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Mary's Testimony
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Hi, my name is Mary, and I want to tell you about my personal miracle, his name is Miles.
I am married and had always looked forward to having children and dreamed of having a little girl. We were looking at the future and trying to decide about having a baby. I just had this feeling that there was a problem.
Nothing I could identify as being wrong, just this little voice inside of me saying that I needed to find out. I had talked to my doctor many times and he always said, "No, no problem. You are perfectly normal, stop worrying about it." Still, I couldn't shake that feeling, so I decided to look for another doctor. I spoke with everyone I knew and asked them how they liked their doctor. The same name kept popping up always with extraordinary praise. So I made an appointment.
I went to see Dr. Newman and he asked me why I was there. I told him I wanted to check myself out before I tried to get pregnant, to see if I was worthy. I told him about my feeling that something was wrong. He told me that he didn't see anything wrong but had always found that a woman knew her body better than anyone else. He said he would schedule a sonogram.
During that sonogram a large mass was found behind my ovary. They insisted on immediate surgery to see what it was. I was so frightened. I kept thinking that whatever it was, I was better off knowing.
They did the surgery and came out talking, not about a mass, but about a Unicornuate Uterus. I had never heard of such a thing. The large mass was one of my ovaries. It was not connected and was just floating around way out of place. Before birth, something had gone wrong and the uterus had only half formed. It was in the shape of a banana. I only had one functioning ovary and half a uterus.
The next thing they insisted that I check out my kidneys. The kidney and the uterus form from the same cell and almost always if you have a Unicornuate Uterus, you only have one kidney.
I went back into the hospital for a test on my kidneys. I found that I had beaten the odds and had two functioning kidneys.
Then I was consulted about my condition. A Unicornuate Uterus is the rarest of all uterine abnormalities. They really don't know much about it. Very few doctors have treated women with this condition. What they did know was that it is very difficult if not impossible to become pregnant. Once pregnant, most women have a miscarriage sometime between the 18 and the 24 week. If a miscarriage doesn't happen, then the baby is often born premature and weighs a little over two pounds. Almost all the babies are breech and require a cesarean.
There are no symptoms and the only way you can find out if you have it is through surgery. Most women don't know about having the condition until they have had three or four miscarriages. I was the only person my doctor had ever heard of that knew she had a Unicornuate Uterus before she tried to get pregnant. The doctor told me I might as well go off birth control, because when and if I did decide to have a baby, it would require extensive fertility treatments and he would be there to help me when I decided the time was right.
I was very sad and began reading and looking for information about my condition. I couldn't find very much. Friends volunteered to help me and carry my baby for me. I didn't have long to be sad because within three months, God must have decided I was worthy and I became pregnant.
I was so excited and frightened. I did one of those home pregnancy tests and when I saw the line, I cried. Naturally, I called the doctor and the nurse told me she would make an appoint for four months. I told her to look at my chart. She did and told me to come in right away.
They did tests and sent me to the hospital for blood test to pin point my exact due date. They also did a sonogram and all that could be seen was a little dark spot. That little dark spot was my baby.
My whole family was nervous about this pregnancy. They told me not to talk about it and not to buy things for the baby because if something happened to him, that planning for him would only make it worse. I thought about that and decided that God had put that baby there against all odds. I would be happy to be pregnant and put my faith in God, that he wouldn't put it there and then let something happen to it.
Even if something did the pregnancy itself was a miracle and I was going to enjoy every minute of being a mommy. I remembered the story of the Velveteen Rabbit and decided to love him until he was real.
The pregnancy was a day by day kind of thing. I was never so many months pregnant. I was always so many weeks and days. I never thought of months. I always looked to the next milestone. The doctor said when I got to around 15 weeks they would do a cerclage. That is a stitch around the cervix to help hold the baby in. It would help me carry the baby, but is not without risks. I went to the hospital to have it done. They actually pull the cervix out of your body to put the stitch in. After it was over I was in the hospital overnight. They checked the baby's heartbeat and couldn't find him. Finally they located him right under my breasts. It seems he noted the danger and had moved as far up as he could to get out of the way.
I don't know how people can say a baby isn't a human before it is born. I had a sonogram done every two weeks. They last around forty five minutes and I watched him grow. He looked human very early and he yawned, stretched, moved around, scratched his shoulder, sucked his hand, and I have a cute picture of him playing with his umbilical cord. He was very real and I was lucky enough to even get to see him grow.
I could write on and on about things that happened during the pregnancy but I won't go through the whole nine months. He was always measuring as a big baby and I am small. He was always a week ahead in development and since was carried only on one side of my body, I became very lopsided. They were suppose to take the stitch out at around 35 weeks, but decided against it, since he was breech and they were afraid if they removed the stitch it could put everyone in a mess. They kept monitoring his size and finally decided that his lungs were developed and it was time.
I went into the hospital on Monday morning, they ran some tests on me and the baby and did a cesarean. He was three and a half weeks early and was 7 lbs., all fingers and toes accounted for. Just a perfect little boy. We were both able to go home on Wednesday afternoon.
I know that God was with me even before I became pregnant. He guided me to do all the right things. I found out before hand about my problem and was able to take the proper steps to save my son's life. I felt that God kept his hand on my uterus to keep him safe, until I could hold him in my arms.
Every time I see his sweet little smile, I know how much God must love me to have allowed me to conceive and then bless me with such a healthy happy little boy.
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