July 9,2020 we find out baby Rowan had no amniotic fluid around him (my water broke) they admit us and we were given 3 options no parents want to choose from. 1) to induce my labor and Rowan has no chance of survival. 2) we hope my fluid regains, go home and hope his heart doesn’t stop or that I don’t go into labor and try and keep him in as long as I can. 3) emergency C section and risk the chance of having anymore children. We chose option 2 as a family because we couldn’t give up on our baby boy for the fact he has been with no fluids for how long fighting and not giving up on us. We became stable enough after a long 5 days and were discharged.
July 14, 2020 early morning I start having horrible contractions but so scared to tell anyone because I figured if I don’t tell anyone they will go away. Not at all! They started at every 5 minutes and quickly were at every 3 minutes. I argue for a good 10 minutes how I don’t want to go I’m scared I don’t want this to be labor it’s to soon (I lost that argument).
We get in the car drive to UCSD Hillcrest (21 minutes away) they advise us we can’t deliver a baby under 32 weeks and resuscitate him. No matter how much pain or how close these contractions were we decided to leave and drive to UCSD La Jolla ( another 15 minutes away). Contractions are consistent at this point no time between. Get in immediately put me in triage and give us the worst news we have ever heard “baby has no heartbeat” my body went numb to all contractions and just broke down forgetting I was in labor. 5 minutes after being told that news I delivered Our beautiful baby boy Rowan. Yes he was silent and still but doesn’t take away the memories and moments we got to make. We spent hours with him, taking pictures, admiring everything about him, remembering all our pregnancy moments and even got feet prints of his little feet.
We are home now and not a day goes by where I think this is getting easier. No time that passes makes you forget or makes the hurt or emptiness go away. We as a couple want to live positively through Rowan and have decided to donate his breast milk to preemie babies that would have been in the same situation as our very own. Yes this hurts all the time but we still love to talk about him and keep his name alive (we may shed tears) but we are strong and have handled this together and Rowan has definitely made us two stronger.
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