Jillian's Story Part 2

Once we learned the journey we were now on, we knew we had lots of decisions to face. We had to tell Jansen the information regarding his baby sister. I will never forget the conversation we had with him. We talked to him soon after Dr. C called us that day on January 6, 2010. Jack and I sat on each side of him on our couch and explained to him the best way we knew how what would be happening in the next few months. Jansen seemed to understand the best possible way a 4 year old could. He asked questions which we encouraged him to do. We wanted to be as open as possible with him about what our family would be facing. We knew there would be lots of uncertainty but we did not want him to be scared. Looking back at the past several months, I can honestly say I am so glad we talked with him about his baby sister and encouraged him to talk about her to us and to other people. She is a part of our life and always will be. We do not want him to forget her. We tried to go about life as normal as possible, both for our sake and for Jansen. I took off work a few days following the diagnosis but returned soon after and continued working as much as I could. Of course some days were better than others, there were days when I did not want to go to work, and didn't. There were days when I was angry, days when I was sad, days when I was ok, and some days I honestly didn't know how to feel. I soon began to realize I did not get to plan to bring a baby home with us. We didn't get to decorate her nursery and buy baby essentials. Instead we began to think about what we would do for a funeral service and plan as much of that as we could while we had time to think about it. In the meantime, I continued to see my regular OB, Dr. L, every 2 weeks for an ultrasound to make sure our sweet girl was still ok. We got to see her every visit through ultrasound and we are blessed to have A LOT of ultrasound pictures! At each visit her overall growth rate continued to decrease with not much encouraging news. As I approached 30 weeks my blood pressure started to increase. I had problems when I was pregnant with Jansen also but it was a little later in the pregnancy. Dr. L monitored me closely with putting me on bedrest at 31 weeks. We were planning to carry Our sweet girl as long as possible but knew the time was drawing near. We also decided on her name at this point. I had liked Jillian for a while and really could not see her as anything else! My sister's middle name is Michelle and it seemed perfect for her to have her middle name. My sweet sister is a Labor and Delivery Nurse and helped me during this time more than she will ever know. I asked so many questions that she was able to answer for me and try her best to prepare me with the answers I needed at the right times. I wanted Jillian to have a part of her sweet Aunt. So that was it. She would be named Jillian Michelle Martin.

Jillian's Story Part 1

We found out in August 2009 we were expecting our second child in April 2010. We went to the doctor in September and were given a due date of April 27, 2010. We were so excited! Everything went well, considering I was sick a lot, just like I was with Jansen. We went to our monthly appointments with good reports until our visit in December. I was around 19 weeks and our doctor could not officially determine our baby's sex, which she thought was a girl, so she wanted to see us back in a couple of weeks so she could confirm "girl" before Christmas. We went back and she was pretty sure our baby was a girl but she also informed us that she could not see all the chambers of her heart well and her brain was also concerning her. She referred us to a high risk OB doctor in Little Rock who we saw on December 22, 2009. This was one of the hardest days of our life up to this point. Dr. C confirmed through a 1 hour ultrasound that our sweet girl had multiple abnormalities. She only had 3 chambers in her heart, her brain was underdeveloped, her stomach was beside her heart compressing on her lung, her kidneys looked to be full of cysts and her umbilical cord only had 2 vessels instead of the normal 3. We were not prepared for this news. We just thought this was routine precaution on our regular OB's part. Dr. C encouraged us to do an amniocentisis this day however I needed time to process our news. We left his office and returned to our home where about 30 of our most closest friends gathered around us that night in prayer for our precious daughter. Our life at this point has taken a turn that we never imagined would happen.
We decided to proceed with the amnio and called and scheduled that for 1 week later on December 29, 2009. We did not want to tell Jansen much at this point until we know for sure what we are facing. We celebrated Christmas with our families however we were struggling thinking about the unknown. We went to the appointment for the amnio, which was somewhat painful. Our doctor informed us he suspected a chromosome disorder possbily Trisomy 13 or 18 based on the findings in the ultrasound. We left his office that day prepared to wait another week before finding out the results of the amnio. On January 6, 2010 Dr. C called my cell phone and informed me the results of the amnio confirmed our daughter had Trisomy 13. We now knew what we were facing in the coming months. He informed us our options were to terminate the pregnancy or to continue the pregnancy. To us there was no option to terminate. I was carrying our baby girl and we would hold her life with us as long as possible.

My very first blog entry!

So I have decided to start a blog to journal our family events. This post will be fairly short, simply to get myself started and to say I have made a post! I love my family dearly and I plan to use this blog as a way to keep up with more "scrapbooking" our life since I have slacked on my regular scrapbooks. I plan to post about the recent events in our life regarding Jillian and her diagnosis of Trisomy 13 and the joy we have been blessed with in our life, even since she has left this earth. My precious children, Jansen and Jillian, mean more to me than they will ever know. My dear husband, Jack, has been so good during this most trying time of our life. I love you all so much! I am blessed with a loving church family of whom has helped carry our burden the past 7 months since finding out Jillian's diagnosis. I feel so blessed to be surrounded by love of my friends and family more than I feel that I ever have in my life. Our life has changed forever because of the short life Jillian was blessed with and we are living each day waiting to meet her again in eternity!