2017 Honorary Angel – Charleston Diane Faye Morlan
Charleston Diane Faye Morlan
Born sleeping October 21, 2016.
My husband Tim and I were so surprised to find out we were going to have another baby… it took us 10 years and multiple fertility treatments ending with IVF to finally be able to have our son, Sam. So to a have positive home pregnancy test was quite the shock. We had never seen one of our own! We embraced the journey and ran with it! Because of my age we had the “harmony” test done that would tell us the probability of any problems to expect with our baby as well as the gender.
Now there is a very long standing joke that “Morlan’s only make boys” because well that is all we had in my husbands side of the family. My brother-in-law’s first child was a girl that was born into heaven 16yrs ago and everyone after her has been boys, so with that we just knew that this little nugget would be a boy also. Again, to our surprise, our miracle baby was a GIRL!! Our family was so excited and anxious to finally have a princess to buy pink for, after all it had been 32 years since the last little girl in the family.
Tim and I were over the moon to have this new addition, to have our perfect little family. Our pregnancy was full of ups and downs like any other pregnancy. At our 20 week ultrasound we were told that our Charleston’s head was only measuring in the 5th percent, which was way too small. We had to wait for an agonizing 8 weeks to have a repeat ultrasound done to see if her head was growing?? We went to that ultrasound; and me being a nurse I know somewhat the numbers that I am looking for. As soon as they did her head measurement I knew…. it had not changed. My heart sank, I wanted to fall apart right there on the table. Again, being a nurse I knew what that meant. It meant microcephaly, which meant my hopes and dreams of my daughter ever doing the things we had dreamed for her were over.
The very next day we were sent downtown to the perinatology doctors to have another ultrasound and to see what out options were. We had the ultrasound and 5 minutes later the doctor walked in shook our hands and told us our baby was perfect and not to worry about anything. She was measuring right where she needed to be. WHAT! How could this be? Just yesterday her head had not changed. I had just spent the last 2 months of my life watching all of my dreams being shattered and in 5 minutes you tell me she is fine. Again Tim and I left the office being very cautiously optimistic that this doctor, who spent less then 5 minutes with us was right and we went on about our day.
Fast forward 10 weeks. Now at about 30 weeks, I started having what felt like contractions at work, so I called my OB and they told me “drink lots of water and call them back in 1 hour if they had not gone away”, blah, blah, blah. So I did just that. Contractions did not go away, so I went to the MTTU to be monitored. Yep, sure enough I was having contractions. I was able to spend the whole day in the MTTU being monitored. They did blood, and my blood pressure was elevated so they started a 24 hour urine test on me to see if I was dropping protein which is the sign for preeclampsia. My contractions were determined to be “uterine irritation” and I was told not to worry about it unless they became strong enough to make me start dilating and I was sent home.
Well at this point I am now into my area of where I get to go to the office once a week for ultrasounds and NST because I have gestational diabetes. At my regular scheduled appointment my blood pressure was elevated again and my 24 hr urine showed “trace amount” of protein, so because of that I was sent back to the hospital to be monitored again. And yet again I was contracting and this time I knew I was staying the night, that had told me that in the office.
I
arrive and am hooked up to the monitor, of course my blood pressure is ok, although I had to do another 24 hour urine test. While I was in the hospital I had to get the shot that helps the babies lungs mature faster “just in case we should need to take her.” I was released to go home on Sunday and was place on “modified” bed rest, mostly because of me. I was to afraid to be on bedrest at home, so I talked my doctor into letting me do office work at my job where I had to stay in a room and keep me feet up all day long. I also had to monitor my blood pressure every day and if it every got 160/90 I was to call the doctor. My co- workers made me stick to this, made me lay down if I even looked like my blood pressure was elevated. Mind you I am still having these “uterine irritations” so my stomach was extremely tight all the time. I did this for 4 days.
I went to my normally scheduled twice a week ultrasounds and NST. I never got passed the ultrasound. The tech was amazing, she was terrified but kept her cool. We started doing my ultrasound and she said “wow her heart rate is low” 113, which she had always been at least 130. I knew then something was wrong. She told me to turn up onto my left side, maybe I was just laying wrong. I was so far on my left side, I was darn near on my stomach. The tech calmly told me ” I will be right back, I need to go talk to the doctor” and left the room. I looked at my mother in-law and told her “something is wrong.” She of course told me, “oh no everything is fine.” I told her no something is wrong, they have never left me in here to “go get the doctor”.
The doctor came in and told me that I needed to go to the hospital and don’t dilly dally, go straight there. That I had what was called “reverse cord pressure” which was making it so my Charleston was not getting the amount of blood and oxygen that she needed (the doctor did not tell me this part, I just knew what it meant) and that I was probably going to be having my baby today. My mother in-law and I got into my truck and headed straight there.
I made all the calls I needed to get my husband there and my son taken care of for the evening. We got to the hospital and got checked in. I was familiar with the nurses due to my visits over the past two week’s, so I joked and told them I would get into my gown, that I knew what to do and I would see them in a minute. They hollered back “ok, we will be there in a minute”. I went into the bathroom, got changed and got into the bed. The nurse came in, which happened to be the same nurse from before. She went to place me on the baby monitor, we could not find the heartbeat, which at the time I was not to worried about because we have been having a hard time finding it in the past because Charleston was breach.
The nurse looked and me and said “oh yeah she is breach, we will try up here” so we tried at the top of my stomach, nothing. Another nurse and then another nurse and then another nurse came in all trying to find my baby on the monitor. Finally, I looked at one of the nurses said “if we can’t get the monitor then get the ultrasound.” Then my primary nurse and another nurse went over to the other side of the bed and started my IV and drawing blood, me being the smart ass I am I said “so ladies what is the likelihood that I am going for a C Section?” Without skipping a beat everyone in the room, which I think at this point was at least 8, all while still trying to get me on the monitor said “you are” all at the same time. I said “ok well lets get this show on the road.”
While all of this is going on, the ultrasound lady came in and started doing my ultrasound, again. The same lady whom had done my previous ultrasounds just 4 days prior. She placed her hand on my knee, looked at me and said “I am sorry Michelle, I can not find her heartbeat.” I screamed “GET HER OUT, take me to the OR and get her out,” she just moved. “Get her out” my mother in-law was screaming.
They wheeled me out of my MTTU room and into the C-section prep area, all the while I was pushing on my stomach, screaming”Just move baby, just move Charleston”. They took me to a room just outside the OR area and the OB that was on call met me there and told me that she needed an ultrasound now and that if there were any flickering of a beat she would take me for a crash C-Section. There was nothing. I screamed, and cried and cussed, and screamed some more. My doctor sat there and cried with me. We were reliving the same thing all over again from my brother in-law, except this time it was me.
All of this happened in a matter of 30 minutes. From the time we left the doctors office to the time they told me my Charleston was gone was 30 minutes. I had to be induced, so I was moved to a quiet room on the very end of the hallway all by myself. The process was started. I finally delivered my beautiful angel at 12:56 am October 21st 2016.