I’ve always wanted to have children since I was little. I remember growing up playing house and thinking about my goal of becoming a teacher. I loved babysitting as a teenager and I enjoyed having a sister that was ten years younger than me so I could treat her like my own “daughter.” When I was nine years old, I was diagnosed with diabetes and Crohn’s disease in the same week. I quickly grew up and began dealing with health challenges I never thought I would be dealt. However, my goal of becoming a mom and raising children never faded. I knew I could do it. I began college and decided to major in child development- I felt that was the best path to fulfill my lifelong goal of being the best mom in the world (after my own mom of course!).
I began dating Jeff and could tell how important family was to him. Whenever the topic of kids came up while we were engaged he would always say he wanted “to have as many children as the Lord blessed us with.” He was intrigued with his little nephew, Isaiah, and I could just tell that raising kids with him by my side was going to be one fun ride! We married in March 2007 and life was busy. School and work occupied most of our time and quickly health problems arose for me. As much as I wanted to add to our family, I knew that my health needed to improve so I could have a healthy baby of my own. Health problems continued and looking back I am not sure how I got through each day. I was having monthly blood transfusions and not getting better. It finally came to a point where Jeff and I didn’t want to wait to have children any longer, we knew the Lord would provide the way for us to expand our family. So, we logged onto lds.org and looked for adoption options. Then we filled out the paperwork, met with our bishop and we were about to write a check when I got a weird feeling. I felt like it was almost too good to be true when I took a pregnancy test and saw the plus sign on it. On January 21, the first reaction I had was scared. I knew my health problems might pose a problem on our little baby so I made a doctor appointment with the high risk department and made a plan to be the healthiest I could be for our baby no matter what happened.
My stomach problems got incredibly better and my diabetes was difficult but manageable with the team of doctors I had. I continued taking my medicine and vitamins, I got healthier and felt great. I didn’t have a day of morning sickness and I slept great. My high risk doctors followed me closely and I faxed in blood sugars every couple of days so they could adjust my insulin levels. We found out at 15 weeks that we were having a boy and we thought the name Boston sounded like a great name for a cute little boy playing little league.
I got sick around 9:30pm on the Sunday before the fourth of July. I began throwing up and feeling awful. I had just entered the third trimester and I heard that is when morning sickness comes back. So I just figured I had morning sickness or food poisoning. I noticed more swelling than normal but I attributed that to the summer heat. Meanwhile, I stayed home and kept throwing up. I called Kaiser’s advice line and they told me I should be okay if I could keep food down some of the time. I stayed home Tuesday because I still wasn’t feeling great. Then Wednesday morning I had an ultrasound appointment. I was 29 weeks. Jeff and I went to Morse Avenue and saw our little guy with a heartbeat of 150 bpm. I was happy to see a heartbeat since I was so sick earlier in the week. I went to work after the appointment.
The next morning I had a high risk appointment in Roseville. Jeff was going to be at work, so I decided to take my sister Jen with me. I picked her up and off we went to the doctor. The nurse took my blood pressure and told me I needed to go to labor and delivery immediately. I wasn’t nervous yet, since yesterday’s ultrasound was normal, or so I thought. My sister and I joked the whole way to labor and delivery and I even told them I couldn’t stay long because my sister was getting married the next day.
They got me in a room and they gave me a gown and hooked me up with fetal monitors. The nurse began looking for the heartbeat and she couldn’t find it. I thought she was a new nurse and didn’t know what she was doing. She called in Dr.Zimmerman to check for the heartbeat and he looked over to me and said there was no heartbeat that he could find, he even called in another doctor to check. I told him “no, you’re wrong, my ultrasound was fine yesterday, his heart was beating.” And he looked straight in my eyes and said “your baby passed away overnight, I am sorry.” I was in shock, no tears, no frown, no screaming. I was silent and I was hurting inside but I still didn’t want to believe it. I wasn’t going to believe it. I needed my husband to tell me it was all a mistake. My sister was there with me in the room and my dad had shown up because my sister told him to come. Soon, Jeff came and didn’t know a thing. We have been in plenty of hospital rooms together while I have been the patient so this was not something new to us. He waltzed in and I was stone cold with my eyes focusing on a picture in the room. My family left the room and I burst into tears. I cried and cried and looked up to Jeff and said “we were so close.”
The next four days were a blur. I found out I would have to deliver my stillborn son and that my blood pressure was dangerously high- 195/120. I had developed severe Pre-eclampsia and would have to be hooked up to magnesium to prevent seizures and wait until after I delivered to have my blood pressure come down. My high blood pressure and condition had cut off the blood supply to my placenta and Boston wasn’t getting the blood he needed. I didn’t sleep unless I was knocked out through IV meds, I didn’t eat because I wasn’t hungry, I missed my sister’s wedding because I was in the hospital. The doctor’s gave me a day to think about everything that was happening and on Friday night they asked me if I was ready to go into labor. They gave me medicine to start labor and nothing really happened. I was then given pitocin and within an hour I went from a three to a ten. I got an epidural, it took three tries and didn’t really work because my body was so swollen. I felt the pain of contractions and labor but it wasn’t too bad. At 3:20am on Saturday, July 9 I delivered my sleeping son. He was 2 pounds 6 oz. and 16 inches long. He had long toes and a button nose. He also had lots of hair. I loved him the second I saw him, I knew he was mine and that I was a mother. We got to spend the morning and afternoon with him next to us. We were able to hold him and take pictures with him. It was the most precious day I have ever had. I could literally see Heaven in my little boy’s face. His spirit was with us in that hospital room.
I don’t know why tragic things happen to people or why this had to happen to us. Life has not been easy since our little Boston passed away. But we do have hope in the future, hope that we will see him again, hope that our eternal family will one day grow larger, and hope in the gospel. We will meet again and forever be joined in the eternities. Today is my due date, the date Boston was supposed to come into the world and bless our lives. However, we find comfort in knowing that he is in a better place and blessing the lives of others. We are grateful for the time we had with him here on earth and he will always be loved and never forgotten.
We love you Boston. Love, Mommy and Daddy
