April 15, 2025

Hello everyone. I have decided to start a blog documenting my time while I’m here admitted to the hospital, waiting for our little one’s safe arrival. This will be very informal and may contain typos and grammatical errors, but, I don’t really care. This is more for me than anyone else. If you’re here reading, thanks for taking the time to read our story.

I haven’t written anything previously, so I guess let’s start at the beginning so everyone has a full background. When I was 20 weeks pregnant, my OB told us the placenta was sitting on top of my cervix, which is no beuno. This means that a regular c section cannot be performed. The hope was that the placenta would move all on its own and everything would be fine and dandy. Unfortunately, that did not happen. At 22 weeks, it was confirmed that the placenta had embedded itself into my uterus. This is called accreta. (The placenta laying on top of my cervix is called previa.) This means my uterus must come out at the time of delivery. This was very difficult news for both me and Chris, as we had hoped for at least one more earth side child. That would give us the seven we had always said we wanted, (including Poppy & Daniel). It’s one thing to make the decision on your own to be done having kids, but when that choice is ripped away from you, especially when you wanted more, is extremely difficult. I’ve been trying to come to terms with this for the past two months, and it’s still hard. Of course we have the options of surrogacy, adoption, and fostering to us, which are not off the table. However, I absolutely love being pregnant, so it’s sad for me to know that I’m now down to my last 4 weeks, or less, of pregnancy. It’s so fun to see and feel the baby moving around. Pregnancy has always been kind of rough on my body, but overall I’ve always enjoyed it.

Alright so fast forward to why I’ve been admitted to the hospital in the first place. On Fri, April 11, around 9:10pm, I felt a gush and I knew that wasn’t good. I immediately went to the bathroom to find blood. Emmett & Grace were at Eric and Leah’s for the week so we didn’t have them, but of course Ezra was home with me and Chris. I told Chris to pack the baby up and we headed to McLaren, as I called my OB on the way, letting them know what was happening. Thankfully, the OB I normally see was working that night so she is very familiar with my case. She told us she felt it was safest to transfer me to Butterworth Hospital in Grand Rapids, in case baby needed to be delivered. (They don’t have the tools and everything needed to successfully and safely perform the surgery and delivery that baby and I need. McLaren also does not have a NICU.). By this time, it was close to midnight, and it wasn’t very feasible for us to bring Ezra all the way to GR, especially not knowing if delivery needed to happen or not. So we called Chris’s brother, and thankfully he was willing and able to come stay with Ezra overnight while Chris drove to GR to come be with me. I was transported via ambulance. I think we ended up arriving to GR close to 1:30am, and Chris made it there by about 3:30. Baby and I were hooked up to monitors 24/7 for a couple days, until my Maternal Fetal Medicine (MFM) team felt comfortable deciding baby did not need to be delivered right away. Thankfully, my bleeding had stopped and I was not experiencing contractions, so that was good. The not so good part is that the MFM team does not feel comfortable sending me home, so I have been admitted until after delivery. When I first got here, they put me on a magnesium drip, as a muscle relaxer, to try and stop my uterus from contracting. Thankfully it worked, but it made me feel AWFUL. I felt weak the entire time, and was overall very sleepy and did not feel like myself. After about 1.5 days, I got moved from Labor & Delivery to the “let’s keep you pregnant” floor. (It has another name but idr what it is.) This allows me to have much more freedom, as I’m not hooked up to monitors 24/7, and I have the capability to go walk around the hospital if I desire. (I’m actually at the library at the Children’s Hospital typing this.) So that part is nice at least.

Obviously this whole stay was not what we had hoped for, and is difficult in a lot of ways. Now that I’m not feeling so yucky all of the time, I’m awake most of the day, and that means trying to find things to do to bide my time. Chris is unfortunately not able to take time off during the week because he needs to save his PTO for after baby comes and so he can help me after my surgery, so that means he’s stuck in Lansing during the week while I’m up here in GR. Not ideal at all, because that means I go 5-6 days at a time without seeing him or Ezra, which is hard. Emmett & Grace too, but it’s a little bit easier with them since I’m used to doing week-on week-off with Eric for them. It really sucks not being able to see my baby and my husband everyday. Just last week, Chris and I had spent the day together doing a bunch of running around and I said to him, “ya know, I spent all day with you and it’s still not enough. I love spending time with you and I never tire of it.” And now here we are, spending all this time apart. I am thankful we live in a period of time where Facetime exists! At least this way I can “see” them on a daily basis. However, that did not make saying goodbye to them on Sunday any easier. It’s so hard knowing I won’t be able to physically see my baby for a full 5 days. I’ve never spent a night away from him prior to this, and now this is going to be my life for the next 4-10 weeks. It’s hard y’all. Nothing can prepare you for that mentally or emotionally. Plus Chris is truly my best friend and partner in everything, so it’s hard being away from him too. I’d like to say hopefully it’ll get easier, but I suspect it won’t.

I wish I had thought to ask Chris to bring me books when he came by last weekend, but unfortunately I did not. I have downloaded both the Libby & Hoopla apps so I can download books and listen to audiobooks, but I’ve discovered I really don’t like audiobooks much. I find it hard to continue paying attention and I’d rather be holding the book in my hand and reading it myself. But hey, gotta work with with I’ve got. I started listening to the Left Behind series. I read the children’s version when I was a kid, but have never actually read the adult version, so I figured maybe that would be a good place to start. People have given me lots of other suggestions of books to read, so if I get bored with those, I’ll move on to some others.

Since I’ve got nothing but time on my hands, I’m down for visitors pretty much whenever, except typically during the weekend when Chris and the kids would come to visit. I know GR is a trek for most of my friends, but if you feel so inclined, just message me and I’ll tell you where to find me. :) I also want to give a big thank you to everyone who has offered to help out in any capacity. To add to all this mess, Chris has to try and finagle his schedule at work to make sure he can pick up the baby on time before daycare closes, as well as making sure he can be home when Emmett & Grace get off the bus on the weeks we have them. It’s been a hot and stressful mess, but we have some absolutely wonderful friends and family who have stepped up to the plate for us without any hesitation at all! If anyone else is wondering how you can help, honestly, food for Chris and the kids is probably at the top of the list, because he’s still working full time and basically figuring out how to be a single dad in the mean time, so that would help a lot! So gift cards to food places, or even a drop off to him would be wonderful. Gas cards are good too since he’s having to drive back and forth between Lansing and GR a lot. We have pretty much every kind of digital wallet you can think of, so if you’d like to send something our way via one of those methods, just let me know and I can provide the info for it. But PLEASE do not feel obligated! I’m just putting it out there for those that want to help but just aren’t sure how. Also dropping our baby registry link, if anyone is interested. We had intended to have a diaper party next weekend, but unfortunately that cannot happen now. :( https://www.amazon.com/baby-reg/jackie-vosloo-june-2025-mason/3TPUF106SQSGY?ref_=cm_sw_r_apin_dp_WZ9SNM6K3SY33X04GBH8&language=en_US

The one thing I really can’t complain about here though is how kind and thoughtful all of the staff members are. Every single one of them has made me feel like I’m the most important patient they have, and never hesitating or seeming frustrated when I ask for something. I went down to the library yesterday just to check it out, and thought I’d ask the person working if they were doing anything for Easter since my kids would be coming that day. She said the hospital itself is not, but she was more than happy to put a bag together for each of them so they have something to do here on Sunday, and to make it a little more fun for them. There’s also an ice cream shop here, located in the children’s hospital, so we plan to take them there for a little treat as well. I’ve discovered there’s a Starbucks downstairs, and that smelled really good today, so I might cave tomorrow and go get me some fancy coffee. Lol. I prefer Biggyby, but hey, I’ll take what I can get!

I know I wrote a lotttt in this first entry, so if you’re still here, thanks for reading. I’ll try to do daily updates, but I make no promises. Honestly, I hope there’s not a lot of updating to do until we reach 34 weeks, because keeping this baby in until then would be ideal! I’m 30w2d currently. Anyway, thanks again for all the love and support! We appreciate you more than you’ll ever know. Until next time, bye friends!