To our beautiful baby angel, Brayden

February 10- Will always be a special day for we got to become parents to the most beautiful baby boy who  changed our lives for the better.

It has been a year today since mommy & daddy entered the hospital to meet you. We were scared because we wanted you to be healthy but excited to meet you. At 8:31 AM you arrived and we got to see how beautiful you were. We had hope that you would be able to go home with us but after we spoke to the doctors it didn't look to promising. We realized that we only had a limited amount of time to spend with you, but we enjoyed every minute that we had in the short 3 days that you were with us. Giving you all the love that you deserved - holding your hand & telling you how much we loved you. We wish that we could be celebrating your first birthday a little differently by watching you blow out your candle, but everything happens for a reason and we know that you are safe in heaven watching over us. Happy 1st Birthday Brayden- mommy & daddy love you so much. We will never forget you.

Dear Brayden

There is never a day that goes by that i dont think about you, i miss you so much. I wish i could hold you, feed you, love on you and give you kisses, and take care of you but instead all i can do is think about you and know that your watching over your mom and dad. I have learned to accept it but sometimes its hard because im left wondering why this had to happen. Why you had to be sick and couldnt come home with us. I know this happened for a reason and the short 3 days of your life i enjoyed every minute that i spent with you.. those 3 days of your life mean so much to me and i will never forget them.  The night you took out your breathing tube we knew it was now up to you to decide if you belonged in god's home or with your family..  i enjoyed getting to hold you without having to be careful because of your tubes it didnt feel right with all of those tubes.. i know you werent comfortable and plus you looked SO beautiful without them. Mommy loves you so much little guy. Hopefully someday mommy and daddy will have you a little brother or sister we can tell them all about you and how much you changed our life. We will always remember you, you are never forgotten <3

genetics appointment

Chris and I had an appointment with dr olney (genetics councilor and shes great) about chris and i's future with having children. It actually went pretty good.. she doesn't recommend that Chris and i get testing done and that we have a 3 to 5 percent chance of having another child with campomelic dysplasia, SOOO eventually we are going to try again. I am still going to be scared during the pregnancy but if we get a healthy baby it will be worth it. I am thinking about keeping this blog going even though it was made specifically for Brayden.. we still miss him and he will never be forgotten so of course he will still be in the blog just after i started blogging i don't want to stop :) .  A day doesn't ever go by without me thinking about Brayden and what it would be like if he could of survived with campomelic dysplasia and what our lives would be like.. he was such a cute little booger. Mommy loves you little guy <3 . Anyway, that was it for the short update.
bye friends

RIP my baby boy [brayden]

Brayden was born on February 10th, 2010 and passed away on February 13th 2012. Experiencing something like this was the best/worst feeling ever. The best because we enjoyed brayden the 3 days that he was here and gave him all the love that he needed also he changed our lives so much in so many ways. We love him so much and he will never be forgetten. Hes watching over us now.. God wouldnt put us through anything that we couldn't handle. The worst part of it is, losing our little guy i didnt want to let him go... wish that things could of been different and we could of took him home but he had a different plan. I want to be able to love on him and kiss on him but know that it can't be that way.. i can still love him though.
Brayden mommy and daddy love you so much, there isn't a way to explain how much that we love you.

here are some pictures of brayden. hes the cutest baby ever.

Maternity PIctures

We got some maternity pictures taken for our little guy :)

36 weeks 5 days

Doctor appointment today was okay, not really all that i wanted to hear though. Brayden hasnt gained any weight since last week but my doctor said that its normal sometimes they stay the same weight or even weigh a little less and that she will be more concerned next week if he hasnt gained any, which i hope that he does. His heart rate was a little bit lower today but as long as it doesnt get under 110 he should be fine, it was 122 bpm. He was moving alot though, didnt get to see his face or anything because hes to big in there and all scrunched up, im just ready to meet our little guy!! I have been so itchy lately and my doctor said sometimes pregnant people just get that way, so i got some benedryl hopefully that helps but had to get my blood drawn to make sure that it isnt something that can cause still birth, YIKES i hope not :( Im just all worried now. But on a good note my c-section is scheduled for Feb 17th at 8:45 in the morning, im excited/scared i hope everything goes better than what doctors tell us i have faith though.

great doctor appointment :)

Everything went great today at the doctor. Brayden weighs 6 lbs 4 oz and is measuring perfectly other than the normal news his legs are still 5 weeks behind. I had asked the doctor today if she thought brayden has enough fluid on his brain to make him have a mental disability and she said no, its not even likely that he will need a shunt. He is practicing his breathing and swallowing normally. He also has good brain activity moves his fingers quite a bit ect. The surgery schedule-er is suppose to call me tomorrow or monday to set up my c-section for 39 weeks so we are trying for friday feb 17th if we can get that day.. which is only 3 weeks away :) mommy is excited to meet her little guy. We didnt get any good pictures today because he was being a little squirmer.. but i seen him yawn and his eyes were open again. I think hes ready to meet his mommy and daddy !! hehe. Hoping for a little miracle everyday, still preparing ourselves for the worst. He seems to be doing pretty good though !!

Update on our little man

Short update on brayden:
GOOD NEWS! he was 3 pounds 7 ounces last time i went to the doctor 2 weeks ago and they were sort of concerned that he was slowing down on growth... but today he is 4 pounds 15 ounces.. hes becoming a little chunker :) Im excited about that. He opened his eyes today on camera which the nurse said that doesnt happen to often so she hurried and got a picture .. its not that great of one but its still amazing he did that for mom and dad!! We love seeing him on camera but I dont see dr barsoom anymore which means no more good pictures :( so this will be the last one i upload. As far as it goes with his length in his arms and legs they are still measuring behind 5 weeks and they can only get measurements of his thigh's because of the way he is sitting.. not to mention RIGHT ON MY BLADDER ( so i always have to pee every 20 minutes it seems like ). A little more good news... his chest cavity wasnt a big concern today as much as it was last time i seen dr barsoom .. its small but not to abnormal :)  I dont see dr barsoom anymore because brayden is stable now i only see the main OBGYN every 2 weeks until the end... 7 weeks left... hes almost here.. we have mixed emotions about the whole deal considering his condition but still have little amounts of hope that we get a miracle. Also we seen him practicing his breathing today, which is good. so we got a little bit of the normal crappy news that we hope ends up turning out better than it is sounding now and then we also got some good news today.

                                               

the picture of him with his eyes open

We seen the hospice nurse today to and have it set up that when i have brayden if he cant breathe on his own they put the little mask on him to clear out whatever fluid is in his lungs and bag air into him a few times and see if he starts breathing on his own .. if he doesn't make much of an effort on his own we will go from there with intubating him until we get the diagnosis of everything and see what is all going on and then will make decisions after all of that. We are just HOPING we dont have to be making any life span decisions though since they dont exactly know anything until he comes out. brayden has his own plan and we have to wait to figure it out . Hopefully his plan is to end up coming home with mom and dad :) but we are still preparing ourselves for the worst. The hospice nurse along with the neonatologist and some other practitioners will be in the delivery room with us helping us with our questions about his breathing IF he even needs help. ect

lost hope :(

Well seen the OBGYN, fetal specialist, and prenatal hospice today and it didnt go so well. Brayden's arms and legs are 5 weeks off on growth and his feet are bowed. His chest cavity is small so there is a very low chance that he will survive at all .. he will most likely have to be put on life support when he is born and if so we are choosing to let it in gods hands and let things happen how they are suppose to and spend as much time with brayden while we can. Its a very hard and sad thing to deal with but we are taking it one day at a time. The Only positive things we heard today is that Brayden is now 3 pounds and for future if chris and i want to have children this most likely would never happen to us again. We are preparing for the worst but we will always love brayden and he will always be our first child. Maybe he will come out and things will turn out better than we are planning for, but i dont put my hopes up to much for that considering the way things are looking now. I still will be seeing the obgyn every 2 weeks to see our little guy and dr barsoom the fetal specialist once a month.. we meet with the prenatal hospice lady nancy in 4 weeks with dr barsoom to talk about preparing for brayden's death more when chris can go with (today he had to work) . Here are pictures of brayden from today 29 weeks 5 days. hes got such a cute pouty face..

love his pouty face

his poor little leg and foot

his foot

his cute face

December 1st regular OB appt

Well this last week on thursday i had a regular OB checkup and was suppose to get the digestional diabetes test done but had gotten the flu so couldnt do it. I also was suppose to meet with our Hospice nurse (nancy) that day for the first meeting but was to sick to go so now it is rescheduled with the appointments on December 15th. Brayden is doing good as of now his growth is still off but he is still a little active bugger and his heart is good :) here is our side view picture that we got that day. Ill keep this updated when we go to the next doctor appointments with Dr Barsoom, Regular OB, and the Hospice nurse on the 15th.

results

We had gotten a call from dr barsooms nurse between the times of finding out ALL of the results and found out that our chromosome testing came back normal (which is encouraging) and that we are having a baby boy .. Chris and I have decided that his name is going to be Brayden Ryder. Also now we have the rest of our results finally as of November 17 2011 the micro testing that does 40,000 tests on our baby came back NORMAL. We seen Dr Barsoom on that day (november 17) and still braydens bottom half of his legs aren't growing normally they are far behind but his upper part of his legs is close to the normal that its suppose to be. Chris and I asked questions on to how he knows that our little brayden has campomelic dysplasia and he said that its just "picture perfect" to what he has seen before in the past so really there is no proof that he for sure has it and we wont know until i deliver. Chris and I hope that maybe our little brayden will come out fine and this is just a mistake but we are preparing for the worst. I see the hospice nurse and the neonatologist here on December 1st also my regular OBGYN so i will update again on that once its here. Dr Barsoom says that there is some extra fluid on Braydens kidney and that he may have a little extra fluid on his brain but cant tell for sure because of the way he is positioned. Other than that his heart is great and he is doing fine besides his poor little leggies :( . Everything is really just up in the air until i have the little guy and if there is problems chris and i just also hope that its something minor or able to be fixed since in this day almost anything is possible !! We arent going to do a baby shower for Brayden until after i deliver because we dont want to have to deal with having ALL of that stuff if we arent able to take our little guy home. So as of right now we are just getting stuff for the diaper bag to take to the hospital and are borrowing a carseat from a close friend that HOPEFULLY we get to bring him home in. Also i am writing all of this blog mainly in one day because i had just decided to start writing this for brayden. I will start to keep it updated from now on after every doctor appointment so it wont be all smushed up and sort of jumbled like this beginning. but anyways there are miracles i have been reading so many of them lately.

and here are our last pictures from last appointment 25 weeks 5 days he looks just like his daddy already !!

Still no results, but here are some pictures of our beautiful baby





these are our 3d pictures we got taken at 19 weeks. (as you can see the legs look like there is something wrong with them)

Seeing the fetal specalist

2 days later after i seen Dr Ortiz i got scheduled to see the fetal specalist (october 10,2011) Dr. Barsoom. Chris had taken the day off for us to go down to the doctor and find out what was going on just having hope that we would get news his legs could be fixed after he was born. We got to the office, got registered and sat there and waited to get called back filled with so many different emotions.. sad,lost,stressed,worried, and hopeful. Finally we got called in and the nurse did a full ultrasound and we got to see our baby on a 52 inch screen tv. She measured out ALL of the baby's bones and than we got to see a 3d picture of our baby. We liked that we were getting to see her/his beautiful face on the big screen but we will still worried/scared to hear what doc was going to give for us for information on his legs. After she had gotten done with measuring the baby she told us it would be just a few minutes for the doctor to come in. When he came in he started to tell us news that was SO unexpected.. that his leg bones were not only bent but his arms and legs were excessively short and that in a case like this he thinks that our baby has campomelic dysplasia which is a form of skeletal dysplasia. Chris and I just sat there at loss of words sad and heartbroken. As we sat there and listened the doctor told us that he was going to do an ambio santicas on me so that we could get exact results of what was wrong with our baby as to if it was a chromosonal deal and if it was skeletal dysplasia. He told us we could terminate the pregnancy or carry it to term and asked if we had any questions. Chris and I were still at loss of words and i was to sad to even talk and had been bawling for a while now but chris's mom started asking questions "well what are the chances of the baby living if they do carry it to full term?" "what is the quality of the childs life going to be" ect. and dr barsoom began answering telling us that if the baby lives outside of the womb and has Campomelic Dysplasia they only have a 5 percent chance of living and if the child does survive will have breathing trouble the rest of his/her life. I told him that we just needed to go home and would have answers for him after we had gotten the amnio results back. He had began doing the amnio to get a more exact diagnosis of what was going on with our child. I began wondering IF our baby was going to have physicical disabilities and if it was even right to bring he/she into this harsh world if he/she was going to have so many problems. After we were done with the amnio the doctor told us that he would give us a call in a few weeks with our results of the diagnosis and we could make our decisions. Chris and I than left the hospital and came home. I was clearly a mess by this time bawling my eyes out. We talked about it on the way home as to our decision but we just didnt have an answer to what we were going to do .. at first we thought about terminating the pregnancy before the 24 weeks IF we did get results that he had campomelic dysplasia because we didnt want our child suffering in this harsh world if he didnt get to have a good quality of life. I had so many mixed emotions at the time.. Felt guilty as to terminating the pregnancy and wondering if it wasnt right ect. We talked about how would we ever be able to raise a disabled child when we dont have the income for it ?? all kinds of different things but we just had to try not to stress and hope for the best while waiting for the results.

18 Week Ultrasound!!

It seemed like this day would never come, and here it was (September 29, 2011) !! The day we would find out if we were having a little boy or girl. Chris, My Mom, and I had a shopping trip planned that day after we found out the gender of our child. That day i was seeing my doctors PA because she had an emergency delivery but we figured that wouldnt be a big deal we would still figure out the gender of our baby. Chris and I started becoming more and more excited as the PA (vanessa) starts doing the ultrasound !! Vanessa said everything had looked good on the baby but when she got to the legs they were crossed indian style so she couldnt see between to find out the gender. We were disappointed and she started giggling my tummy trying to get him to move around but unfortunately it never happened. She told us to come in the next week and they will take another peak to see if he/she has moved. So, the next week comes around and i go down to the doctor with one of family friends to get a peak figuring for sure that he/she has moved by than and we would find out the gender of the baby. Well my main doctor was there that day just was busy and i didnt technically have an appointment so Vanessa (my PA) took a peak to find out if we could figure out the sex. Unfortunately, the baby was still in the same position but she thought it was a girl. She Said she would be right back she was going to ask Dr Ortiz what she had thought. After of waiting a few minutes Dr Ortiz comes in and starts looking at the baby and everything seems to look fine until she got to the legs. She said that everything was measuring right but he/she legs didnt look like they were forming correctly and she was going to make an appointment for me to see a fetal specalist that had better equipment and could find out exactly what was wrong. My heart dropped, i couldnt believe it .. all i could say was "are you serious". Dr Ortiz said that the baby was healthy and that it could be a minor problem that could be fixed easily after he was born. I was upset, called my boyfriend to tell him what was going on and just lost it and started bawling thinking what if our child doesnt live? ect. Dr Ortiz and family friends comforted me and told me everything was okay.. i just left the office upset but trying to give myself hope that it was just his legs as long as he is healthy and its fixable it would be fine.

The beginning; Its positive!!

I dont know where to start so i guess ill start with the day Chris and I found out we were pregnant with our little peanut ( July 4, 2011 ). We both couldn't believe it i had taken 2 home pregnancy tests and they were both positive but at the time we couldnt figure out how to read them so i went to the doctor and got it confirmed. Chris and I were both excited/happy and couldnt wait to add our new blessing to the family !! I started thinking about the future and planning already and started signing up for all of the services i needed. i hurried and called my friend to get the number for her doc and got an appointment set up for 9 week checkup to see the baby and make sure he/she was healthy. I had been feeling so miserable between those times 6-9 weeks because of the morning sickness but knew it would be worth it when i finally got to hold our baby!!