Madilynn’s Story

Not one to be left behind my daughter gave us such strength during the time since Fynn’s passing. Her story is a fight song for me. She has given me to opportunity to practice my mommy skills. She has taught me about myself as a person and that life can be fun even when you are sad.

Madilynn is the light of my life and came to us when we needed her most. The year prior to conceiving Madilynn we experienced our first lost. I miscarried a little life at 6 weeks gestation. My life was very difficult at this time. I was struggling to find my place in a new team at work. I was struggling with the fact that I couldn’t even get pregnant or stay pregnant. I started having panic attacks at work when an issue would arise that I couldn’t control. I went to therapy and came out refocused.

I went to my annual visit with my gynecologist and told her I was done waiting to get pregnant again. We tried to get pregnant again but I wasn’t getting a positive ovulation test to determine good ‘baby dance’ time. She had my blood drawn and I was started on Clomid, which assisted in me ovulating. Three months after starting Clomid, I was pregnant with Madilynn.

Madilynn’s pregnancy was normal or so I had heard. She made me nauseous the first three months. She didn’t like anything healthy. And my husband invented Costa Vida Wednesdays by the end of my pregnancy.

August 15, 2016, I woke up at 1:00 AM because of course I had to pee…again! While going pee I noticed fluid kept coming out but I wasn’t producing that. My water had broken. I woke Will up and told him “I don’t want to panic you but I think my water broke”. He sits ups and says “ok”. I called my mom and she suggested I call the on call doctor because I wasn’t sure if my water had really broken. In the end we went to the hospital. On the way I had two contractions. Will may or may not have run a red light but we made it.

I didn’t even stay in Triage that long before they said “Yep your water broke!”. I was sent over to labor and delivery where I was put in the care of the amazing Marin. We got down to business. I got my epidural; I only got half because I was doing pretty well. Marin noticed I stopped talking because the contractions were getting worse so they gave me the rest of the epidural. Everything was going great and my parents had showed up at that time.

Thank god for Kendal Osiek, my beautiful, amazing sister-in-law, she made sure my dad was distracted and out of the room. 7:30 AM was shift change, Marin left and was replaced by Gail. Gail was having a hard time timing my contraction and finding Madilynn’s heartbeat. So she got out the internal contraction and fetal monitors and was getting those set up. Madilynn was ready to come. Gail couldn’t get the internal contraction monitor past her head. Things were a blur after that. I was getting into the final stages of labor so of course I started throwing up. I couldn’t lift myself up because I had the epidural so my mom dutifully grabbed my head and shoved it to the throw up bag.

Will, my dutiful husband, was helping me breathe, but he himself was not. My mom and Gail got the fainting chair behind him just in case. One day ask him the story he was rather put off that they were more worried about him than me. It is hilarious to hear his account of the day.

About 8:00 AM, Gail said she had called Dr. Nippert and she was on her way. Dr. Nippert arrived some time after that. I was starting to push and didn’t quite understand what I needed my body to do. Dr. Nippert explained what I needed to do. 20 minutes later we met Madilynn Raeh Alden. At 8:50 AM on August 15, 2016, we welcomed the most beautiful baby girl in the world.

Madilynn has taught me so much about myself. She kept us going and laughing while facing Fynn’s passing. I can’t imagine what we would have done with the situation if we didn’t have her. She is our world and she continues to remind us that life is worth living even with half our hearts in heaven.