Tell me more!

Ashlyn's new favorite pasttime... making noises and singing to herself.

Yum Yum Yum

Ryan & I gave Ashlyn her first taste of fruits last night. Vegetables all went well over the last couple weeks. Carrots were the favorite. And now it's time for dessert! BANANAS! She made such a cute face and then proceeded to devour them! Yummy! Such a good eater she is!

First 5 months!

Okay friends and family... it is now April and I am just getting around to creating some type of regular posting to let you all know about baby Ashlyn's developments and accomplishments. Ash is five and a half months now! You never really know what people mean when they say time flies until you watch it go before your eyes. Lil miss is growing like a weed in size and personality! She has in the past 5 months more than doubled her birth weight and stretched out five inches! Her smile radiates the hearts of everyone who has the privledge of meeting and knowing her. Ryan and I are so proud of her and are so thankful that she is OUR little girl. Watching her, playing with her, and teaching her is to our utmost delights. She teaches us just as much as we teach her! I will do my best to keep this updated on a more regular basis so you can see just how adorable and brilliant this little girl is growing up to be!

Ashlyn Caprice Sanders Birth Story

It was March 12, 2008 around 6:00pm that I finally got the nerve to take a pregnancy test after having the “feeling” all day. Ryan was flying so sadly he wasn’t there for my array of immediate emotions. That grace was put on my dear friend Karri Perry who was on the phone as the results of not one test but two came in. Karri stuck by my side throughout the ENTIRE experience. When the daddy to be came home I greeted him with a card and a pee stick. We
were both excited, but at the time it seemed as though the timing could have been better. Later we would learn that there couldn’t have been a more perfect time!

We together got to attend my first two prenatal appointments, the second appointment in which we heard the tiny heartbeat and were given the visual aid of a sonogram machine. It was that day that I saw daddy’s eyes get big with joy. Ryan left for deployment exactly two months later. I was then 14 weeks pregnant. Let the journey begin.

My first trimester went quickly. With the exception of some pretty constant morning sickness, all was well. I slept a lot but continued to do my normal activities. Weeks 13-26 were a walk in the park! I felt better than ever! I was eating really well, going to the gym to walk on a tread climber every day, and the pregnant life was awesome! It was really neat to watch my belly grow week by week and to know there was a little person miraculously developing inside. It was on my 20th week day that I got the exciting news that we were going to have a little girl, Ashlyn Caprice Sanders!

On the morning starting my 27th week, I awoke around 5am to some rather intense and quite scary abdominal pains. Knowing that up until then I had what seemed to be a seemingly perfect pregnancy, I had an instinctual feeling that something was indeed not right. So I called Labor & Delivery (a place I would come to be VERY familiar with in the weeks to come) and they advised to me come right in and get looked at. When I arrived they hooked me up to a Fetal Non-Stress Test (NST) monitoring machine that tracked the baby’s heartbeat along with any contractions I was having. CONTRACTIONS!! I was only 27 weeks pregnant! But sure enough I was having contractions every 2-4 minutes. The doctor then checked my cervix and was very happy to note that it was still closed and very thick. Aw! Good news! I was still in some serious pain, not pain that was coming and going every 2-4 minutes but constant. So I was wheeled to the Antipartum Diagnostic Center (another place I would become very familiar with) to have an ultrasound done. Baby Ashlyn was given a complete growth scan and biophysical profile (BPP). She was then 2.5lbs and impressed the doctors with her tone, movement and practice breathing capabilities. While doing her assessment the technician excused herself from the room and went to get the senior doctor. When he came in things got scary very quickly. They were looking on the screen and pointing and he said “Wow, I’ve never seen this in 30 years.” What was “this” I was thinking? He informed me that we were watching my placenta abrupt LIVE on ultrasound for absolutely no known reason! (Placental abruption is when the placenta pulls away from the uterine wall… VERY BAD) In a panic people started jabbing needles in me which I later learned were steroids to help baby Ashlyn’s lungs mature quickly. I was being prepped for an emergency Cesarean Section. My placenta was 25% abrupted and at 30% it is mandatory that they get the baby out for both mother and baby’s well being. Miraculously it never progressed past 25% though! For the next four days I laid in L&D and was constantly monitored for all the contractions I was having. It was during these four days that I met Dr. Rabie who became a key person in the birth of Ashlyn Caprice. I was released from the hospital on Friday and went home for a “normal weekend”. I was still able to go to work and do most of my normal activities. My only restrictions were no intense workouts which I wasn’t doing prior, just walking. I also had to go to the hospital several times a week to continue being monitored on the NST machines. The Monday that followed was a holiday and Tuesday before work I was to have my first NST appointment. Here we go, readmitted to L&D for contractions that were 2-3 minutes apart. I once again spent four days in the hospital, released on Friday and was actually back at work a week later. Most of my NST appointments landed me back in L&D but the doctors, who became very familiar with me, came to the realization that I was going to be one of the lucky few that continually contract for the remainder of my pregnancy! A pregnancy that no one thought was going to last through
my 27th, 28th, 29th etc. week let alone go to 38 weeks under induction! Well the weeks went
by, and I continued to go to my NST appointments. At 33 weeks they gave me
modified bed rest since then have not been to work. Sounds cool, but when your
husbands deployed and all your friends are at work it makes life kinda lonely and
boring!

So weeks 33-37 went and it was induction day. November 3, 2008. The reason they
wanted to induce me was strictly for the safety of the baby. Due to the abruption Ashlyn
was surviving off just 75% of the placenta and there was always that slight risk that she
could suffocate due to lack of oxygen. So to be safe it was time to get her out!

My friend Karri stayed with me the night before as I went on a crazy nesting frenzy, vacuuming every trace of dog hair until one’oclock in the morning. We woke up at 5:30am to call and ask L&D if they were ready for me, indeed they were and I was to be there at 7:30am. Karri and I got ready with all the last minute pre-baby things and waited on my friend Brooke to get to my house. Together we went to the hospital for the big arrival! When we got there I was given a really nice room with a nice view. After the initial questions from the nurse and thirty minutes of monitoring my contractions and baby’s heartbeat, the doctor (who happened to be Dr. Rabie) came in and did an internal exam and to my great surprise I was 2cm dilated. HOW EXCITING! All those contractions that never changed my cervix for all those weeks finally did something right and I had begun dilating naturally! This was good news because it meant the difference in drugs that were used to induce me. By this time, Natalia, another friend had arrived to the hospital. At 12:14pm the nurse began administering Pitocin. We were in for a long ride! My contractions were getting stronger and sadly I was experiencing back labor! No fun! Dr. Rabie inserted a folly bulb (little balloon) into my cervix to gauge my progress. VERY UNCOMFORTABLE feeling! But when it fell out I would be between 4-6cm. When it did fall out I kinda freaked out and screamed for Brooke who got my nurse. This was a good thing she assured me. When Dr. Rabie came back in he checked me and I was at 4cm, where I stayed for the next nine hours!!! Shift change and ten hours into labor I was doing okay, that was unless I was lying down! Back labor is excruciating. It was then that I decided with the help of my three coaches, Karri, Brooke and Natalia that an epidural would be the best option for me to get some much needed rest. It was almost 10:00pm and I was really nervous about getting it but the anesthesiologist was very calming and was extremely good at his job. Within minutes I was able to lay back and relax, and then within an hour I felt completely numb from mid waist down and not in a good way. It was too much lose of control for me and I asked that it be turned down. Dr. Fivecoats came in at 2:00am and declared that I was 7cm! Yay! His prediction was that I would start pushing around 5:00am. I had the epidural turned down again so I could be more active in my labor. The girls woke up and it was time! We as a team pushed every contraction out for TWO hours! With Natalia, Brooke and Karri and my nurse Rene by my side I pushed hard and consistently. Ryan even got to be on the phone with me for the majority of the pushing phase and the actual delivery!!! It was so good to hear his voice and his words of encouragement during the birth of our baby girl. At 6:45 Rene called first call and from there the doctors were all in place. Even though shift change wasn’t until 7:00am, Dr. Rabie was there early and in the room for delivery. He had been with me since day one of abruption and I was thankful to see his face! There are not many military pregnancies that know the face of the doctor delivering their baby. At 6:59am, Novemeber 4th, with Ryan on the phone, Ashlyn arrived and I was in awe!!! She was beautiful!!! And perfect! 7lbs 14.2oz and 20” long. Labor and delivery was much better than I had ever imagined!

Now the scary part. I share this with you because of the reality of my experience. Not everything is easy and it’s not like the movies all the time. Ashlyn was perfect and for that I was grateful. Four hours after her birth, I was another story. I started experiencing some REALLY intense back pain. I attributed it to the epidural completely wearing off and me feeling the post pains of labor. I was talking to a midwife about my pain relief options when I felt a sudden gush which I thought was urine. It was blood. Not too much but enough that the nurse and the midwife administered an in and out catheter and did some very painful fundus massage. PAINFUL! My bladder was too full and cut off the flow of blood to my uterus. We thought it was under control when Brooke and Karri came back in the room from getting coffee. About ten minutes later a group of midwives came in and my friends were massaging my back. The head midwife pretty much assumed I was a complainer looking to get some good pain relievers. Not the case. She had me stand up and immediately I felt the most excruciating pains in my back again. Upon standing up I started gushing blood again and it was so much so that my friends had to leave the room. They got me back in my bed and once again started the PAINFUL fundus massage. My uterus was not clamping off and continued filling with blood. It was terrible but once excreted I felt better once again. My friends returned to the room and not even another ten minutes went by before I felt those back pains again. Only this time it was unfathomably painful. For the first time in my life I really thought I was going to die. I was bleeding profusely and the doctors were pouring into my room setting up all sorts of equipment. My friends were trapped in and I’m thankful that Karri grabbed my hand and started whispering in my ear. All I could get out was “take care of my baby and tell her I love her”. I was immediately put under anesthesia and though I could feel pressure I was really in another world. All I heard was Karri.
Which was good because what was about to happen to me I would not want to be awake for. The medical team quickly did an emergency sweep of my uterus which entailed completely scrapping it’s insides to remove anything that potentially was causing me to hemorrhage. I was told later that a piece of my placenta (probably the piece that abrupted) was still attached to my uterus, a serious cause of uterine apnea (severe hemorrhage). My girlfriends told me later that as scary as it was to witness this event and to know that there was a potential I wasn’t going to make it through it, it was amazing to watch the professionalism of this medical team. Knowing that made me feel better about my experience. Once the bleeding was under control and I began to regain consciousness, it was discussed with me the events that took place. I had lost 2500cc of blood which is half my blood volume. Technically I should have been given a blood transfusion and it was there ready and waiting for me. The only thing that stopped the doctors from giving it to me was the fact that I started my pregnancy with an abnormally high blood cell count that saved my life. I was watched closely over the next few days and not allowed out of bed for the first two. It was hard because aside from feedings, I couldn’t care for my little girl. I was so exhausted and helpless. But I have great friends that helped me and stayed with me throughout the entire experience. Ashlyn and I were released a few days later. She was readmitted the next day for a development of breast feeding jaundice. The doctors called her a rock star because she was only under the billy lights for 12 hours before being taken off. We were once again discharged and have been home ever since!

Ryan’s mother, Wanda, has been with us since the day after Ashlyn’s birth. We are very grateful that she has been here to help us. Ashlyn and I are both recovering well and look forward to the arrival of daddy on November 20th!

The reason I share the more intense portions of this story with you is not to worry or scare you. It is to let you know that there is hope and joy in struggles. What could have turned out very very bad, turned around for good. There is no coincidence that my blood cell count was high to begin with. It was a plan that God had to show me just how precious life is. To be grateful for everyday because the best day of your life could end up being your last. By the grace of God it wasn’t. It was just the start.

Thank you for those of you that prayed and stuck by Ryan, Ashlyn and myself throughout this endeavor. Brooke, Karri, Natalia and Daniyelle… you are all amazing and Ryan and I couldn’t ask for better friends. Like I have said before, we are family now. I love you.