My first

If you have run across my little corner then thank you. If you have taken the time to stop and read than and even bigger Thank You is in order. I tend to ramble and maybe go into to much detail or sometimes not enough. At times my blogs will not make sense to anyone, even me, but there are just times that I have to write out what is bouncing around in my head. Once I do this I am able to think more clearly.

Going through my mind is this:

I am 21 years young. In my 21 years I have endured many things, good and bad. I have known the love of a parent who gave her all. I have known the feeling of not being wanted from another parent who was at times to selfish to think of anything or anyone but himself and his habbits. I have met many wonderful people that I gladly call my bestfriends, sisters, family. I hold these few people very dear to my heart. I have known what it is like to be in a happy and loving home and I have known what it is to be in the home of a miserable marriage with a person to absorbed in his own habits to notice his family. I know what it is like to live with the shame, fear and humiliation of being a rape victim at the age of 6 I learned what this was like. I also know what it is like to be dismembered from half of your family. I remember the look in the eyes of some when my life did not go the way they wanted, but the way I wanted. I remember the joy of finally knowing I have found someone who loves me and who I love whole heartedly. I remember the day I found out about Bella, my vivacious, demanding 2 year old princess. I remember the day we brought her into this world and the sheer amazment of how truly beautiful she was and still is. I also remember the day I found out I was pregnant with Serenity. I remember the crippling day we found out we were going to lose Serenity because of a flaw in nature.

This brings me to the reason I even have a blog. I was doing an assignment yesterday and it was to recall a time when something happend that you wanted to be true/false. I picked the day we found out that Serenity wouldn't be with us much longer. I desperatly wanted for it to be false. That maybe the sono tech had screwed up and didn't know any better. I prayed that the doctor screwed up to, even seeing before my eyes that our precious angel was not fully developed and seeing that her skull had not formed I wished desperately for it to all be false. What Serenity had is called Acrania. I needed to find the other word associated with acrania which is anencephaly, when I looked this up on google I ran across  this blog site which featured a family who over the past couple of years went through the same thing. I think that her page may have been a God send.

I remember that in the begining of February we set an apointment for the 3rd week of March to find out the sex, size and date confirmations. This same day in February we did all of my blood work. Three weeks later the results came back. one of blood levels came back astonishly high. Its the level that detects if your child may have a birth defect of some sort. There are cases when this level comes back high and it is a flase negative or it just means that you amneotic sack is leaking which still is not good. This level is never supposed to go above a 2. Anything above that is slightly worrisome but mine ( a 7.9) was too high. We were prepared to have a disable child, or to find that it was just a false negative. We were not prepared for diagnoses we recieved. On February 28th we found out my levels were too high. We moved our sonogram appointment to March 9th. This day, in my mind, has become known as D Day....
Dooms day
Diagnoses day
Death Day

We found out that Serenity had a rare birth defect call Acrania, her skull had not fully closed and she only had 1/3 of her brain. She had no brain activity. Her movements were bcause of me. Her beating heart was because of me. The second she would be born she only had moments to live because she would no longer be connected to me. I was literally what was keeping her alive. The sonogram tech was already talking very little. We were so excited because we were trying to keep all thoughts positive. How naive of us. When the sono tech started looking around her face sort of changed. I knew from my sonogram with Bella that this was not normal. The woman suddenly stopped talking and excused herself to find the doctor. This part i found normal because with Bella the tech then had to get the doctor also but she was new, which I did not find out till later. Anyways, the tech went and got our doctor who looked over everything she had already taken pictures of. I knew from his facial expressions that something was wrong. I was expecting a birth defect, not death. He went very silent, put the wand back in its stand, asked me to sit up and said I am very sorry to have to be the one to tell you this but ( sighs, pauses) your child will not live past birth it has Acrania.. I remember feeling faint and grabbing my finace and holding on very tightly.

As I was bawling, he gave us a few minutes so we could have a moment to ourselves. He came back in about 5 minutes later and explained what the condition was. He askd if we would like to see what he saw and we agreed. He showed us our little girl and her lack of skull formation. He explained again that none of this was our fault that it is like a fluke in natures design of things. He gave us a few minutes to I could clean up and get dressed and then we met him in his office. He again apologized for our soon to be loss and having to be the one to tell us. He explained what it meant, that there was no known reason as of yet what causes it and what our options would be. Carry to full term, induce labor, or have an abortion. At this point we were still in shock and made no decsion until later that day.

I remember walking out of the office and had to get on the elevator with a woman who was so obviously pregnant and so bright and beautiful, she was truly glowing. I remember being envious because she would be able to watch this child grow. I remember when we got off the elevator this older woman asked me if I was ok and I told her I would be ok, She said it will get better honey, maybe not soon but it will eventually. And then she was gone. I remember walking out to the parking garage and stopping on the steps to call my mama, and crying through telling her we were losing the baby and that we were coming up to see her. ( I live in Jacksonville, Fl she in Kingsland, Ga) I remember that when we got to our car we both broke down. In the midst of this my ob/gyn called. Dr. McGrath is probably the most amazing person! He was truly sorry for everything going on and we could discuss our options on the phone or at his office. We chose the office at 4 pm that afternoon. We were to be his last patients for the day. On the way up to Georgia I had tears streaming down my face and just zoned out staring out of my window. I stopped crying when we hit the Georgia line and when I walked into my moms house I remember clinging to her and bawling.

She told me "baby, it's meant to be. You know deep down that everything happens for a reason and that it just means it isn't y'alls time." I remember thinking I didn't want to hear that now I just wanted to cry and grive for the child I wouldn't be able to carry. My body had been trying to reject Serenity for a while. My fiance and I made the decision to induce labor. We knew that we could not handle carrying her to full term and know that we would not be able to watch her grow up. We went to my doctors office that night and he showed us my chart and the report showing everything that was wrong with her. I believe honesty is the best policy, so does my doctor. My baby's kidneys, heart, and lungs were no where near being properly formed.

We discussed our options again and we stuck with inducing labor. Dr. McGrath called a friend at the hospital that was able to perform this procedure and got the ball rolling. Justin and I went home that night and layed in bed holding each other and crying and talking. The next morning we got up and went to breakfast. While we were waiting for our order to come out my drs office called and said your all set to go show up at the hospital asap. We ate breakfast, went home and packed some clothes and left for the hospital.  The doctor there did a conformation sonogram, things were still bad :( I was admitted on March 10, 2011 at around 1 pm. By roughly 5 I was in a delivery room hooked up to an iv and a monitor for the baby and my contractions. I was drugged very heavily and do not remember much. I remember Justins mom being there and I remember that we moved the bed over because the one side was to crowded. I remember Justin never letting go of my hand. I remember waking up at one point and see the earthquake.tsunami that hit japan. I remember waking up being in immense pain and demanding more drugs, often I did this.

I remember that the stupid bulb they had put in my bleed alot and was uncomfortable. I also remember that there was one point that I had to pee horrible and when I started to pee the bulb came out. IMMENSE reliefe, but only briefly. About 2 minutes after the bulb came out I had the most horrible sensation of having to go poop. I was horrifide, I couldn't get out of bed and I refused to go in the bedpan. The nurse came in and I kept telling her I had to go to the bathroom. It seemed like no matter how many ways I put it she wasn't getting it. I finally just said look I have to shit can I get up please. She dropped her arms and said are you sure you have to boo boo or is it the baby coming? I felt the color drain out of my face.I always thought that it was a joke that delivery with no epidural felt like taking a really big shit. The nurse checked and started frantically paging for the doctor.

At 2:46 am March 11,2011 Serenity Grace Dirghalli was born. She was beautiful. WE had looked at pictures online of other babies with her condition and were expecting the worse. She was this tiny gorgeous smiling baby doll. The spot on her head was hardly notciable, or to me it seemed that way but then again I had ALOT of pain meds in me. She was tiny. One of her hands was maybe the size of my thumb. Het feet were just as small. Het little fingers remind me of pieces of string because they were so small and thin. I couldn't hold her though. I was afraid I was going to drop her because of the pain meds and frankly I was already falling back into sleep.

We were released around 9 am on the same morning. I remember thinking it was so bright outside, but then i had just spent most of the day in a windowless room. It was a bright beautiful day and I had just lost my baby girl. We donated her body to the pathology department so that maybe her body can help further understand what causes Acrania and why and how to cure it.

Today, 2 months and 5 days later I am still not handling it to well. I am terrified of getting pregnant again. I refuse to let my finace touch me in any intimate way. We have problems that before were trival but now seem major. The best thing about losing Serenity is that I know that one day I will see her again and that one day there will be a cure. It may not be in my time or my childrens time or even my grandchildrens time but it will happen one day. We now know we can handle anything no matter what it is. We are also planning on getting married, as long as we can work through our problems which I believe we can. I still have days when I wish she was here, but I know she is better off in God's hands. I know one day I will have another baby, but right now it is to soon, the wound is to fresh.

if you have sat there and read through all of this, please dry your eyes and smile. Serenity came and went with a beautiful smile on her face and though we have our bad days we have choosen to remember her by making the best of each day and smiling as much as possible. I am slowly working my way to be ok again. But I know It is a process that may take a long while. Thank you for sitting down and reading this miserable piece of my life. Now please go and enjoy your day.