The Start to Blogging Therapy

Well tomorrow marks the 8 month marker since my baby girl Ryann was born. I started a caringbridge page for her while I was pregnant to keep everyone updated on how the pregnancy was going since she was diagnosed with Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia (CDH). This site became an outlet for me to write about her and also our families feelings and what we were going through. I am starting this blog to further share our feelings and how we are dealing with the loss of her. This is an outlet for me to share our experience and hopefully encourage others dealing with a loss or even a rough time in their life. It takes courage, strength, family, friends, and hope to go on in different times of our lives and I hope by sharing our story, we can give others the hope they need to go on.

I was so happy to find out in May of 08 that we were expecting after a year of trying and heartbreak. It was Sept of 08 that we were devastated to get the news that our baby had a birth defect called congenital diaphragmatic hernia. We endured lots of hospital visits and checkups after that to only find out that she had a pretty severe case missing her entire left side of her diaphragm. Other than the CDH, she was perfect in so many ways. I went into labor with her on Dec 27th 08 and she was born at 5:23 p.m.. She was taken by St. Louis Children's Hospital transport team after two hours of stabilizing her. Within 7 hours of her birth, she was put on ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation), which gave her tiny lungs a break and gave her life for 9 days. On the ninth day of her life, it was discovered that because of the drug heparin she had to be on while on ECMO, she had a large brain bleed. She was immediately taken off of ECMO and passed away within an hour.

I can honestly say although I had thought I had prepared myself for the worst, I had not!! As a mom all I wanted to do was protect my newborn baby that I had just carried inside of me for 9 months, but the selfish side of wanting her with me so badly also wanted to do everything in my power to keep her alive in spite of her health. I watched as my 5lb 10oz beautiful baby girl was given several shots to keep her heart going and given repeated chest compressions when finally we had to say NO MORE. A decision I would have never thought I would be making of one of my children and now hope that nobody that I know ever has to do. I have loved, laughed, cried, and endured heartbreak before, but THIS.....I have never done.

Take this journey with me as I post about our lives and what we are doing in survival mode. How much family means to us and how we will still love, laugh, cry, and endure heartbreak in spite of a tragedy.