn't want to tell me. I really hope that he won't hold any info from me because I'm so proactive in my health care that I WILL find out.

So, next is Platelet counts. Dr. L pretty much told me that as long as they are still normal then he is not going to worry just yet. On a good note my counts today were 215,000. I still think they are low, but he thought they were good for someone with a blood clotting disorder. Normal range is between 150,000 - 500,000.

Dr. L was pretty worried that I was already trying again without seeing him first. He really wants to have a game plan in order for when I do get pregnant again. So, if I end up not getting pregnant this month then we will be on hold for a while until a game plan is in order. First order of business is to go to Duke university to see a High Risk OB. She specializes in blood clotting disorders in pregnancy and Dr. L says she comes highly recommended. He is wondering on whether or not I should either be on Lovenox while we are trying. He is also wondering on whether or not I should be on a treatment dose of Lovenox when I get pregnant which means it would be based on my weight and would be taken twice a day instead of once. I hope to be seeing the Dr. at Duke real soon; I just have to check insurance info and call Dr. L back up so that he can call her to set up the appointment.

Dr. L is testing me again for the Antiphospholipid syndrome because it is something that could be acquired and not considered genetic. I did talk to him about the Long chain acyl-coa dehydrogenase or LCHAD mutation gene (it is a test that may give a clue as to whether or not I would be more likely to get HELLP again and even if it comes out negative there is still a 15 -20% I will anyway). He pretty much said that we will have the Dr. at Duke decide if I should have it.

I will post about the rest of the day in another post.

Hopefully, I will get some answers

Tomorrow is the day I finally go back to see my Hematologist and hopefully get some answers. I really need to know why I developed a blood clot in Jasper's placenta if I was on Lovenox (a blood thinning medication). I also need to know if he knew about the blood clot would I have been put on a higher dose of the Lovenox. I can't help still being so mad at the fact that I was having ultrasounds every two weeks and the blood clot was never caught. I can remember one ultrasound I had at about 21 weeks with my high risk doctor and she spent a lot of time looking at Jasper and was wondering why he was so small. All she kept telling me is that I needed to get an amnio to find out what was wrong and I kept telling her that I will not get an amnio because the risk of Pprom (preterm premature rupture of membranes) was way to high and I was not going to risk my sons life and was glad I didn't because they would have never found out I had a blood clot from an amnio and it turned out Jasper was perfectly healthy. I also need to have a plan in action for my next pregnancy. I already have lovenox for when I get my BFP and I'm hoping that will be soon.

It's hard to believe that I'm already on my 8th cycle. I'm really getting frustrated that this is taking so long, yet again. I have been trying to relax, but it is so very hard. I'm doing everything I did before I got pregnant with Jasper. Except for temping I'm not doing that as well as I should. I'm on Fertility Friend and I haven't even been charting all my symptoms either. I think I did it once since I started again and it just gets my hopes up. Fertility Friend has what they call Early pregnancy signs and what that does is based on your symptoms it gives you a percentage on you probability of being pregnant. The one month I did it I got like between 80-90% chance of being pregnant based on my symptoms and I wasn't.

The other day I met an older woman and we got to talking. She asked me if I had any kids and I told her about Jasper. She then began to tell me about the son she lost to a placental abruption on April 1st 57 years ago. We talked for a long time. She told me about that day and the things people said to her. That is the one thing that doesn't change, peoples inability to understand what we go through when we lose a child. She told me that every year on April 1st even though it has been 57 years she still has a hard time. She said that in time the pain lessens, but it never really goes away. It was just so bittersweet to talk to someone who understands what I feel and understands what I have been through.