Walk America

Well, we are doing Walk America this year. I've wanting to do it since the boys were born, but every time the walk would come up it would conflict with something else. Either Robert would be deployed or we were planning our vacation or what not. Well this year we finally have the opportunity! For those that might not know, I have three preemies. Here are their stories...

Michael and Patrick are fraternal twins born at 31 weeks. They were born early due to a placental abruption. On May 13th, I was feeling well that evening. I was up most of the night with pain in my back and major cramping. By 6am things started to get better so I thought it was just nothing and decided to get some sleep. I went to bed and slept until 12pm and decided I was hungry and got up to get some lunch. Around 2pm, I decided to go lay back down and get another nap, as I still didn't feel quite right. Around 4pm, I got up and was walking to the bathroom, when all of the sudden, I felt a gush and was soaked from the waist down. My water broke, and I was only 31 weeks pregnant. I got to the bathroom and screamed for my little sister to bring me the phone. She was mad as she came down the stairs until so saw what was going on. She ran to find the numbers we needed. What freaked her out the most, wasn't the fact that my water had broke, but it was full of blood and she knew that wasn't normal.

As we called everyone we needed to I began to have contractions. My first call was to my Mom to get her to come home and take me to the hospital. In hind sight, I should have had my sister drive me, but I wasn't thinking clearly. At 4:15pm, my Mom arrived home to take us to the hospital. At 4:30pm, I was in the ER and being wheeled up to Labor and Delivery. I was told I would need an emergency c-section and they didn't know if my OB would make it in time. Just as they were wheeling me into the OR my OB arrived and scrubbed in for an emergency delivery. At 5:40pm Michael was welcomed into the world and blue followed by Patrick at 5:41pm. Michael weighed 3 lbs 13 oz and was 16 3/4 inches and Patrick was 3 lbs 11 oz and 17 inches. I was told later that Michael was a very lucky little boy to be alive. He is documented in the operative report as an unsurvivable infant. The next 25 days were a roller coaster of emotions. It was one step forward two steps back for a long time, but now the are almost 4!! And you wouldn't know they were preemies unless you know their story.

Kaitlyn is a whole different story. I had problems with her pregnancy from about 20 weeks. I was having contractions and while they didn't seem to be doing much they were constant. I was put on procardia around 24 weeks and we waited. In March, I ended up in the hospital for a few hours with constant contractions that weren't stopping. They did finally get them to stop with three doses of terbutaline, fluids, and my normal dose of procardia. After that my procardia was increased and I was seeing my OB weekly, plus getting a biophysical profile every week and non stress tests twice a week. Two days before Mother's Day the OB didn't like the results of my non stress test. I was told to come in on Sunday and have another, if the results were good, Kaitlyn could stay put, but if not they would deliver her. Well the results came back great. On May 14th, at 36 weeks exactly I was taken off procardia and told if I went into labor they would deliver her. I was still scheduled for a c-section on May 25th, if I made it that far.

The evening of May 15th, I could feel the contractions starting. I was hoping they would just stay like they had been, but they were intense at times. Around 5am May 16th, I woke Robert up and told him I didn't think he would be going to work. He asked if my water had broke and I told him no, but the contractions were getting stronger and didn't seem to be stopping at all. I told him to go back to sleep and I was going to go in the living room and find something to do. At 7am I woke him and told him he needed to get up and get the kids some breakfast we needed to go to the hospital. Around 8am, we were heading to the hospital and the contractions were getting harder and harder on the way there. We arrived at the hospital around 8:45am, and told the desk I was having contractions. I was put into a room and placed on a monitor. They couldn't find any contractions on the monitor, but my OB happened to be there so they paged her and she came to check me out.

She went to check me and as she did a contraction registered on the monitor. They figured out if they wanted to get contractions, they couldn't keep Kaitlyn's heart beat on the monitor and vise versa. So my OB looked at me and said, I think we are having a baby today. She gave me some terb to try and make me comfortable while I waited for my time to have a c-section. The nice thing this time around was it wasn't an emergency. I was awake during the surgery and was able to hear Kaitlyn's first cry and see her following her birth. Kaitlyn entered this world screaming at 1:02pm weighing 5 lbs 12 oz and 17 inches long. She was assessed by neonataolgist and found be still be needing some assistance so she was taken to the NICU. I was able to see her later that day in the NICU.

While her stay in the NICU wasn't near as long as the boys it was still a roller coaster ride. Kaitlyn spent 7 days in the NICU before joining us at home. Now she is a healthy, wonderful toddler who will soon celebrate her 2nd birthday.

These are our 3 reasons for supporting the March of Dimes. While not all of us are touched by prematurity, all of us can find a way to support those who are. One of those ways is giving to the March of Dimes at this time. We are doing the walk to remember how fortunate we are this year and all the time, without the research about preemies our children might not be here. Please think about this when considering a donation to the Baker Bunch team. If you are moved by this story, please consider donating here, http://www.walkamerica.org/threepreemies. You never know how your donation might help save the life of someones child.