Gabbie’s Story

So my story starts in 2013, when I met my now husband.  At that time I was 18, he is 13 years older and already had 2 boys.  They were 1 and 5.

About 2 months into our relationship I got pregnant with our daughter, and on September 27, 2014, Ember was born.  Overall pregnancy with her was fairly normal, I did have preeclampsia atypical (my blood pressure wasn’t high) otherwise no real issues.

Then when Ember was about 13-14 months we found out we were expecting again, and boy were we nervous. We knew we wanted more kids, but it seemed so soon.  However the further we got through my pregnancy the more we were excited.

On February 12, 2016 at 17 weeks we went in for an appointment, and were even told they could try to find out the gender.  We were excited.  However while I laid there with my midwife running the doppler over my stomach trying to find a heartbeat it wasn’t happening.  The longer it took the more my heart sank.  Before she fully ruled no heartbeat she sent us for an ultrasound, but I already knew, and the ultrasound confirmed.  There was no heartbeat.

I was too far to pass her naturally, so they scheduled a D&C a full week later, which honestly made me feel worse, to carry my baby with no heartbeat for an extra week.  We got Raven’s remains after, luckily.

4 months later we were expecting our Rainbow.  Pregnancy was fine, and on March 18, 2017, Forest Rainbow Alexander was born.  He really lives up to being a rainbow baby, there is just something about him, and he’s always so happy.

Fast forward a few years to September 2018, we were expecting again.  We were excited and agreed this would be our last.

On March 11, 2019 Forest began to seem rather sick, I spent a week going to multiple appointments, sometimes multiple in a day all while 7 months pregnant.  I was told over and over it was “just a virus” finally on March 17 we went to the ER and they agreed we should be admitted so on Forest’s second birthday we were admitted to the hospital.  In 2 days we got our answer, our rainbow had been diagnosed with a rare cancer called Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis (LCH) and would need to start chemo.

We were in the hospital for almost 2 weeks with him receiving chemotherapy, and blood transfusions, until we were discharged.

I was scheduled for a C-section on June 6, however on May 23 I was having problems they believe were related to preeclampsia so on May 24, 2019 my youngest baby Briar Thomas was born.  However he wasn’t breathing well and we spent 11 days in the NICU with him.

Fast forward again, after a year of chemo and over 200 treatments on March 20th 2020 Forest had his last round of chemo before being cleared with no active disease.

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