Heading Down Jonah's Path

In January 2011, I started my first (of many) fertility treatments.  After being diagnosed with poly cystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), I was hurdled into a blur of fertility drugs, ultrasounds, hormone injections, counting of follicles, doctor appointments....devastation....SILENCE.  While I shared the details of this experience with my closest family and friends, most people did not know I was going through this.  Infertility and trying to get pregnant is supposed to be a SECRET.  Not sure why this is....heck, so many other health problems are shared out in the open - heart disease, cancer....but find out your infertile and you might as well tape your mouth shut and pretend that life is hunky dory.  Meanwhile, you are living through a personal hell - all while watching your best friends, co-workers, neighbors, and complete strangers conceiving eight billion babies.  That totally sucks.  And you can't even complain about it on Facebook because YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO TALK ABOUT IT.

Anyway....after an entire YEAR of fertility treatments in a last ditch effort, we tried one LAST round of fertility treatments in November 2011.  This involved injecting a drug called Follistim every day into my stomach for weeks and weeks, which caused the follicles in the ovaries to mature to the perfect size to be released for ovulation.  Then I stuck myself with a hefty dose of HCG to release the gorgeous egg (or eggs in my case) and headed into the fertility center to have the very sexy insemination.  While I always imagined Deva getting me pregnant, I never pictured a 70 something nurse practitioner shooting the sperm up in there.  Despite the unromanticness of it all, it still was an incredibly special moment for us.  Deva held my hand and like three seconds later it was all said and done.

After an excruciating two weeks wait, I had a BIG FAT POSITIVE on the lovely pregnancy test.  I screamed, "Oh my freaking G-d!!!" and went on to have an amazing pregnancy with my first child.  It was so surreal....sticking myself day after day with crazy hormones actually worked!! I was so relieved to be done with infertility and onto becoming a mommy!

My dreams and hopes of having a healthy baby boy in late summer came to a SCREECHING halt on May 11th when I went into sudden unstoppable preterm labor at 25 weeks.  Our precious baby, Jonah Henry, was born at 6:31 pm on Saturday May 12, 2012.  He was delivered naturally, in the breach position, in his amniotic sac.....2 lbs, 1 ounce and 14 inches long.  Jonah was immediately rushed to the NICU.  There was no putting him on my chest to have that first mother and child embrace.  There were no pictures being taken.  There was joy.  There was a sense of accomplishment.  But there was intense fear.  He was so little.  He was so early.

After many hours, we were finally allowed to visit our tiny son.  I loved him even before he was born, but I loved him more than I've ever loved anyone or anything else the moment I saw him.  My eyes were completely blind to the ventilator, to the tubes, to the monitors, to his size.  He was perfect in my eyes.

While we knew he had a long battle ahead of him, we were assured that he had a 90% chance of surviving.  His entrance into the world was not what we had planned, but we could handle it.  We could be the type of parents who go to the NICU every day to visit our baby and watch him grow.  We were strong and our strength would rub off on Jonah too.

Sadly, and unexpectantly,  Jonah's health took a turn for the worse on the second night of his life.  By morning we were told we'd have to say goodbye to our precious baby, as his little body could not win the fight for his life.  Devastation beyond words filled our entire bodies.  How could we say goodbye to him? We just said hello.  That day we held our son and cuddled him for the first and only time.  It was the best moment and the worst moment of our lives all wrapped into one.  We changed his diaper, and bathed him, and watched helplessly and numbly as the doctors and nurses removed the ventilator.  I cannot describe what this was like....you can't even imagine our pain.

The days that followed involved things no parent ever wants to do....plan a funeral....hold a funeral.....visit his grave site.....cry......melt down.....cry.....  We worked so hard to conceive him.  Infertility felt like hell.  This was the real hell.

It has now been 12 weeks since our Jonah was born.  These weeks have brought us sadness and comfort.  Depression and inspiration.  If you haven't already, please take a moment to read my post called "Jonah's Milk." (http://jonahspath.blogspot.com/2012/08/jonahs-milk.html?zx=49a95759c50bdc5b) Long story short - In the weeks following Jonah's birth and death, I pumped and donated over 1300 ounces of breast milk - Jonah's milk - to the Mother's Milk Bank of Ohio.  More details are in that post. 

Jonah's birth and untimely death started us down a path....a path we never knew we'd be on.  This is the path of learning how to be parents of a baby who died.  This is the path of grieving while trying to go about our lives.  This is Jonah's path - without him we would not be on it.  And at this point, his path has lead us back to a place we visited nearly two years ago......infertility.  It is a path I didn't want to be on again so soon, but I cannot change reality.  And having the taste of motherhood, no matter how short it was, has lit my desire to try again.  It's not an easy path but I'm ready to head down it.