It was my second pregnancy. My husband and I wanted to wait a year
after our son, Mazio, was born so my C-section would have plenty of time to
heal. Boy were we both surprised that it happened so quickly! We had only been
trying for a month! I still remember texting my hubby this picture with the
words...
"Guess what?"
For some reason I had a strange feeling that we wouldn't get to
meet this baby. Every woman gets the fear in the back of her mind that she
could miscarry but I worried about it constantly. I had many dr. visits because
I was and always will be considered high risk due to my preeclampsia history.
The frequent visits were a comfort that is for sure, but this strange feeling
persisted to plague my mind.
I will never
forget the day I saw my little angel's heart beating. I could have stared at
that ultrasound screen all day! It was such a blessing just to know the baby
was okay. Thank the Lord for his hand in our technology to have these amazing
machines!
When I was pregnant with my son, Mazio, I just knew in my heart
right from the beginning that he was a boy. Call it mother's intuition! Right
from the get go with this pregnancy I knew in my heart that this one was a
little girl! I even decided on a name....
Eleora Lynn Exposito
Eleora means light of God. I can't recall what language but the
meaning itself I fell in love with! Though I had the anxiety from my strange feeling,
I was still excited to meet my little girl and hold her in my arms!
However, God had other plans...
I was at the office for my regular scheduled appointment. It was just supposed to be routine....a belly check....and the
first time I'd ever get to hear her little precious heart beating. I would
never get to hear it.
I lay down on the
bed waiting to hear her heart beating as my doctor glided the Doppler across my
stomach. I remember her face looking concerned then she sent me over for an
ultrasound saying that it could be a possibility that the baby was just hiding
from us. Unfortunately, the baby wasn’t hiding at all. I could see for myself
that something wasn’t right as I looked at my little one on the screen.
"I'm sorry... your baby is gone". Just as soon as God
blessed us with her, He took her away. I was crushed. I could not stop crying.
The tech left the room to give me a moment to let it all sink in. So there I
was, just discovered our little bundle of hope was gone and I was alone. My son
whom was 15 months at the time was with me that day but of course, as boys
often are he was quite a handful. He didn’t know what happened to his little
sibling or why his mommy was crying. It was such a hard day.
I'll never forget when I drove to my husband's work to pick him
up. I had called him at the office and told him the news already. I pulled up
in the middle of the parking lot and after driving around with no luck for a
parking spot, I just stopped right in the middle. As I waited, the magnitude of
the news really started to sink in. I laid my head on my arms over the steering
wheel and broke down crying wondering how things could have changed so fast.
How is it that in a single moment my world changed forever? Out of nowhere he
appeared. He opened my door and we stood there just holding each other and
crying in the middle of the parking lot. It was a moment I know we will never
forget.
The baby was still inside me and my doctor was concerned with it
being in there for so long after it passed away. My doctor told me that my body
wasn't miscarrying her naturally so I needed a D and C done. I was so scared
and heart broken. My D and C was scheduled for the next day. I went in to the
hospital early, it was still dark outside. I was shaking like a leaf as they
rolled me back to the OR. They told me that it would only be 15-20 minutes and
then it would be over. In 15 minutes our little one would physically be gone
from me forever.
I woke up from
surgery in recovery in so much pain and I remember feeling so cold. I could
feel myself drifting in and out of consciousness but I remember my husband
being by my side. My doctor rushed over soon after I awoke. I could tell
something was wrong because she looked very frantic and frazzled. She spat it
all out in one crazy run-on sentence that I had in fact been in surgery for 3
hours and lost 1 liter and a half of blood! She said she didn't know why I
wouldn't stop bleeding and they called in a ton of extra nurses and doctors to
assist. She even had to get permission from my husband to do an emergency
hysterectomy if it was necessary. Thankfully, it wasn't needed! She said they
were worried that maybe they ruptured my uterus so they cut me open through my C-section
scar to make sure. That explained the pain I was feeling. Fortunately, my
uterus was fine! Still in her frantic state, my doctor told me that I shouldn't have any
more babies because it could be very dangerous. I was agreeable to anything
after all that! I was terrified to learn all that had happened and getting
pregnant again was the furthest thing from my mind in that moment.
After an overnight stay at the hospital, I was able to go home. I
was miserable! The pain from the laparotomy was almost unbearable. I could
barely walk! I feel very blessed though that the Lord took care of me and had
my amazing church family provided meals over the next couple of weeks! It felt
so good to not have to cook!
I eventually made
it to my post-op appointment and my dr. discussed with us that the pathology
report came back and showed a lot of necrosis, which means the baby was
deteriorated. They couldn't even detect the fetus because of it. We were then sent
to a hematologist by our dr. to rule out a blood disorder that may have caused
all my blood loss called TTP. The
hematologist took a ton of blood work to check for all blood disorders. They
took around 20 tubes! My dad later joked to me that I had seen the
vampires...haha! During the wait for those results to come back, I had to get
iron transfusions from all the blood loss and we got an unexpected call from
our dr. We had an extra test done along with the pathology to check the baby's
chromosomes to determine the exact gender. Even though we knew, she was our
baby girl! We thought it would help with closure. The dr. told us that they
weren't able to get the exact gender but something else came back with the
report.......a diagnosis for my blood loss and other symptoms. She told me that
I had a partial molar pregnancy . A partial molar pregnancy occurs
when two sperm fertilize one egg and the baby ends up with too many chromosomes,
which cause it to develop incorrectly.
She then said I
would have to get weekly blood draws to monitor my HCG levels. We need to make
sure they are going down and not increasing. If they were to increase then that
would mean I still have some abnormal cells/tissue left inside and I would need
chemo to decrease them. I'm not going to lie it’s a pretty scary process! If I
were to have any presence of those cells then in the future they could lead to
a cancer known as choriocarcinoma. Thankfully God has not willed for me to have
that as of yet!
The
hospital does a service where they will cremate and bury all the babies
together and they have a memorial every year for the families. We made it just
in time for this year's memorial. There is a service where they call out every baby’s
name. It gives us mommy and daddies the chance to proclaim the names of our
little ones...even if it’s never legal its proof enough in our hearts! Everyone
then writes a message to our little ones, tie them to balloons, and lift them
off. It was so emotional just watching all the balloons drifting away up to the
clouds!
We will always miss that little one we never got to hold but we feel very blessed that God gave us that sweet little life for the short amount of time we had her.
If you or
someone you know is pregnant please educate yourself on this common disease.
Molar Pregnancy Symptoms:
The most prominent symptom of a molar pregnancy is heavy bleeding from the vagina early in the pregnancy. The blood may be dark brown. Symptoms of a partial molar pregnancy include severe nausea, vomiting, and hypertension (high blood pressure) early in the pregnancy, often in the first trimester. Also a uterus that is larger than normal, an uncomfortable feeling in the pelvis, vaginal discharge of tissue that is shaped like grapes. This is usually a sign of molar pregnancy.
Most of these symptoms can also occur with a normal pregnancy, a multiple pregnancy, or a miscarriage. Another indicator is a rise on HCG levels and with complete molars it can be diagnosed through ultrasound.
About 1 out of 1,000 women with early pregnancy symptoms has a molar pregnancy. This means that 999 women out of 1,000 do not have this problem.
For further information on molar pregnancies please visit the American Pregnancy Association
