Absent

It's been a while..  More like months since I last posted on blogland. We've been quite busy and had a lot going on so the blog sounded more like a job then something fun.  So let me catch you up on life with the Beams.


We had Christmas in East Texas with my family and were able to share some wonderful news with our family.  Brian and I found out on December 23rd that we were expecting.  We were not far along at all (4.5 weeks), but wanted to tell our families in person.  We told Brian's family the next weekend when we celebrated Christmas with them over New Years.  It was a happy time and full of excitement for what was to come.  In the next couple of weeks we started sharing the good news with friends.

Telling Brian's parents with some baby Hog gear

Unfortunately, life doesn't always go the way you plan.  I was concerned about something not being right with the baby and called to push up my doctors appointment to 7 weeks.  At our 7 week appointment, our sonogram was inconclusive.  If only we knew then that the Lord was preparing us for the emotional roller coaster to come of inconclusive results.  My gestational sac was very small.  In other words, I was not as far along as we had thought or something was terribly wrong.


At this point, our doctor told us that it was possible to still have a viable pregnancy and that sonograms do not verify pregnancies.  Blood work verifies viable pregnancies by measuring HCG levels.  We took blood work that day and made a follow up appointment for 2 days later.  We started praying and sharing that we needed prayer for my HCG levels to rise.  On Friday morning, we took blood again and the levels did rise, which gave us hope.  The HCG levels should be doubling every day in a healthy pregnancy.  Mine were not doubling as they should, but they had risen.


Monday morning we had another sonogram, but not by my doctor's office because of insurance reasons.  We waited for those results until Monday evening when they sent them over to my doctor's office.  That sonogram showed nothing in my uterus which made no sense to my doctor as my levels were still rising and we had seen something in the uterus on the previous Wednesday.  He wanted to do a sonogram personally to verify these results the next morning.  On Tuesday, it was confirmed that we did not have a viable pregnancy.  Since I was not in any pain, nor had I felt any cramping, my doctor wasn't sure exactly what was going on.  In a typical miscarriage, you feel pain and bleed a lot.  In an ectopic pregnancy, typically you feel pain and your tubes can rupture within a couple of days.  I had no pain so this was a bizarre situation to our doctor. 


We scheduled more blood work the next day to see if the HCG levels were still rising.  They were rising.  Basically we knew we had an ectopic pregnancy, but I still did not have any pain.  At this point, my doctor suggested surgery to remove the ectopic, but we wanted to avoid surgery if possible.  My cousin is an OBGYN in Waco and we had told him and his wife about the situation to see if he had any ideas of what was going on.  He suggested we avoid surgery if possible and try a chemo drug called methotrexate to kill all actively growing cells.  We suggested this option to our doctor, and he was very open to it even though it is not typically used in Oklahoma. 


One week after our first sonogram, we decided to try the methotrexate.  We took blood work every couple days to monitor the HCG levels.  Throughout this time, we had so many friends and our families praying for us.  Those prayers were instrumental in working through this situation.  We saw the levels decline as they should in the next week and were so happy that it looked like we would not need surgery.


Once again, life doesn't always work out like you plan.  On Friday, January 30th, I woke up at 3:15 in the morning in pain.  Since I hadn't had any cramping, I didn't know if this was normal or not.  My cousin Charles had told us we would know the difference between the cramping that methotrexate was known to cause and the pain that a ruptured tube would cause.  Apparently, I have a very high pain tolerance though so we debated back and forth should we go to the ER or not.  I got out of bed to take pain meds and vomited so at that point, Brian made the call that we are definitely going to the ER.


We arrived at the ER where I was poked, prodded, and examined for a couple hours before determining that I had a lot of fluid in my stomach (aka my tube had ruptured).  So even though my HCG levels were decreasing, my baby was not shrinking in size.  Also, quite abnormal behavior.  We had called my doctor at 3:30, as he had instructed us to do if we went to the ER so he could be aware.  He was so concerned and attentive to us throughout this process!  My doctor gave my his cell phone number at our first appointment so we could contact him directly if needed, which was so helpful and reassuring to us.  Our doctor got to the ER a couple hours later and told us that there were three ectopic pregnancies that came in to the ER that night which is super rare!  Of those women, I was the most stable and he wanted to do my surgery last.  At this point, I wasn't in any pain.  I know that prayers work, because I should have been on morphine for the pain with all the blood in my stomach! 


The surgery was scheduled for 9:30 am.  We had called my parents at 3:45 am to tell them we were at the ER, and they should come because it was looking like surgery.  We also told all our friends, family, and co-workers to be praying.  I'm not going to lie, it was scary.  We had tried to be so positive throughout this process.  Praying for my levels to rise, praying for my levels to decrease, praying for peace with the loss of the baby, and now we were still having to go through a surgery.  It was disappointing to say the least.


No matter what, we knew that God was still good and clung to that promise.  I went in for surgery and woke up to wonderful news.  My tube had not burst, only leaked meaning it did not have to be removed!  My ovaries were fine and everything else looked good!  My doctor had no idea why we had even had an ectopic since everything looked so good.  Not only that, but the Lord placed a wonderful nurse in the recovery room who had gone through a similar surgery in August.  She was the perfect caregiver since she had been at this place before and went above and beyond in her care for me.  We had such a great report from a bad situation and are so thankful for that.  It was over.  We had finished that fight and came out with a good report for future kiddos.


I've never really had a time of testing in my life where I have been forced to completely rely on God.  This was that test for me.  The peace I felt throughout this process could only have come from God.  He held us in our time of sorrow, and has given us the strength to carry on knowing that we have hope for the future.

Our nickname for the baby was Chia since he/she was as small as a chia seed when we found out we were pregnant