Caleb's Story 7/29/2011-9/21/2011

My husband and I were eager to start a family as any newly married couple would be.
We had been trying for approx 6 months before we realized on March 4, 2011 that I was pregnant with our first ( and what appears to be our last ) biological child.

I called my husband and made him come home from work because I was so excited to find out that I was pregnant ! When I showed him the pregnancy test he asked me in a perplexed tone " if the test was broken" ?  We had a good laugh about that later on.

We were not going to find out what we were having, and we had a pretty uneventful pregnancy until about the beginning of my fourth month.  I was at my OB check up and the Dr. said that I was spilling too much protein in my urine.  My response to this was " I always spilled protein in my urine" -- which I had been since about 2005 ) Since no one ever questioned it, I always assumed it was normal. 
Guess what...... Its not, especially when you are pregnant.  This is a warning sign of Pre-ecalmpsia.  A very dangerous circumstance where you spill protein and your Blood pressure escalates to dangerous proportions.  This can cause pre-term labor, strokes, and fetal death if not treated.

I was blissfully ignorant, and when the Dr advise that I see the High Risk Clinic of my Children's Hospital I went.  I was not happy about it, but away I went.  When I was there I was referred to a Kidney specialist to follow my protein spillage.  But so far at fourth months I was looking "ok". Not great, but not bad. 

I saw My Kidney specialist on 7/11/2011.  I was advised that this pregnancy would not last past 30 weeks, and if I was lucky I would make it that far.  ( at this point I was at 22 weeks ) This was upsetting, but I kept telling myself that I would beat the odds,  This was my first and that was not going to happen to me.  The Dr. said I was swelling and needed to stay in bed.  I thought because it was the middle of July that all pregnant women were swelling. 

I started to feel ill on 7/26/2011.  I had a backache that I could not get rid of and I tried everything.  It didn't feel like labor, but It was a dull ache.  I tried hot pack, cold pack, Tylenol, hot and cold showers.  Finally after 6 hours I called my mom who is a nurse and she told me to call the Hospital.  They advised me to come in and make sure I was not in labor. 

My mom raced me to the Hospital and I thought she was being silly.  I in no way thought that this was it.  When I arrived they triaged me and determined that I was not in labor, but my BP was so high that they needed to monitor me before I could be released.  ( BP was 220/110 -- way high )

I stayed in the Hospital having my BP monitored and attempted to be brought down with medicine and Magnesium Sulfate.  On the morning of 7/29/2011 I was advised by the Physicians that my son would need to be delivered because they were unable to locate his heart rate and that he was in distress.  Off I went for the Emergency C-section.

When I woke up all I wanted to know was if my son was alive, which he was.  He was in the NICU and he was fighting.  I had no idea what day it was, who I was or what was happening. It took some time for me to realize the scope of what was really going on.

Caleb James lived in the NICU for 58 days.  He fought Staph, Urinary Tract Infections, Jaundice, Heart Surgery and a myriad of other issues.  On his fourth trip through the staph infection the Drs called a meeting with my husband and I and asked us to make a decision regarding his life.  We had to choose whether to let Caleb live and suffer or die in peace.

We choose to let him die in peace on 9/21/2011.  We held him in our arms for 97 minutes after he was unhooked from all of the machines, bathed him, took his hand and footprints, dressed him and kissed him goodbye.  Our Angel was off to heaven.