This past year has been a tough one. After the last miscarriage in Feburary 2012 we waited on the results of genetic testing. It turned out that the baby had Trisomy 15 which is 3 copies of the 15th chromosome instead of the normal 2 copies. My doctor explained to me that it is always fatal. He also explained that the good news was that there was no reason we should not try again because it was a random event and the rest of the genetic testing looked really good.
It was such an emotional time and it was so hard to grieve the loss of my child again. I didn't go to work or get out of bed for a week. My husband finally said I had to get up and enjoy the child that we have, and he was right.
We decided that we would not try to have another child because the idea of losing another one was just too much. I decided to teach Summer School both for the extra cash and to keep my mind occupied. Spencer went with me some days and played games on the computer and talked to some of the students. One day I was sitting there eating my lunch feeling nauseated. I was hoping I was not getting the flu in the Summer!
Then someone asked what the date was. I looked on my calendar and realized I was late! I bought a pregnancy test and sure enough it was positive. I cried but not tears of joy. They were tears of fear. I just could not go through another miscarriage. I told Thomas and he held me while I cried. He then told me to expect the worst and that way I would not be disappointed. So I lived that way for weeks. I went to my appointments and saw the baby on ultrasound and I saw the heartbeat but I refused to let myself get excited because I had been here before. I made it to 13 weeks and we told people but I still reserved my excitement. I was referred to the perinatalogist for placenta previa. I had it with Spencer also but it was only partially covering the cervix. This time it was a complete central previa. I had lots of genetic testing which all came back normal and I had lots of ultrasounds to monitor the baby and the placenta. I was not allowed to travel after 28 weeks and was told to expect bedrest at some point and that I would have a scheduled c-section. They did not want me to go into labor because of the risk of hemorrhage and bleeding out.
Parker Jackson Rascoe was born on January 31, 2013 at 7:44 am. He was 8 lbs. 1.3 oz and 20 inches long. He was born at 37 weeks and was perfectly healthy. He did lose weight and was jaundiced but got better quickly. Nursing him was not as easy as it was with Spencer. He latched easily but had difficulty staying latched and getting full. I supplemented and pumped to stimulate milk production. It was exhausting and the pediatrician that saw him in the hospital was an ass and just made me more stressed out about his weight loss. He lost a pound before we went home. We went home to grandma's house because our heat went out and it was so cold when we went home on February 4th. We saw the lactation specialist at our pediatrician's ofice. She was wonderful and had great advice and tips but it just wasn't going well. I finally decided at 10 days old that it was more important for him to gain weight and be healthy than for me to be able to say I breastfed both my children. I sent Thomas to the store for formula.
The next morning I woke up with a headache and I was nauseated. I vomitted all day long and couldn't even hold down water. I was getting ready for bed and then I started worrying that if I was sick and gave it to Parker that it would be really bad for him. We packed the boys up and called grandma from the car so she could keep them while we went to the emergency room. That is the last thing I remember until I was at Cobb Hospital for rehab after having a hemorrhagic stroke when Parker was 11 days old on February 11th 2013. I was rushed to Grady and had a right hemi-craniectomy to relieve pressure on my brain and remove a blood clot from the temporal lobe. There was also a blood clot in the frontal lobe but it would have caused more damage to try to remove it so it was treated with blood thinners.
I was transferred to Cobb Hospital for rehab on February 21st. The first memory that I can recall after the stroke is looking up at the ceiling and counting the seconds between lights as I was rolled down the hallways to be loaded in the ambulance to be taken to Cobb Hospital for rehab. I remember it was cold and windy when I was being moved. I had a few visitors while at Cobb. I don't remember most of it but I do remember introducing Becky and Rafe to each other when they came to visit. Becky is my step-sister and I attended their wedding in 2011 so I don't know why I was introducing them to each other! I also remember that I did not like some of the therapy because I felt they were completely useless to get me home to my kids. I also did not like the speech therapist because she screamed at me and told me I was going to die because I couldn't put my "pills" into the pill box correctly. It was really her fault for not providing the appropriate kind of pill box. Most of my medications were to be taken twice a day but she gave me a pill box that was designed for one dose per day. Of course while I was recovering I could not put that into words but I would love to go visit her now! I was not quite in my right mind while in the hospital because of the stroke and all the medications they had me on. I was having conversations and texting people on my cell phone that was not present! I had a nice therapist that helped me cut the hair on the left side of my head because they only shaved the right side during surgery and I could not brush my hair that was left and it was knotted and driving me nuts.
I came home again to Grandma's house February 28th. She and Heather took care of Parker and I slept, a lot. I kept feeling like I was in a daydream and I just couldn't wake up from the nightmare. They converted the sunroom into a bedroom for me because I could not walk up stairs yet. I would wake up in the mornings confused because of where I was and it took a few minutes to remember why I was there. I went to physical therapy twice a week. I had lost my left peripheral vision. I was not allowed to drive because I had a seizure when I had the stroke. I was frustrated every day by the things that I could not do and the words that just wouldn't come out of my mouth.
We finally made it back to our home by the end of April and by that time, Parker was sleeping through the night. I had to go back to Grady on May 21st to have a right cranioplasty. The portion of my skull that had been removed in February was frozen and then thawed and placed back in my head and secured with titanium screws and mesh in this procedure. I had staples in my head again which is not a pleasant experience. I had to undergo one more procedure on June 8th because the surgeons left a plastic surgical clip in my head during the May 21st procedure. More staples that were in for 2 more weeks. My husband removed them for me because I refused to return to Grady. He then shaved my head for me one last time to even it all out. I didn't cut it again until the beginning of January 2014. (Thanks Becky!!)
I finally seemed to be back to normal and went back to work at the end of July. It has been a crazy year that has tested me to my limits and I passed. My marriage vows survived the trials and we came out stronger as a family. I plan to try to keep this blog updated much better than I have in the past!
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