Peyton's story

I thought I'd post this too.  This explains the journey we went through with the pregnancy and delivery with our son.  This is the story that is on the vasa previa website. 

Nick and I were married on March 26th, 2005. We knew right away that we wanted to start a family. My doctor suspects that I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), so she suggested I use Clomid. I got pregnant on the second dose of the drug. It seems like something was wrong at every ultrasound. At my 8 week ultrasound, we discovered we were only having one baby. We also found out I could possibly have a bicornuate uterus. (We found out in surgery that I do not.) At my 12 week ultrasound, I was diagnosed with placenta previa. At my 16 week ultrasound we learned that the placenta previa had cleared, but I had something called vasa previa. One week later we went to a specialist and she could not find the vasa previa in the ultrasound. Nick and I were so happy. Finally, we had a good report at an ultrasound appointment. I continued to have regularly scheduled appointments with my doctor. Everything was going fine. My doctor did not schedule another ultrasound until 36 weeks.


On August 11th, I went to bed around 11 pm. I couldn’t sleep that well. I was having cramps that day and the night before. My doctor said it was just the normal aches and pains that go along with pregnancy. At 4 am I felt really weird pains. It is almost as if the baby was pushing down really hard. I drifted back to sleep. Around 5 am I woke up to go to the bathroom. I thought my water had broken. When I went to the restroom I realized it was blood. There was a lot of it! I was panicking. I woke up my husband and we called our doctor. We rushed to the hospital at about 110 mph. We got there in about 5 minutes.

When they hooked me up to the fetal heart monitor we couldn’t really hear the heartbeat. They called in an ultrasound tech. We could hear the heartbeat, but it was really fast. It kept getting faster. The doctor on call decided to do an emergency C-section. My doctor was called in, and at 6:49 am on August 12th, we had our son Peyton. He weighed 5 lbs and 6 oz, and he was 19 inches long. I heard him cry once. Then they cut the cord and everything went downhill from there. Nick said he turned really pale, and they had to do chest compressions.

I woke up in recovery to my doctor crying over my bed. I had the worst feeling in my stomach. Once I started bleeding I knew I still had vasa previa. In my mind I thought since we took him while he was still alive, that he would be okay. They rushed him to the NICU. Again they had to do compressions. Finally, the doctor said that they had to stop. Nick asked them to try one more time. At the same time, my friends and family members were on their knees praying, and then we had a heartbeat.

The first day was his best day. He had his eyes open for a little while. He got to see us and we got to make eye contact with him. That was a huge blessing. We spent Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday in the NICU. On Monday, we thought we were going to lose him, so they had me hold him. When I held him all his vitals seemed to stabilize. It was such a blessing to be able to hold him. I will never forget that feeling. Again we had hope that he was going to make it.

Those doctors and nurses did everything they could to save our son, but that was not God’s plan. When he was born, he only had about 25% of his blood volume, and because of this his kidneys were never able to work. There were moments when things looked hopeful, but by Tuesday night it was apparent that he was only getting worse. We pulled life support at 9:35 pm on August 15th. I place no blame on my doctor. She provided excellent care, and she will continue to be my doctor in future pregnancies.

Losing Peyton is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through. It was so painful to come home and see all of Peyton’s things. It was so painful to go into his room that first time and see the crib and all of his clothes. We spent months preparing for him, and only got to spend 3 days with him. We are truly thankful for that short time. We have comfort in knowing that Peyton is in heaven with Jesus. Heaven is all he’ll ever know. God only gives us what we can handle. Even though there are days that I don’t think I can make it through until tomorrow, I have hope that I will one day see my son again.