Reagan's Story

I've been asked by someone to move Reagan's story to this website from our Caringbridge site so they can read it - here it is!

In January, 2006 we were thrilled to learn that we were expecting our second child. We had just moved in to our new home the day before we found out and couldn't have been more excited.

In June, we traveled to Wisconsin to celebrate Madison's birthday, during which time I started having contractions. I didn't say a whole lot at the time because I wanted to get home to Meritcare and didn't want to be stuck in a little Wisconsin hospital. I was 25 weeks and knew something just wasn't right. We returned on Sunday and the contractions continued into Monday. When I called our clinic on Monday and told them the contractions were about 2 minutes apart, they told me to come in for monitoring. The monitors confirmed that I was in preterm labor and was sent home on bedrest. This was great at first, someone cooking and cleaning for me, but started to get a little old and very lonely.

When we were 29 weeks, I was admitted to Meritcare so they could administer steroid shots as they really didn't expect me to carry the baby to term. After 3 days I was sent home, still on bedrest, and on medications every 4 hours to help the contractions, although it didn't stop them. I don't think that we truly realized the seriousness of the situation at the time.

Through much prayer and help from our friends and family, we made it to 34 weeks before returning to Meritcare. The contractions had picked up again and had gotten stronger. They admitted me once again and immediately started magnesium, which is one of the most awful drugs I have ever had. But it bought us more precious time for Reagan to grow where he belonged. Ten days later, Dr. Dangerfield returned and we decided to stop the Magnesium and let God take over. I was 35 1/2 weeks and we felt confident that Reagan would be ok. On Tuesday, August 8, I was able to go home to my own bed. I never knew what true bedrest was until I was stuck in the hospital for 10 days.

Two days later, on August 10, 2006, my water broke and we were so excited to know the time was finally here. I was one day shy of 36 weeks and we were just praying for a healthy baby. We arrived at Meritcare a little after 8:00 that morning, I received a fabulous epidural about 9:30 (I was crazy and didn't have one with Madison) and Reagan arrived at 11:15 that morning. It was an absolutely amazing experience and everything happened so fast. Unfortunately, Dr. Dangerfield was in surgery and Reagan certainly wasn't going to wait another three hours for him to get upstairs. The nurse started calling for any doctor available!

All seemed to be well at first. However, his oxygen levels weren't where they should be so they admitted him into the neonatal intensive care unit. He was breathing on his own, but just wasn't getting the oxygen saturation that he needed. The next 12 days were a roller coaster ride of hoping he would come home and then finding out he had to stay longer. He was just small and needed a little extra help eating. One of the hardest times came when we left the hospital without him. But, he finally figured out the eating situation and we brought him home on August 22, 2006.

The whole experience now seems unreal. We didn't really realize how serious the situation was until after he was born and we saw other babies who were born at 25 weeks. We are so thankful for the doctors and nurses who helped keep me pregnant for an extra 10 weeks, who put up with us through our hospitalizations and who watched over and took care of Reagan.

Over Labor Day weekend, when I was actually due, Reagan began losing weight and not keeping his food down. An ultrasound of his belly showed that he had Pyloric Stenosis, which required immediate surgery to correct. The hardest moment came when we had to turn him over to the surgery team as we began which I think was the longest 2 hours of my life. Fortunately the surgery went fine and he came home 2 days later, eating like a champion. We are so grateful for the surgeon who happened to stop in the hospital that day and who was willing to stay, on his day off, to operate on our son.

Three weeks later, the condition returned. The doctors had heard of this happening, but had not seen it before. Surgery was scheduled for the next day, but thankfully the condition slowly improved enough to cancel the surgery. Reagan is now a happy, growing, healthy baby.

Madison is so happy to be a big sister and loves her little brother so much. Ben and I are so thankful for everyone who was there with us on this journey. Life is truly a miracle and we feel blessed to have two healthy children.  We have been asked MANY times if we will have more children.  Unfortunately we do not know what went wrong with my pregnancy with Reagan so we don't know what to do to prevent it from happening again, if there is even anything one can do.  Because of the risk of this happening again and right now having our hands full and our lives busy, we are content with our two munchkins.  (Although I would love nothing more than to get to do it all over again, I think the risk is just too high.)