From the Start...

This is actually the first time I'm writing out Mirabella's birth story. It's crazy to think all this happened within 7 months and all that has happened since. I wouldn't have changed a single thing though!

May of 2019 I started feeling a little strange. My periods were always irregular and I figured it was about to be my time of the month. Once my breast became uncomfortably sore is when I decided it was time to take a pregnancy test. As I'm finishing up in the bathroom, had just thrown the test on the ground, thinking; just another negative. I glance down and lo and behold the biggest blue plus sign I've ever seen. My jaw dropped and I stood hunched over for a solid 5 minutes. Just smiling to myself. Not really believing what I'm seeing. So, I take another one. And just the same, a big.blue.plus. I couldn't believe it. Not being able to wait til Brandon got off work, I instantly called him, and told him I took the pregnancy test. He asked, "and?" My response was, “its positive“ is all I could manage. I could hear the smile spread across his face through the phone as he says, "WOW, that's crazy." Based off my last cycle I was around 8 weeks. So I scheduled a doctor's appointment for the next week or so, expecting to be able to hear our little ones heartbeat. Well, I only ended up being 4 weeks! With my cycle being so irregular the math was just a bit off. So, another appointment was scheduled for, I believe we did 6 weeks later. THE LONGEST 6 WEEKS OF OUR LIVES! The constant worry of if I was still pregnant, is the baby okay. It was just a constant state of worry. Finally time for our appointment! We heard baby's heartbeat, and saw a little tiny peanut moving around. It's such an incredible moment to share together as new parents. At that time I was 10 weeks, so I was able to get a blood test that determined the gender. Since we found out so early, waiting another 8 weeks to know if we were having a little boy or a little girl would have been agonizing. We just needed to know! They drew my blood and told us it would be about a week before we got the results. A week later we received an email that the results were in and our doctor would call us shortly to deliver the results. We anxiously waited for the phone call and when we finally got a call from our doctor we were told to come in. We were a little worried. Expecting the results to be told over the phone, we thought something possibly could be wrong. Optimistic though, we went to the appointment still excited. As the doctor entered the room the atmosphere instantly changed. She sat down with a piece of paper folded in her hand. She said that although we were doing the test to find the gender out, it also tested for other things as well. Things such as trisomy 21, 18 and 13. She said the test came back with a high chance of our baby having trisomy 21, which is Down Syndrome. She said there is a 9/10 chance of it and that at this point they leave the decision up to us on whether or not we proceed with the pregnancy. At this point, Brandon and I are crying. Not knowing anything about down syndrome we really don't know what to think. The first thing I say is "Was it something I did?" I just didn't understand why this was happening, I was only 26. I was supposed to have a typical pregnancy and a typical child. I was too young. The doctor explained that it was just something that can happen and they don't know why, but sometimes just an extra copy of the chromosome 21 is created, resulting in the diagnoses of Down Syndrome. She handed us an envelope with the results, stating she didn't want to tell us the gender unless we wanted to know because it could make the decision to terminate harder. We knew that wasn't even a possibility. Regardless of what we knew, or what little we knew, there was one thing for sure. This baby was going to be born and this baby was going to be loved. We left with the envelope and were told that we would be contacted by a specialists office to have an appointment scheduled. On our way home we opened the envelope only to be filled with joy! We were having a baby girl! Although our heads were confused, and were completely unsure of what the road ahead would look like for us. We went to our appointment with the specialist, hopeful for more insite. At that appointment the doctor pointed out some visible markers that would indicate down syndrome, the fluid behind the head along with other features as well. We did decide to go ahead and do further testing because we wanted to be prepared for when she was born. The test we did was called a CVS. They took a sample of the placenta to count the number of chromosomes in the DNA. Again, it took about a week for those results to come in but they did in fact come back positive for an extra chromosome 21. Those results sent me right back to square one. I couldn't understand why this happened to me. I was so young. But then I started reading stories, talking to different families and it suddenly became abundantly clear that this was a gift and not a curse. And knowing all I know now, I can't believe I was ever upset. My pregnancy was pretty uneventful. Although I did have extra doctors appointments and they did say I had gestational diabetes, it went pretty smoothly. I didn't have to do anything for the gestational diabetes, it was fairly boardline so all I needed to do was watch my diet. The day after Christmas I was scheduled for my 32 week doctors appointment. The doctors noticed her heart rate was a little elevated. I was showing signs of labor so they sent me over to the hospital. I was being observed for a few hours before they ultimately decided to admit me to the hospital for the evening to try and stop labor. They said 32 weeks was still a little early and wanted me to try and make it to 36 weeks. I ended up being in the hospital for 2 days before the contractions and labor finally settled. I was discharged and was told to take it easy until baby girl arrived. I still had to work, or at least try but was only able to work 1 day before contractions started again. I started to cramp around 9am on Janurary 7th, 2020. I tried to ignore them and just take it easy that day. Even with laying around and not doing much, the cramping got worse and contractions started to get pretty real around 4pm. Brandon was still at work and would be home around 5:30pm. Contractions kept coming and by 8pm we knew this was for real. Brandon kept a log on them so we knew when we needed to head to the hospital. My birth plan was to go all natural and to go to the hospital at the last possible minute. Having just been admitted to the hospital, I knew I would not be comfortable there and it would only cause me to be stressed. By 11pm contractions were every 3-5 minutes, lasting 30 seconds or longer. It was time! We started getting things ready to go to the hospital. I made one last trip to the bathroom before leaving and my mucus plug had broke so I knew we were ready to go! By midnight we were in the waiting room waiting for a nurse to bring me back. I actually don’t think they believed me. Since I was only 34 weeks they figured it was nothing and put me in a tiny room to be briefed. They checked my cervix, and would you believe! I was in fact in labor and I was already 7 CENTIMETERS! The nurse said “OH! You are in labor! Your 7 centimeters! Let’s get you back into a room.” Brandon and I just looked at each other like, oh really? You don’t say!

We were both in really good spirits regardless of how late it was. Once we got into the delivery room though I think we both realized how much this is going to suck. We haven’t sleep since the contractions started the day before. So we were getting a little nervous on how we would have the energy to do this. The nurse got Brandon some pillows and blankets and even though I wanted to go all natural I knew I need my rest. So I allowed them to give me a small pain sedative a little after 1am to help me get some sleep. I was able to sleep till around 4am or so until the medicine wore off. I was still around 7-8 centimeters and my water still had not broken. I allowed the doctor to break my water for me and OH MY, it started going from there! The pain was so intense, with every contraction I would scream and grab the rails of the hospital bed like my life depended it. It was right around 7am because a new nurse came in and was asking me about my pain. I was ready to give in and get an epidural because they were still saying it wasn’t time to push. But something in me said hell no, I need to push. I convinced the nurse to let me try and push because it was automatically happening with each contraction. And with that first push, she immediately called the doctor saying it was time. It happened so fast, within seconds the doctor, 4 other nurses came into the room and we were pushing. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I swear I wish I took some classes because not having worked out in months then all of a sudden your expected to do a sit up all while trying to push out the biggest poop of your life. Needless to say, it was NOT easy. I think I said I can’t do it about 1,000 times. It was too late for a csection, I HAD to do this. There wasn’t any other way. Brandon was behind me holding my head and back up to help me push. I had a nurse on either side of me hold my legs, the doctor and 3-4 other nurses helping her and getting things ready for when the baby came. The last push was important, her heart rate was dropping so we needed to get her out. The doctor decided to help by suctioning her out while I pushed. Using the contractions to help me push, I gave one final push and out came a screaming baby onto my chest. Somehow in the middle of it all, I guess my oxygen dropped so I had an oxygen mask on. I immediately ripped it off to see my daughter. I couldn’t believe it. I could’t believe what just happened. Our beautiful daughter had entered the world at 7:46am weighing exactly 5 lbs and 18 inchs long. She was here! All the nurses said what a great job I did. They said it was really amazing that I did it without any medicine and I should be really proud. They asked if I needed anything to drink and before I could even say anything the nurse offered me a coke! So for my first drink after delivering our baby girl, was a coca cola! It was MUCH needed, I will say! In order to get her out safely I ended up having an episiotomy. While I was getting stitched back up, Brandon cut her umbilical cord and they got her all cleaned up to be cuddled for a bit before going to the NICU. Then the time came and out she went, down to the NICU with her daddy. I look back on it all now and I feel so proud of myself for doing all that just Brandon and I. Both our families live 3 hours away so once he was gone with her to the NIC, he had to go to the house to tend to the animals. So I was left all alone. Although my family was on the way down, my mom still wouldn’t have been there for another couple hours. It was definitely tough. Being a first time mom, delivering 6 weeks early and to a child with a disability. Who also was in the NICU, it was most certainly challenging. But we got through it. Whether it was from the high of just having delivered the most precious gift or just living off knowing we get to take that little miracle home soon. Whatever it was we made it through that week and we got to go home with our healthy, beautiful girl. A day I will remember forever.

Thank you for reading her story on how she entered into this world! Stay tuned for how her week in the NICU went and much more to come! Stay safe y’all!