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I belong to a group of women who have experienced miscarriage or pregnancy loss and this is our story. I am 1 in 4. In 2013 after 8 years of dating my now husband Rajan and I found out we were expecting our first child after our honeymoon. Life couldn’t be any more perfect! We were extremely excited, shopping for our first child and preparing for a baby shower! Our entire family was patiently awaiting the arrival of our first born. So much happiness and excitement, nothing could go wrong, right? After all, we were doing everything the “right way. Date, marriage then baby. Months later at 4.5 months pregnant I woke up to use the bathroom and unexpectedly I saw blood. I immediately started to panic and shouted for my husband. I knew because of the amount of blood things were really…really bad. Rajan rushed me to the emergency room, after being examined by the Dr a little while later I stood up to change and blood gushed out of me like nothing I’ve ever experienced. I remember yelling to my husband to leave the room. I didn’t want him to have that image of me stuck in his head forever. I then asked the nurse, “Is that him? Was that my baby?” I guess I wasn’t thinking or didn’t have the comprehension at the time, because there is no way you just bleed out a 4 month old fetus. We were confused, scared and hurt. We were moved over to Labor and Delivery and after more exams, more Drs and more nurses than I could count, the room became a revolving door. We anxiously waited for someone to tell us something, anything! The news no pregnant couple would ever fathom hearing, my cervix was dilated and there was nothing they could do. A few hours later the most traumatic moments of our lives occurred. With my husband by myside and an entire medical team taking over the room we delivered our son, Noah Jamar Treadwell on 9/8/2013 weighing less than 2lbs. It only took a few pushes and our child with 10 fingers and 10 toes entered the world. He was perfect and a spitting image of his daddy. Things are a blur at this point in my life, but I know during our delivery I had difficulty breathing and lost more blood than I should have. They wanted to rush me to the operating room but by the grace of God they were able to stabilize me. I do remember yelling, “I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe” and things becoming faint. My husband had the presence of mind to ask them to put oxygen on me and once they did I became more present in the room. How could this happen? Why us? The thoughts were endless. Then Dr. Vivian Napier came back into the room and prayed over us. We were reminded that our strength comes from God and we would get through this. God used her to bring us back from a really dark hole we were traveling down.
We kept Noah with us for twelve long hours after his birth. We were unable to give his lifeless body and the years full of future memories, moments, and the love we had created for him back. Our biggest regret is that we didn’t know what to do with his body to honor him. We allowed the hospital to cremate him and have him buried at their cemetery with hundreds of babies in their memory garden. It was hard loosing Noah but, we thought the next time we tried, we would end up with a baby to take home because, God doesn’t allow bad things to continuously happen to good people. But, over the years we have suffered 3 more losses. 1 early miscarriage and another loss similar to Noah’s at 17 weeks (4.5 months). After being diagnosed with cervical insufficiency or incompetent cervix, we had a stitch placed vaginally and low in my cervix to keep it closed. All the specialist we saw said this would get us a baby. My excitement grew the further we progressed and once we were way past 17 weeks we finally started to tell people. All that stitch did for us was buy us time. With our 4th loss we made it to 5 and ½ months and my cervix opened up and after a rough delivery Jonah was born on May 1st, 2017. He lived for an hour after he was born. It was extremely difficult for us because at 22 weeks they couldn’t do anything to save his life, but at 24 weeks they would have been able to. Only if we would have made it two more weeks, he would have had a chance. Our doctors really did try to buy us more time but, it just wasn’t possible.
After our last loss, we swore we were done trying to become parents. But the longing in our hearts continued to grow. All I’ve ever wanted growing up was to become a mommy. We want our own child that looks like us, has my attitude (I think I’m alone on this one) and will help me drive my husband crazy. We feel like this is something reasonable to want. We feel like we do our best to spread good into the world, so why couldn’t we have what we wanted and how we wanted? Is that too much to ask? So, last year we saw Dr. Haney at the University of Chicago. Dr. Haney is a well- known, sought after physician who places abdominal cerclages high in the cervix. This type of cerclage has a higher success rate and has helped hundreds of women like myself who have had recurrent losses related to IC become parents. He gave us hope and the confidence to try again. Although, it would be our wish and choice to use a surrogate, without the finances, I mean close to 100,000 dollars our only option is to trust our TAC and try again. We have had our TAC placed since June of 2018 and have not conceived. So here we are vulnerable, asking our family, friends and the community to assist us with costs associated with fertility treatments and all things to get us pregnant. We would much rather be able to use a surrogate. If we are able to raise enough money that is what we will do. But, for now we are seeing Dr. O’leary at the Cincinnati institute for reproductive health.
I leave you with this from one of my residents who, at the time was 97 years old when she said this to me. She is now in heaven but, it has always remained with me. “Life is old, fun and troublesome. I almost give up trying to figure out life, then my next thought is that, why can’t I just go on? That’s life, just live each day as it comes up and go on”. So that’s what we’re going to do, one foot in front of the other and live each day as it comes up and go on.
Thank you for your time and anything you can give.
The Treadwells
We kept Noah with us for twelve long hours after his birth. We were unable to give his lifeless body and the years full of future memories, moments, and the love we had created for him back. Our biggest regret is that we didn’t know what to do with his body to honor him. We allowed the hospital to cremate him and have him buried at their cemetery with hundreds of babies in their memory garden. It was hard loosing Noah but, we thought the next time we tried, we would end up with a baby to take home because, God doesn’t allow bad things to continuously happen to good people. But, over the years we have suffered 3 more losses. 1 early miscarriage and another loss similar to Noah’s at 17 weeks (4.5 months). After being diagnosed with cervical insufficiency or incompetent cervix, we had a stitch placed vaginally and low in my cervix to keep it closed. All the specialist we saw said this would get us a baby. My excitement grew the further we progressed and once we were way past 17 weeks we finally started to tell people. All that stitch did for us was buy us time. With our 4th loss we made it to 5 and ½ months and my cervix opened up and after a rough delivery Jonah was born on May 1st, 2017. He lived for an hour after he was born. It was extremely difficult for us because at 22 weeks they couldn’t do anything to save his life, but at 24 weeks they would have been able to. Only if we would have made it two more weeks, he would have had a chance. Our doctors really did try to buy us more time but, it just wasn’t possible.
After our last loss, we swore we were done trying to become parents. But the longing in our hearts continued to grow. All I’ve ever wanted growing up was to become a mommy. We want our own child that looks like us, has my attitude (I think I’m alone on this one) and will help me drive my husband crazy. We feel like this is something reasonable to want. We feel like we do our best to spread good into the world, so why couldn’t we have what we wanted and how we wanted? Is that too much to ask? So, last year we saw Dr. Haney at the University of Chicago. Dr. Haney is a well- known, sought after physician who places abdominal cerclages high in the cervix. This type of cerclage has a higher success rate and has helped hundreds of women like myself who have had recurrent losses related to IC become parents. He gave us hope and the confidence to try again. Although, it would be our wish and choice to use a surrogate, without the finances, I mean close to 100,000 dollars our only option is to trust our TAC and try again. We have had our TAC placed since June of 2018 and have not conceived. So here we are vulnerable, asking our family, friends and the community to assist us with costs associated with fertility treatments and all things to get us pregnant. We would much rather be able to use a surrogate. If we are able to raise enough money that is what we will do. But, for now we are seeing Dr. O’leary at the Cincinnati institute for reproductive health.
I leave you with this from one of my residents who, at the time was 97 years old when she said this to me. She is now in heaven but, it has always remained with me. “Life is old, fun and troublesome. I almost give up trying to figure out life, then my next thought is that, why can’t I just go on? That’s life, just live each day as it comes up and go on”. So that’s what we’re going to do, one foot in front of the other and live each day as it comes up and go on.
Thank you for your time and anything you can give.
The Treadwells