Photo's of Ben

This is a few pictures of my baby boy Ben.

Brian & Ben holding hands. Ths is my favorite picture!

Boydie & Ben meeting for the first time. Ben's middle name Leo is named after Boydies husband Great Grandpa Leo Boyd.

Boydie with her Great, Great Grandson

Grandma Kathe with her first grandchild.

Puts everything in perspective.

Getting a break from his rockstar glasses

Enjoying time under the jaundice lamps. Only a few days old and already a rockstar.

Baby Ben's hand

Happy Birthday Benjamin!

Happy Birthday to my beautiful baby boy!

Benjamin Leo DeBruin

Born: January 20, 2010

1 pound 2 ounces; 11 inches long

Despite my best efforts I was not able to warde off labor any longer. It seemed that baby ben was ready to come into this world. I labored about 12 hours until Ben was born in the evening. Unfortunately or Fortunately I am still not sure, I can not really remember most of the day or Ben's birth due to all the drugs I was on. I do remember hearing him cry just once. He was born alive and then had to be revived by the doctors shortly there after as he was not able to sustain breathing on his own. Ben was immediately wisked off by the neonatal doctors to the NICU for care.

D-Day

It was frustrating even in the 24-hours I had been in the hospital because I could not get any diffinitive answer about what the plan of action would be. It seemed that everyone was super calm and so I kept on assuming that I would be in the hospital for a few days and then I would get to go home.

At about 10:30am on the morning of January 14th my water broke. I actually had no idea what had happened because I was truly like an explosion and nothing like I had seen in the movies. The nurse confirmed that my water had broken but they also confirmed that it was only the sac around baby 1 that had broken. As you can imagine, I went into an instant panic and I was hysterical. I could not stop crying as I just new I was about to loose my boys.

All I remember for the next few hours is praying and begging my heavenly father to save my children. The doctor told me that the baby could survive without amniotic fluid (who knew) but the bad news was that I was no longer eligible for a cerclage surgery. The best case scenario would be to hold off labor until the baby reached 24 weeks which is considered a minimum gestational age for viability.

I don't want to go into the details of the next 6 days but needless to say they were terrible both for me and for Brian. I did everything that I could do to sustain the pregnancy but you learn very quickly that you are not in control.

The Beginnng

On Wednesday, January 13th I went to my routine prenatal visit and during my ultrasound I could tell something was wrong because the tech got really quiet. She asked me to get dress and went to find a doctor. After a few minutes I met with one of the doctors in my practice and she informed me that I was in labor and that my cervix had shortened and had started to dialate. She was immediately admitting me to the hospital in order to have an emergency cerclage surgery.

To say the least I was shocked as I always assumed that if I was in labor it would be tremendously painful but I felt great. I called Brian and maybe I was just in shock but I told him what had happened and I told him not to come to the hosptial as I was sure it was nothing. He told me he was coming anyway. This is the photo that was taken of me right after I was admitted into Women's Hospital. As you can tell I obviously had no idea of what was about to happen over the next month!