My name is Jennie. I'm a wife and a mother. I have been married to the man of my dreams, Trever, for 9 wonderful years. We have 5 beautiful daughters who fill our lives with joy and excitement. We just had our 6th child. Our son Caleb.

I was diagnosed with a rare condition called Placenta Accreta along with Placenta Previa. Accreta is a condition where the placenta attaches to the scar tissue in the uterus. It will often continue to grow to deeper tissue (increta) and even through the uterus attaching to other organs(percreta). I ended up having an 11 hour surgery, including a hystorectomy, and bladder repair. I received 7 units of blood and blood parts. (This is a lot of blood loss for my surgeons, but minimal blood loss to those who are not as experienced in these deliveries. I spent 36 hours in the ICU after surgery. I have also had many other complications afterwards including another minor surgery 2 weeks later. These complications are somewhat normal for the type of surgery I had.

I had a team of specialists doing my surgery. Obgyns, Gyno-oncologists, trauma surgeons, urologists and anesthesiologists. This team has specialized in techniques helping with minimal blood loss. Those with accreta , loose large amounts of blood because the placenta cannot detach naturally at delivery.

My goal is to help save women's lives by giving this terrible condition a voice. So many are ignorant to its fatal attack. Doctors and women alike, need to be educated about Accreta. Many have never even heard of it. The numbers are on the rise because of so many women choosing to have c-sections when it isn't necessary. Not all women can avoid it, but many can. Please help me give Accreta a voice, by sharing the information in this blog. (There are numerous posts with information on Accreta as well as the Accreta team who took such great care of me.)

Saturday, March 30, 2013

Hospital Changes

Up until now, Phoenix Children's Hospital has owned the NICU portion of the Banner Good Samaritan hospital. Banner just bought out the NICU, so starting tomorrow, Caleb will be part of a "new" hospital. The only real changes for him, will be a change of room. Banner has been remodeling half of the NICU over the past month or two. Tomorrow, they will move the babies to that half, and then work on remodeling the 2nd half. PCH hospital will be taking their equipment out and Banner is putting their equipment in. The good news is that the babies will have their own rooms now. Each baby's parent had the choice of keeping PCH and changing to the main campus, or just staying with Good Sam. We really like his nurses and doctors, so we are staying. Plus, all of my doctors appts are right there. 

The fabulous news with the change is that each hospital has their own RSV season. (It depends on how many in the area have come in with it) That means that either tomorrow or Monday, the ban will be lifted and children will be able to come into the NICU. The girls will finally get to meet their brother!!!! We are so excited. Trever especially has felt the burden of having our family scattered all over the past couple of months. As the provider, presider, and protector of the family, it's hard to protect us all when we are all in different locations. He has felt helpless the past three months as his family has been scattered. I was hoping to have Caleb home by Easter, but I'm not quite healed enough to take care of him. This is the next best thing. All of us will be under the same roof, even if it is just for a little bit each time we visit. 

I will see the urologist on Tuesday. I am praying that I am healed enough to get my tubes out. I still have discharge vaginally, so it's a long shot. I am hoping and praying that they come out so that I am able to spend more time with him. I have a feeling that as soon as I am able to focus on him and not have to worry so much about myself, he will start flying. We will be able to sit and have so much more skin to skin time. We will be able to work on his sucking reflex more. And most importantly, I won't be sore after twenty minutes and have to go. Most of my pain and discomfort/awkwardness is because of the drain and catheter. My incision seems to be closing off nicely. There is still a hole in one of the open wounds, but it's half as deep as it was on Monday. I am also starting to get a little bit of feeling back in the incision site. Though it is painful sometimes, I can handle it if I know it's a healing pain.

My mom and I got to go sit with him today. He is up to 5 lbs 7 oz now. For those that read the last post... His big jump in weight was a misprint from one of the nurses. I figured it was. Lol. So he is still growing like a weed, just not 6 oz over night. He is doing really well. We just need to work on slow deep breaths. That will pretty much come with maturation. His lungs most likely still have some fluid on them from birth. The birth canal naturally squeezes it out, but since he was a c-section, that didn't happen. His body just needs to absorb it a little more and that might do the trick. (That is an opinion of one of the nurses anyway) We will just have to wait and see. As soon as he can keep his respiration rate lower, they will be able to push the bottle a little more.

On the way home, my mom took me to this amazing restaurant called Zuppa's. I stayed in the car and she ran in to order so I didn't gross anyone out with my bag hanging out my pant leg. :) They have some amazing soups and salads. Just sayin'... Jennie's got a new favorite restaurant!  Well, it's time to pamper my girlies a little bit before bed. They love putting sponge curlers in their hair for church. Have a happy Easter everyone! I will hopefully have some fun pictures of us all together tomorrow or Monday!
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1 comment:

  1. nancyMarch 30, 2013 at 8:35 PM

    We love Zupas and the prices are awesome and the food is amazing!! I am so glad they opened one in Az~~

    ReplyDelete

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