Warren, my little miracle

My youngest son Warren is my “little miracle.”  He is the one I never thought I would have.  After having Stephanie my OB/GYN and a couple of other doctors after him told me that I would never be able to have another child.  So for five years we did not get pregnant.  We had even stopped trying. 

I was struggling terribly with my Crohns and was on steroids and other medications and having a hard time.  I was spending time off and on in the hospital with dehydration and malnutrition issues.  I got super sick one morning, was in terrible pain so I immediately went to the hospital thinking l was in trouble again.  They asked if I could possibly be pregnant and of course I said no because my doctors had said I could never ever be.  They asked if I had a uterus and I said yes so of course they ran a pregnancy test before they would do anything else.  The test came back positive.  I was so surprised and afraid at the same time.  I dropped all medications immediately (that moment) and added extra doctors and doctor visits and struggled through the pregnancy.  It was not the easiest pregnancy in the world but we fought our way through.  We had a rough time of it, he and I, but we were tough.  I even managed to have gestational diabetes.  Warren was a tough little guy.

Warren was originally due about a month later than he was born.  I started having trouble around seven months into the pregnancy but I didn’t say anything.  I struggled with my Crohns the entire pregnancy but somewhere in in that seventh month it started to get out of control so bad that by the end of that month I was in such pain and I was having major issues.  I was about to head to the hospital when my sister-in-law called saying she was in Labor with my niece and could I watch after her older children so she could go to the hospital to have her baby.  I went to her house to babysit until I just couldn’t take the pain any longer and so I found someone to watch her children and went to the hospital myself thinking I was in premature labor.  Oddly enough when they hooked me up to the fetal monitor it actually showed labor but there were indications that it wasn’t actual labor. 

Through different things what they determined that it was my intestines that were “laboring” hard enough to register on the fetal monitor and not my uterus.  They put an NG tube up my nose (with me awake) and an IV in and left me alone to see if things would settle down.  They did not.

I spent the next few days in the hospital being evaluated.  None of the information coming back was good.  Finally, they told me they were going to do an emergency c-section; that the baby was no longer safe inside me.  They said I was slowly dying and that in order for the baby and I to have a chance they had to take him that day.  The doctor was not sure if I would make it through the surgery.   So I went into surgery not knowing if I would be waking up, they really didn’t seem to think I would.  I was frightened half to death. 

During the surgery they found that Warren had kicked a section of my intestines through a loop of intestines that had formed from scar tissue from my bowel resection of three years earlier.  It had created a major issue.  They had a surgeon on hand after they delivered Warren, the other surgeon took over and saved me so we both made it safely through.

Imagine my surprise when I did wake up and find that I had a beautiful 7 pound 10 ounce baby boy that was 21 inches long even though he was over 4 weeks premature.  At first the doctor thought Warren was not premature until he realized Warrens’ lungs and liver were as underdeveloped as they would be for a baby of 4 weeks early.  He struggled a bit at first with Jaundice and Anemia and was a little behind in a few things due to being premature but he turned out healthy and caught up quickly.

Warren was the most beautiful baby.  He has been a joy and a blessing and I still believe he is my personal “little miracle.”