golden birthday

this year tyler turned 27 on january 27th - his golden birthday. i couldn't let his golden birthday pass by without a big surprise (because really, you only have one golden birthday), so i splurged (with the help of family) and got tyler a fezzari mountain bike (thanks to my bike-guru brother).
now all i hear about is how tyler really wants to go to st. george to ride his new bike! sounds like we'll be heading south sometime soon.

the birthday boy's cake. tyler loves to fish, so i thought the cake was fitting. snickers ice cream with chocolate cake - yum!
and totally unrelated to tyler's birthday...just bein' goofy, cuz that's what tyler and i are! (maybe me more than him).

happy birthday, pumpkin! here's to many more.

:)

answers

Tyler and I went to my 6 week check-up following delivery yesterday. We had a great visit with my ob-gyn.

The results of the autopsy were actually surprising to us. It turns out our perfect little girl was just that...perfect. She had ten fingers and ten toes. She had all of her anatomy and it had formed perfectly. She didn't have anything wrong with her...not even a chromosomal defect, like we had first thought.
My blood work, however, is another story. All of my tests came back normal, except for one. I have higher than normal anticardiolipin antibody levels. The doctor explained that anticardiolipin antibodies have to do with clotting; thus, I am prone to clotting. We don't know for sure if this clotting trait caused the stillbirth, but it is likely. My ob-gyn explained that they find higher levels of this antibody in women who have multiple miscarriages. What's interesting in my case is that this was my first pregnancy; I have no history of miscarriages to help give us answers.

This diagnosis doesn't change much for me. I've never had a problem with clotting. My ob-gyn explained that I may have microscopic clots that don't affect me, but if they travel to the baby, they can cause problems.

This does, however, change how I'll be treated during my next pregnancy. My ob-gyn is recommending that I see an MFM/perinatologist the next time I get pregnant because this clotting trait puts me in a "high risk" pregnancy category. I may have to take blood thinners to prevent any clotting. Good thing I know someone who knows all about that. :) But we'll see. I guess the newest trend in the ob-gyn world is to not treat certain clotting problems.

Overall, I came away from my appointment with a feeling of peace. I am sad to think that our little girl was formed perfectly with no defects because that means she could still be with us today, but it wasn't our time to have her and it wasn't her time to be with us. We'll be with her soon enough.

:)

Ice Castles

We spent Friday and Saturday in Midway with some of Tyler's family. We relaxed, played games, went hot tubbing, went four-wheeling, and visited the Ice Castles in Midway.

...relaxing...

...playing games...


...ice castles...



...and just having fun!
:)

christmastime is here

I want to start this post by thanking everyone for their love and support during this time. I told Tyler today that we are so loved! It's true. We really appreciated everything that all of you have done for us.

It's been almost two weeks since I delivered Brynnley. My physical recovery (the details of which I will spare you) has gone really well. The emotional recovery is still on-going, but has gotten easier with time. We were told that the emotional recovery would be up and down, so we're preparing for and expecting that.

We haven't officially heard from the doctors, but from talking to people and the little bit of research we've done, it's sounding more and more like Brynnley had a trisomy. I don't know which she had (if it was a trisomy), but I'm curious to learn from the doctors what happened in Brynnley's case. When I was in the hospital, the nurse took (almost literally - haha) a gallon of my blood for tons of blood tests. An autopsy of Brynnley and the placenta are also being performed. We're hoping that between all of these tests, we'll be able to determine if it's a genetic trait and if it's likely to happen again. We'll keep you updated.

In the meantime, Tyler and I have been preparing for Christmas! Here is our Christmas tree. I wanted to wait until we had all of our Christmas presents under it, but decided I couldn't wait that long. (Still waiting for a few orders from amazon.com...)
(Let's forget that the strand of lights at the top doesn't work. Let's also forget that I took off a previous strand of lights that also didn't work and put the second, nonworking lights on. Let me clarify that we checked BOTH strands before putting them on the tree, and they worked. For some reason they don't work ON the tree. I loathe putting Christmas lights on and gave up after the second attempt.)

This is the ornament we bought for Brynnley, to remember her by at Christmastime:

And this is the Jim Shore nativity I got last year for Christmas. I love it! (In the background are some of the flowers that we've been given over the last week and a half.)

I'm so thankful for this time of year - to reflect on our Savior's birth. I'm grateful for His teachings and for His gospel in my life. His resurrection and the knowledge of eternal families has helped us through this difficult time.

I also love spending time with friends and family. My sister is coming to Utah from Oklahoma (with her husband, of course,) and I'm so excited!

And...let's be honest. I love shopping. That part is fun, too.

Merry Christmas!

:)

come what may and love it

We lost our little girl.

When Tyler and I went back to the MFM for our one-week follow up, the baby had no heart beat (as well as practically no amniotic fluid). Because of how far along I was (21 weeks), I had to deliver the baby, which I did yesterday.

Upon delivery, it was immediately clear why she didn't make it. My OB-Gyn suspects that she had a chromosomal (yet not genetic) defect/syndrome. Her ears were low on her head, which is one indication of a syndrome. She also had a tear in her stomach and her intestines were on the outside of her body. I guess that some full-term babies are born with this problem, but the problem occurs later in pregnancy and can be corrected with surgery after birth.

In addition to her abnormalities, the placenta had calcified and hardened. My OB-Gyn explained that when this happens, the placenta is no longer able to support the baby. It was also evident that she had been gone for a few days; I guess the longer they're gone, the more fragile they become, and she was quite fragile. Because we heard a heart beat at our first meeting with the MFM, it's clear that she died sometime between that appointment and the next.

She was also very small. I delivered her at 21 weeks and 2 days, but she was measuring at 17 weeks - a clear sign that something had gone wrong in her development and she wouldn't have made it.

We named her Brynnley Wilke Jeffs. We have a small box of mementos to remember her by (hand and feet molds, hand and feet ink prints, etc.), for which I am very grateful.

We're also grateful for everyone's love, support, prayers, and fasts on our behalf. We can't begin to express our love to all of you. We look forward to meeting Brynnley on the other side of the veil.

small update

I heard back from my OB-Gyn's office this morning. The results of my blood test are negative! I don't have an infection, according to the tests they ran. This is good news! We still have to tackle the other problems our baby may be having (low amniotic fluid, small, etc.), but at least it's not an infection!

:)

MFM

or perinatologist, if you will.

Tyler and I had an appointment with an MFM yesterday. I had my 20 week ultrasound at my OB-Gyn's office on Tuesday. The ultrasound tech who saw me was concerned about my amniotic fluid level (it was low) and referred me to an MFM to make sure that everything was okay.

As it turns out, we have no idea if things are going to be okay. The doctor suspects that I might have a viral infection (CMV, to be exact) that could also be affecting the baby. He told us that her organs look okay, but she is on the smaller side, she doesn't move a lot, and there isn't much fluid around her - all signs of an infection. He recommended I get blood work done to see if I have an infection and we'll go from there. If I do have signs of an infection, we'll next test amniotic fluid to see if the baby is affected, too. If she is infected, there's really not much we can do aside from wait. The MFM said that there are experimental treatments, but that they are experimental and they may be limited.

Prognosis, you wonder? There really isn't one. There are a wide range of things that could happen with the baby, according to the MFM. The baby could be fine and deliver around her due date with minimal complications. On the other hand, she could be stillborn or born with defects, of which type we don't know.

That's the most frustrating part of this situation - we have no idea what will happen until something happens - either a stillbirth or when she's born. We can't be told exactly what to do or expect. We simply have to wait.

One thing that has been positive (for me, at least,) is knowing that I didn't do anything to cause this, nor could I have done anything to prevent it. It just happened. It's out of my hands.

Now we just have to wait...

I had my blood drawn yesterday for a torch titer test. We were told that the test would take 1-2 days before we get the results back. I have an appointment with the MFM next Wednesday to see if fluid levels around the baby have increased. I'll have an appointment a week after that to see if she's grown any bigger.

Please keep us in your prayers as we anxiously wait to find out what's going on.

:)