Cayson Blake Part 2

When Cayson was about three weeks old I started to feel like something just wasn’t right.  He wasn’t eating very good, he was vomiting a lot, and something just didn’t feel right to me.

One afternoon my husband put him in his swing and I went down the hall to take a nap.  While I was laying there I thought I heard something.  I listened closely but didn’t hear it again.  A little later I heard a noise and went to check on Cayson.  He had been crying, hard, and was pretty hysterical when I got to him.  But even though he was crying hard it wasn’t loud.  Our house isn’t that big.  For as upset as he was I should have easily been able to hear him crying.  This made me feel even stronger about something not being right.

The next day I called the doctor to get an appointment.  They had a slot open for that afternoon.

The first thing they did was weigh him.  Alarms went off for me because he hadn’t gained any weight since his one week appointment, he was still 7 lbs 4 oz, and was still not up to his birth weight.

The took him to the exam room and I told them everything that was going on.  They looked him over and the doctor said that she was pretty sure he had reflux and would give him medicine for that.  She also said that she wanted us to wait a few minutes to have another doctor who was older and had more experience to come look at him just to be sure.  So we waited.

The other doctor came in and listened to his heart for what seemed like a really long time.  I was starting to get a little nervous.  When he was done listening he looked at me and Crist and said he heard a murmur.  I started to get teary and he looked at me and said, “Don’t cry.  Murmurs are fairly common in babies.”  I got myself together and he explained that there are benign murmurs of childhood and that he is pretty sure that is what Cayson had.  He said that he thought one of the holes in Cayson’s heart hadn’t closed up and that they could give him medicine for that.  He told us that we needed to set up an appointment with a cardiologist to get an echocardiogram (an ultrasound of the heart) just to be sure.

I left the appointment feeling discouraged.  I was worried.

I called to make the appointment and they had one for the next day.  I took it and felt relieved that they could see him so soon.  A few hours later the office called me to tell me that they were canceling the appointment because they were calling for a huge snow storm in the morning and their office would be closed.  The next appointment they had was nearly a month away.  My heart sank.  I really did not want to wait a month to find out what was wrong with my baby’s heart even if they did think it was a harmless murmur.  My husband called our doctor’s office back and they called a different office and got us an appointment the next week.  A week was still kind of long but it was better than a month.

The day of the appointment came.  We put Cole on the bus and dropped Carson off with a babysitter.  Cole had a two-hour delay that morning and wouldn’t have to be picked up until 12:45 and since the appointment was at 8:00 we figured we would be done in plenty of time to pick him up.

We got to the appointment and they weighed him.  His weight still was not up.  They checked his blood pressure and his vital signs.

We went into another room to get the echo done.  One of Crist’s classmates works at the office and she came in while he was getting the echo done.  We were all laughing and talking.  I started feeling a little nervous because the echo was taking a long time.  The doctor came in and said that they needed to see our insurance card just to check something.  The echo finally was finished and the doctor told us to go sit in the other room and he would be in in a minute to talk to us.

We went back to the room and sat down.  The doctor came in, sat down, got out a pen and a piece of paper and started to talk.  He told us that our son had a serious heart condition called a coarctation of the aorta.  That the aorta was pinched and that his heart had to work extra hard to get blood to the lower part of his body.  He drew us a picture and explained everything to us.  In the back of my head I was thinking, “Ok so when are you going to give us the medicine.  This can be fixed with medicine right?  It has to be able to be fixed with medicine that is what the other doctor said.”

Then he looked at Crist and I and said, “Your going to have to be admitted to the hospital.  Your son needs heart surgery.”  I looked at him and said, “What?  You mean right now? Today?”  He said yes right now.  He told us that unless our house was on the way to the hospital that we shouldn’t go home to get clothes.  He told us that we should expect to be in the hospital at least two weeks.

My heart sank.  Hadn’t we already been through enough?  Cayson had survived birth and now everything was supposed to be perfect.

I cried and strangely enough laughed the whole way to the hospital.  This could not be happening.  We could not be driving to the hospital to admit our newborn son to the PICU to have heart surgery.  We had already been through enough and this was not real.  It couldn’t be.

But it was.

We got to the hospital and they took us to our room.  The surgeon came in and told us that they were going to monitor him and wait until tomorrow to do the surgery.  He talked to us about the surgery and what he was going to do.  He told us there was a 2% mortality rate.  That did not comfort me at all.  To me that number was too high.  We were told that there was a 1 in 800 chance of what happened with Cohen would happen and now they were telling me that there is a 2 in 100 chance of Cayson dying too.  At that point I fully expected Cayson to die during the operation.

The operating team came and got him the next afternoon.  They said that the operation would take between 4 and 5 hours.  They tried to explain to us what he would look like when he came up from the operating room.  That he would probably have a breathing tube in and be very swollen.  They explained that once the surgery was over we would be able to see him for a few seconds in the hall and then they would take him back to his room.  Once he was in his room we would have to wait for about a half hour before we could come back to see him.  They also told us that he would be getting a line either in his neck or leg and until that was taken out we wouldn’t be able to pick him up or hold him.

We walked with the team down to the operating room and then we had to say goodbye.  I really felt like I was saying goodbye for ever.

Cayson right before his surgery

My mom and a bunch of our friends came to sit with us while we waited for the surgery to be over.  I don’t know what I would have done without them there.  They kept my mind off of what was going on two floors down in the operating room.  In my head I was still expecting the surgeon to come up and say that he was sorry and they had done everything to try to save him but they couldn’t.

After a very long 4 and a half hours they finally came and told us that the surgery was over and that they were able to remove the breathing tube.  The social worker took us down the hall so we could peek at him before they took him back to the PICU.  He was so swollen but alive.  At that time I thought he looked so good but looking at pictures now I’m not sure what I was thinking!

Right after surgery

The surgeon talked to us and told us that everything had gone well but they had to do a little more work then they originally thought they would.

Drawing of what was wrong with Cayson’s heart

How Caysons aorta looks now

After about a half hour they came out and told us we could go back to his room.  He was hooked up to tons of stuff but he was living and breathing and that was all that mattered to me.  I felt like a ton of bricks had been lifted off my shoulders, that I could breath again.

He turned a month old a day after surgery

The next few days flew by.  I was so nervous about bringing him home.  I was so afraid something would go wrong and I wouldn’t know what to do.  That I would mess up his medications.

The nurses were amazing.  They taught me how to do everything.  They made sure I was comfortable with Cayson’s care.

After a few days his arterial line came out and we were finally able to hold him again.

Holding Cayson for the first time after surgery

He had lost more weight and was down to about 6 lbs 12 oz.  He was having trouble eating which is not uncommon with cardio babies.  They put a tube in his nose and fed him that way to make sure he was getting enough.  Then they took the tube out and tried to have him nurse.  He did ok and they felt he was ready to go home.

Little man with his NG tube. If you look close you can see where he pulled out his IV

After being in the hospital for a week they told us we could go home.  We were so excited!  I wasn’t feeling nervous anymore, just excited to be together with the rest of my family.

Going home the first time

We got home and I fed Cayson.  He threw up.  Not just a little spit up but a lot.  A few hours later I fed him again.  He threw up again.  I called the doctor.  She told me we had to go back to the hospital.

I cried and cried.  The boys were upset.  Crist was upset.  We just wanted to be a family!

Back at the hospital

So we went back.  This time they had me weigh him before and after every feed to make sure he was gaining weight and to make sure he was taking enough in.  It was kind of a pain to do but we did it for two days.  Finally on the third day the doctor felt confident that Cayson was eating enough to gain weight and that we could go home.

Sign the boys made for us

Going home again

This time we were able to come home and stay home!  It has been a month since Cayson’s surgery and he is doing good.  He is gaining weight although he still has days where I don’t think he is eating enough.  He has to take 4 medications (which is one less than he took when he first came home) one of which he really does not like.  It gets a little crazy when we go out because we have to remember to pack all of his meds.  We still have lots of doctors appointments, with the cardiologist, his regular doctor, and weight checks.

One month after surgery

I am so thankful for the amazing people who are in my life that have helped me get through this time.  People have been awesome with gift cards, cards, gifts, phone calls, text messages, meals, and coming over to help me with the boys and around the house.  I don’t think I will ever be able to thank them enough.

Cayson Blake

Baby Beiler #4, Cayson Blake, made a fast and furious entrance into the world on January 20, 2014!  He was by far the fastest of my four labors.

My whole pregnancy I had been dreading week 38, the week we lost Cohen.  Even the days of the week were the same for both pregnancies, I turned 38 weeks on a Saturday for both.  The weeks leading up to week 38 were awful.  I was an emotional wreck.  I cried, a lot.  I didn’t want to see anyone or talk to people.  It was too hard.  Hard to act excited when really I was terrified.  Hard to go out and even have strangers ask about when I was due or how much longer I had.  So I stayed in, pretty much only going out to pick Cole up from school and to take and pick up Carson from school.  I begged and pleaded with God to please please please let me have this baby before I hit 38 weeks.  I begged the doctor to induce me.  He wouldn’t but he did strip my membranes which I was convinced would put me in labor.   It didn’t which caused even more tears.  One night I even had contractions all night every ten minutes only to have them stop in the morning.  I was a frantic mess.

Then week 38 came.  I broke down.  I cried.  I yelled at God.

Then came Monday, 38 weeks and 2 days.  I am sure that Cohen died that night because it was the next day, Tuesday, that he didn’t move all day.  I was panicked.  I had a doctor’s appointment that morning.  I went in and everything was good.  I asked the doctor if I could please come back the next day, just to hear the heartbeat, just to make sure.  He told me I could come in everyday if I wanted to.  He still wouldn’t induce me despite my many tears.  He offered to strip my membranes again but I had already had it done twice and nothing happened so I said no.  I ask him if he had any suggestions of a way to naturally induce labor.  He gave me a suggestion and I went home ready to try it.

I got home and sat around for a while feeling sorry for myself.  Feeling mad that nothing had worked to start labor.  Feeling mad that God hadn’t started labor for me.

My mom was there to watch Cole and Carson while I went to the doctor.  She was getting ready to leave and I ask her if she thought I should give what the doctor suggested a shot.  She said I might as well try while she was still there so that if it did work she wouldn’t go all the way home just to have to come back again.

So I went in to my bedroom and dug out my breast pump.  I pumped for 15 minutes on each side.  In the middle of the pumping my husband came home from work and ask what in the world I was doing.  I told him I was trying to get this baby to come, NOW!

By the time I was done I was having contractions every five minutes.  I didn’t think I was really in labor.  I figured I would have contractions for an hour but they would stop.  In less than an hour the contractions were coming two minutes apart.  My mom and Crist insisted that I call the doctor and at least go in to be checked.  I called the office and they said that since I had only been having contractions for about an hour that I could either stay home, take a shower, walk around, and see if the contractions continued or I could come in to the office (which was the opposite way from the hospital) and be checked there.  Since Crist and my mom were glaring at me I decided I better go in and get checked.

On the way to the doctor the contractions continued to come every two minutes.  We got to the doctor’s office and of course had to wait because we didn’t have an appointment.  We waited there for almost an hour an a half before the doctor finally came and checked me.  By that time the contractions were coming almost every minute and they hurt…….BAD!  The doctor came and said that I was only 4 cm dilated but that the head was super low.  He told us to head to the hospital and that he thought we would have this baby by midnight at the latest.  It was about 6:50 then so I figured we had plenty of time.  I would get there get an epidural, have some time to think and relax, and then in a few hours push and have our baby boy.

It takes about 30 minutes to get to the hospital from the doctor’s office.  My husband drove like a crazy person.  On the way there the contractions started coming even more frequently and they were way more intense!  I was in serious pain.  When I am in pain and in labor I get really hot and when I get really hot I pass out and throw up.  I felt this coming on so I opened the window (it was only about 16 degrees that night).  We were driving through the city and there were people out and I was screaming in pain.  I have no idea what those people thought and quite frankly at that point I did not care.  All I cared about at that point was getting to the hospital and getting some pain medication!

About half way there my husband, who hadn’t eaten most of the day, thought he would be funny and turned to me and said, “Can I stop at McDonald’s?”  After I nearly bit his head off with my screamed, “NO!,” he claimed he was joking but I still think he was serious.

We finally got to the hospital and they didn’t have any wheelchairs.  By this point I couldn’t walk and every time I moved another contraction came.  Crist pulled up to the door and by that time the hospital staff had found a wheelchair.  The put me in it and wheeled me back.  I signed a few papers and they rushed me to a room.  Crist left to park the car.

The nurses who pushed me to the room asked where my husband was.  I said he went to park the car but all I really cared about was getting an epidural.  I told them I wanted one, NOW!!  They looked at me and said that I had to get checked first.

Then my dear friend who is a Labor and Delivery nurse came in the room.  She was there the night that Cohen was born and I told her that if she was working when I came in I wanted her to be my nurse.  I was so happy to see her!  I begged her for an epidural.  She told me I had to wait for the doctor to come check me.

My beautiful friend and nurse

My husband got back to the room and the doctor came.  He checked me and I was 7 cm.  It had been less than an hour since I had been checked at the office!  Things were moving along a little fast for me and I was still begging for an epidural.  While he was checking me my water broke.  They told me I didn’t have time for an epidural.  I turned to my friend and said, “You don’t understand I want an epidural.  I don’t want to do this without one.  Seriously you don’t understand I can’t.  I have to have one.”  The doctor checked me again about 3 minutes later and I was at 9 cm.  The nurses had taken off the heart monitor and the doctor asked for a heart rate.  They couldn’t find it right away which caused me to panic!

At this point I was frantic.  This was not at all how I pictured my labor and everything was going way too fast.  I pushed and his head was out!  The doctor told me not to push or I would rip.  He held my baby’s head so that it wouldn’t come out anymore, with me yelling the whole time that I needed to push.  Finally he told me I could push again and with one more push Cayson Blake was born. We were in the delivery room for a total of 11 minutes!

I had unintentionally had a completely natural birth.  I felt like a warrior!  Katy Perry’s song, “Eye of the Tiger,” kept running through my head.  I’m surprised I didn’t roar 🙂

Cayson weighed 7 lbs 7 oz and was 21 inches long.  His labor was by far my shortest labor only lasting 3 and a half hours.  He was perfect!

My doctor, the one who delivered Carson and Cohen and was supposed to deliver Cole but he was on vacation that week, arrived at the hospital about 5 to 10 minutes after Cayson was born.  He was shocked that the baby was already born!

Snuggling with Cohen’s bear

 

My mom, Cole, and Carson came to meet Cayson about an hour after he was born.  Carson danced around the delivery room singing, “We get to keep this baby! We get to take him home!  We get to keep this baby!  We get to take him home!” It was a very emotional time for us, feeling happy that we have this new baby to love but missing Cohen so so much.

Cayson had a lot of fluid so he spent his first night in the nursery being monitored.  His oxygen levels were good so he was able to spend the rest of the time at the hospital in the room with us. When we left the hospital he weighed 7 lbs 2 oz but was eating well.

His first week at home was very emotional.  I was feeling like I had to choose between Cayson and Cohen, to love one meant I didn’t love the other.  It was so hard.  There were so many tears those first weeks.

Cole and Carson adore Cayson.  The first week home they constantly wanted to snuggle, kiss, and be with him.  They still love being with him!

We took Cayson to his one week appointment.  They said everything looked good.  His heart and lungs sounded good.  He had gained weight and was now up to 7 lbs 4 oz.  We took him home thinking we had a perfectly healthy baby boy.  We would soon find out that he wasn’t as healthy as we thought.

To Be Continued………..

It’s a Little Crazy Around Here

Cause all blogs need a picture!
My green Lego, Cole, my blue Lego Carson, and my little yellow Lego in heaven, Cohen.  Halloween 2013

 

Life in our house has been a little crazy.

My husband works full-time as a roofer (5 days a week, between 8 and 10 hours a day).  He also goes to school part-time.  This fall he started his first semester of nursing, which means that he is in school two nights a week (Monday and Thursday this semester) and every other weekend (which includes Friday night, all day Saturday, and most of the day Sunday).  While this is his first year in nursing it is not his first year in school.  He was born and raised Amish and the rest of his family is still Amish, so when we decided that going back to school was something he should do, he had to start at the very beginning.  He got his GED the year Carson was born and has been and still is working hard to maintain good grades (much better then mine were in college!) and to get to where he is now (Yes, I am extremely proud of him!!!!!)

All of that to say that while he is very busy providing for our family and learning all kinds of cool stuff, it also makes my life a little crazy.

Both boys are in school, Cole goes to AM kindergarten, which means that I go pick him up everyday at 11:30.  Carson goes to PM preschool every Tuesday and Thursday, which means I drop him off at 12:15 (I pack him a lunch before we leave to get Cole and he eats it in the car since Cole’s school is on the way to Carson’s school and we don’t have time to go back home to eat first) and pick him up at 2:30.  Both boys also played soccer this year,  Cole every Saturday morning and Carson every Thursday night.  Add in prenatal appointments, ultrasounds (I volunteered to go to the nursing school to let the ultrasound tech students practice), trying to keep the house clean, and trying to have some kind of fun outside of school and driving around all the time, and we are just very busy.

In a way this craziness has been good.  I don’t have tons of time to sit around and worry about being pregnant again.  To really think about it.

But when I do have time to think, I get panicked.  If I could just fast forward the next 11 weeks and 2 days that would be great.  I want to have my baby here, healthy, happy, but most of all alive!  The crazy thing is the times when I get most panicked are times when I should feel more relaxed, like while the baby is kicking me!  I always worry that it was the last time I will feel him kick so I beg him to kick again just so I know he is ok, and then he kicks again and I beg for more.

The doctor appointments that should help me feel less anxiety make me feel worse.  I panic before I get there that they won’t hear a heartbeat (even if I feel him happily moving around), I panic while I’m there that something will be wrong (they really should check my blood pressure after they have found a heartbeat instead of before), and I panic when I leave that something really is wrong they just didn’t tell me or that something changed in the few hours since I left the office.

Every time leave the office I think to myself, “I cannot do this again.  I cannot lose another child.  I can’t go through it again.  It would completely destroy me.”  But then I also think that before we lost Cohen I thought those same thoughts about losing one child.

Overall though I think this pregnancy has been better than I thought it would be.  While there are moments of panic and times where I feel like I can’t breathe or go on any longer, it has not consumed me.  I am able to move through those times and be able to take care of Cole and Carson.  Able to function throughout the day.  It has started to get harder though.  The further along I get with this pregnancy the more often the times of panic come and I expect it to get worse before it gets better (although I could be wrong).  I dread being 38 weeks pregnant.  I am hoping that I will have him early at like 36 weeks but am not counting on it since none of my other babies were born that early.

It has gotten harder to watch Cole and Carson play together.  I love seeing them laugh and be goofy but my heart aches because their brother isn’t there.  Their brother who would be old enough now to enjoy the leaves, old enough to join in the wrestling matches, old enough to chase around, and yes, also old enough to destroy their precious Lego creations, chew on their favorite toys, and walk all over their game of Sorry.

I know it wouldn’t be perfect and the life would be even crazier but it still hurts.  I still miss my son.  I cringe whenever I hear myself say things like, “Will you two boys please act like you love each other so I can get one nice picture,” because it still doesn’t seem right to be saying two instead of three.

Cole has been doing very good at school.  He loves learning and he actually really likes to go to school.

But Cole has been struggling at home.  For over two weeks he cried himself to sleep because he missed Cohen.  He is nervous and scared that this baby isn’t going to live either and honestly I don’t know how to reassure him when I have those same feelings.  I can’t tell him it’s not going to happen again because I don’t know that.  I can’t tell him that this time he will get to bring his brother home and help take care of him because I don’t know if he will.  I’m not going to lie to him.  I’m not going to tell him everything is going to be fine.  Because I don’t know and I’m scared of the same things.

My cousin and his wife (who I love and is a good friend) just had an adorable baby girl.  One of the first things Cole said when I told him that they had their baby was, “Is it alive?”  When I told him that she was alive he asked, “Well can’t we just bring her home with us?”  He then told several people that our cousin’s had a baby and it was alive.  It hurt this mommy’s heart to hear him say that.  That the first thing he thinks of with new babies is whether they are alive or not and that he felt the need to make sure other people knew that this baby was alive.  Because to him, in his short life, it is not normal to have a baby that is alive.  Yes he has Carson but he doesn’t remember anything about his birth or him being a baby.

Life has been crazy.  And it’s about to get crazier, with the holiday’s coming up and hopefully bringing a new baby home!  But even with as crazy as everything is it is never far from my mind that life should be even more crazy.  There should be a 17 and half month old running around to add to the craziness and to the joy of our family.

Keyzee the Blueberry

 

I am now a little over 23 weeks pregnant.  We had an ultrasound and after a little pressure from my kids, mother, and husband, we decided to find out that we are having our fourth BOY!  It sounds crazy to me to think that I have four children.  Part of me doesn’t feel old enough to have that many children!  After we found out we were having a boy I asked Carson, who is three, what he thought we should name his little brother.  His answer, “Keyzee the Blueberry is a good name,” and so from now till the baby is born and gets his real name we call him Keyzee.

The ultrasound was hard.  They put me in the same room as they did for Cohen’s first ultrasound which brought back memories.  Then of course that had to ask all the mandatory questions:

“Is this your third pregnancy?”

“No, this is my fourth.”

“Oh, do you have three other children?”

“Yes, but one died.”

“But he was born alive?”

“No, he was stillborn at 38 weeks with no answers as to why.”

“Stillborn at 30 weeks?”

“No, 38 weeks.”

“Oh!  I’m sorry.”

We took the boys with us to the ultrasound and Cole wanted to answer all these questions for me.  When she asked about how many pregnancies he piped up and said, “This is our fourth pregnancy.  We have three boys.”  Hearing the word pregnancy come out of my five-year old’s mouth sounded funny!

After we finally got done the questions she started the ultrasound.  It took a little over 2 hours.  I was ok for the first hour.  Then they made me get up to go to the bathroom to see if the baby would move.  I came back and laid back down and she started looking again.  I noticed she was very focused on his heart and this made me so nervous.  After about an hour and 10 minutes, Keyzee finally moved so that we could see that he was a boy.  Cole was not happy at all!  He wanted a sister.  As soon as I told him we were having another boy he shouted, “Why are we having another BOY?  We already have enough boys!  Girls are better than boys!  Why does this baby have a penis?!!”  He soon settled down and is now happy to be having another brother.

After we found out we were having a boy, Crist took Cole and Carson out of the room since they had already been there so long.  After they left they called in another person to see if they could get pictures of the heart.  At this point I started to panic a little!  They took some pictures and told me to go ahead and get ready to go.  I did, but then they came back in and told me that they still hadn’t gotten all the pictures they needed.  As I lay back on the table again all I could think was, I cannot do this again, I cannot carry another baby only to have it die because of a heart problem, I can’t do it.  I kept asking if everything was ok and they wouldn’t really answer me.  Crist came back in with the boys because he was getting worried too.  After what seemed forever the tech looked at me and saw that I was crying.  Then she finally said that everything does look fine but the baby wouldn’t move so they could get the one picture they needed.

I left there desperately needing a nap and not fully convinced that everything was ok.

I got a call from my doctor’s office a week later saying that everything looked good which was a huge relief!

I have been worried throughout this pregnancy I have been worried about how I would feel if we found out what we were having.  I would still like to have a girl but at the same time I felt that if I were having a girl now I would feel guilty.  Guilty because Cohen was going to be our last child and that he had to die so I could get a girl.  Guilty because I so desperately wanted Cohen to be a girl but in the end it really didn’t matter.  I was worried that I would still feel a little disappointed if I found out I was having a boy, even though in the end all I really want is an alive healthy baby.  I was not disappointed when I found out I was having a boy, only a little sad that I wouldn’t get to buy new clothes because I already have a ton of boy clothes.

I think once Keyzee is born it will be really hard partly because he is a boy.  It would be hard if he was a girl too but in some ways this seems harder.

It really hit hard once we found out that we were having another boy that I would never get to have a picture of all four of my boys together.  Would never get to see the four of them play sports, wrestle, or even fight together.

Seeing our baby on the ultrasound made it more real that yes we are going to have another baby but that baby would never get to hold or love Cohen.  Keyzee will know Cohen through us but not in the same way that Cole and Carson got to hold and touch him.  It just really reminded me that our family will never really be whole again here on earth.

It is still really hard.  I try not to get too excited but at the same time I am so excited.  I know that there is a chance that I might not get to bring Keyzee home either and that just about kills me to think about.  I want my baby.  I want to bring him home.  I want to hear him cry.  See him smile.

I love my little Keyzee the Blueberry and I am hoping that in 17 weeks (or less) we get to bring our little man home.

Why Not?

I have heard of people losing children through out my adult life.  I would  hear of people on the news who lost all of their children in a fire.  People who lose children in car accidents or drownings.  I would get the papers from St. Jude in the mail and read of the battles children had with cancer.  I would read about people who lost their babies through SIDS, stillbirth, or miscarriage.  I would hear people talk about someone they know who knows someone whose child died from something horrible.

But in all these things it never really hit home.  I felt bad for these people.  Hurt for them in the moment and maybe even cried for them.

But in the end I went on with my life.  I went back to being normal.  With my family still intact and while I truly hurt for those people in the moment it didn’t really affect my life for the long-term.

I heard about people losing children and assumed that it would never happen to me.  It just couldn’t happen to me, not to our family, not to the people close to me that I love and care about.  These kind of things only happen to other people, people far away that I hear about but don’t actually know.

And then it did happen.  First to a close friend.  Someone who I love and care about so much.  Her son was diagnosed with leukemia.  The first thing I did when I heard was run to the computer and look up survival statistics.  The odds were in her sons favor to survive, to live a full life.  I assumed that they would walk a hard road, and I planned to be there for my friend and her family the whole way, but in the end her son would be ok.  But he wasn’t.  Just 20 months after being diagnosed my dear friends son died from cancer.

I hated seeing my friends go through this.  Hated watching them suffer.  Hated that their son and my son would never chase each other around church again.  That I would never see their sons bright smile again.

The reality that someone close to me could lose a child was now real.  It hurt.  It still hurts.  And I worried.  If it could happen to my friend it could happen to me.  Deep down I always knew this but it was easier to think that it would never happen to someone I knew or me.

Then it happened again.  Just nine months later I sat in the doctor’s office and did not hear a heart beat.  My baby that I had carried was gone.  I became the 1 in 800.  Never in a million years did I think I would lose a child.  I couldn’t handle it, so it wouldn’t happen.  But it did.

Again that harsh reality that yes, this can happen to me.

And I questioned, Why?  Why me?  Why us?  Why my family?

I could think of 100 different people who would be able to handle this better than me.  Who would use something like this to inspire and change the world.  Who would just be better at dealing with tragedy.

After nearly a year of thinking, Why? Why? Why? one day it suddenly hit me.  Why not me?

I’m not special.  Yes I am special to some people but God doesn’t love me more than anyone else.  I’m not better than the person that I heard about on the news so why wouldn’t something happen to me.  I’m just another person here on earth and I’m not any better than anyone else.  So why not me?

While this ended the constant thoughts of why, it also brought in a new fear.  If I lost one child why wouldn’t it happen again?  The reality of losing a child has become all too real to me.

I worry about losing my other boys constantly.  While I worried some before I worry way more now.  Before I read the statistics and always assumed it would happen to someone else.  Now I read them and think this could be one of my boys.

I had a panic attack Cole’s second day of school.  I couldn’t breath and my heart was racing.  I had to stop myself from driving to his school to make sure he was ok.  That no one was there hurting the kids.  Why?  Because even though the chances are low that anything would happen at his school I still worry.  The chances that anything would happen to Cohen were low too and they did.

Why wouldn’t something happen again?

I try not to think too much.  Not to let fear rule me and my life.  But thoughts sneak in.  As we are in a parking lot, I can see Carson darting out in front of a car and getting hit.  I can see Cole trying to be an American Ninja Warrior, jumping off of something and smashing his head.  I can see them playing outside and someone driving up and taking them.  I can see the baby that is growing inside me being born and never moving, never breathing.

So I try not to think.  Because sometimes it’s just easier not to.  To not think of the why not me?