36 Hours to the March

Could you donate a dollar per hour ($36 total) Win spent in the NICU?

Even the smallest donations help the smallest babes.

Friends,

We’re just 36 hours away from our 3rd (and this time virtual) March for Babies! These 36 hours will go fast. It’s just a day and a half. But say you had to spend them in your personal hell with the thing you loved the most just inches from your grasp. Time might drag. Tears might fall. Turmoil might rule.

For Win’s first 12 hours in this world, I was not allowed to hold or feed him. I could only look at him through the plexiglass of a NICU isolette. In these next 12 hours today, my husband and I will take turns rocking Win to sleep the multiple times he wakes up in the middle of the night. I will most likely feed him four times. He’ll smile at us. He’ll snuggle with us. He’ll feel secure with us. 

In the 24 hours that followed Win’s first 12, we fought tooth and nail to get him discharged from the NICU while I, myself, struggled to even walk the hall to the bathroom on my own on account of having just had the major surgery that is a cesarean section. In the 24 hours that follow these next 12 today, our family will play, enjoy time outside, share meals together, go through our bedtime routine and wake up to walk our virtual March for Babies in the comfort of our own neighborhood as a family of four. 

36 hours looks different on the outside. Will you donate to the March for Babies to make it look different on the inside, too? 

When you join my donation to March for Babies you stand with me and thousands of people across the country who share your commitment to building a brighter future for us all.

You raise money to expand programs and educate medical professionals to make sure moms and babies get the best possible care. You advocate for policies that prioritize their health. You fund research to find solutions to the biggest health threats. And you support moms like me through every stage of the pregnancy journey, even when things don’t go according to plan.

Could you donate a dollar per hour ($36 total) Win spent in the NICU?

As of tonight we met our goal of $1500 right on the dot! I’m so proud of my friends and family who rallied. But I would love to be able to give more still!

Even the smallest donations help the smallest babes.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to those who’ve already given…
Grandpa and Grandma G
Grandpa and Grandma Merritt
Aunt Jenna and Uncle Josh
Aunt Sharon and Uncle George
Ryan and Becky Grasmeyer
Dan and Claire Larabel
Bill and Emily Madsen
Betsy and Eli Cromwell
Alesha and Jeremy Schut
Mandy Scott
Sarah Stuitje
Anne Jansingh 
Erica Osman
Colleen Kondratek
Ethan Dean
Sarah Potter
Catherine Vlieger
Dale Waite

P.S. If you need a reminder of what March of Dimes does (and their further impact on our lives, personally), click here.

The Invisible Brick Wall

For most women, 16 weeks is the sweet spot of a pregnancy. At 16 weeks, you’re usually past the morning sickness/exhaustion of the first trimester, but not quit into the phase where you feel like an injured whale. You’re excited to be out of the territory where so many miscarriages happen, and you get to start putting together a nursery. Your baby bump is just making its true appearance, but you can still wear a lot of your normal clothes. For most women, 16 weeks is beautiful. 

4.29.19

“In our last pregnancy, this is the day we learned our fate. It was the day my world spun out of control… I’m not stressed about having previa/abruption/PPROM again. It feels like I already drew the short stick there, but preterm labor? I’m terrified. Weeks 16-20 will be emotional, but weeks 30-36 will be terrifying. Going into labor could mean losing the baby and/or my ability to have future babies. Our family isn’t complete. I’m too young. I can’t have that taken away from me…

It’s April 29 – did you think I forgot about this story? There just honestly were not any updates – things were going smoothly –  but on April 29, we hit the invisible brick wall of 16 weeks. Physically, we had no reason to be scared. Emotionally, I knew this day would hit me hard.

For most women, 16 weeks is the sweet spot of a pregnancy. At 16 weeks, you’re usually past the morning sickness/exhaustion of the first trimester, but not quite into the phase where you feel like an injured whale. You’re excited to be out of the territory where so many miscarriages happen, and you get to start putting together a nursery. Your baby bump is just making its true appearance, but you can still wear a lot of your normal clothes. For most women, 16 weeks is beautiful. 

In pregnancy #1 for me, 16 weeks was horrendously bloody. I thought, for sure, I had lost my baby, but instead learned that I had simply become the statistical minority – the friend of a friend – the person with placenta previa/abruption. Our fate was sealed on that day with that pregnancy.

But this one would be different.

And still, 16 weeks was hard. 

Physically, I felt great. Emotionally, I began my trajectory of the many outlying emotions that would come with this pregnancy. We’d had one ultrasound and were anxiously awaiting the next one as the first didn’t tell us much other than that the baby was, indeed, in there and alive. 

With our last pregnancy, we prayed for 40 weeks, then pleaded for even 34, and then craved just the 24 weeks that would give our baby viability status. With this one, I was already praying that God would just get it over with. Get us through the fear and unknown. Make it go fast. And, please, let there be a healthy baby at the end. I didn’t want to be in a perpetual state of waiting for something to go wrong. 

It’s 16 weeks. I’m emotional. I’m anxious. And I’m in the middle of making the 342 calls with my doctor’s office/health insurance provider/specialty pharmacy to coordinate my Makena (hydroxyprogesterone caproate) Injections that will “lower the risk of having another preterm baby” because I just. Can’t. Do it. Again. 

Things were fine. But I needed to know things were going to stay fine. 

In the stats: 
Gestational Age: 16 weeks
Doctor’s Appointments: 3
Ultrasounds: 1