The Journey Begins

December 21, 2015

I know what you’re thinking…..This is overly dramatic. You may be right, but when you have a child with a disability, drama is the normal day-to-day scene.

What was I thinking?….”Oh shit.”

Here I am with a 7 month-old child, who has just started sleeping 6 hours a night and I am about to start this process all over again?!

“Oh Shit.”

After all, my husband and I were married a mere 48 hours before I was pregnant with our beautiful daughter, Roslynn. So much to our surprise, we were shocked to learn that she was going to be a “big sister” before her first birthday.

Now, I’m summing 9 months of drama into one post, but my pregnancy with Greyson seemed to be much different than my first. I wasn’t nearly as sick as I had been and I felt like it was much easier this time around. These were all positives. I had the whole “pregnant” thing down….. I mean, I did just do it several months previously.

Despite the easy pregnancy, there were issues. At a routine anatomy scan in March 2016, the ultrasound tech found two cysts on Greyson’s brain. Though we were assured that he did not show any other red flags for a developmental issue, Derek and I still felt it was best to proceed with genetic testing. I don’t know if this was because we needed to reassure ourselves, or if I had a gut feeling from the start that something was off. Fast forward to a few weeks later and Greyson’s genetic testing results were all negative. The remainder of the pregnancy was uneventful until I went into labor naturally, exactly one-week prior to a scheduled repeat C-Section.

Greyson Michael Martin was born on Monday, August 8th 2016, at 5:03 PM. The delivery was eerily peaceful and quiet with only The doctor, anesthesiologist, assistant, NICU doctor, Derek and myself present. This was MUCH different than my emergency delivery of Roslynn, who was born 5 weeks early due to acute preeclampsia. I was that Mom, who forced her husband into taking tons of photos in the delivery room. Luckily Derek likes me and complied with my request.

In the midst of the doctors closing me up, Greyson getting cleaned off and receiving his APGAR testing, it was discovered that Greyson had a tight, true-knot in his umbilical cord. We were told there was nothing to worry about and though true-knots were not very common (the doctor actually had only ever delivered 3 babies with one in a time span of 25 years as a OB doc), Greyson was healthy and scored average on his APGAR tests.

Uncommon, but not concerning? Red flag.