Sophie's Chronic Kidney Disease

Wow, where to begin?!  I set up this GoFundMe page to help pay for never ending RX's, hospital bills, doctor bills, anethesioloist bills, radiology bills, etc. for Sophie.  Most of you know Sophie, she will born 10 years ago being our first child her daddy Mark(my husband) and I were super excited to find out I was pregnant.  Like any parent we were so happy to get our first sonogram and see our little peanut.  I was right at 10 weeks along when we had our sonogram.  Immediately the nurse stopped talking to us as she performed the scan and I knew in my gut something was wrong.  We asked how everything looked and of course she did not respond instead told us to wait paitently and the doctor would soon be in...my heart sank!  As the doctor walks in we were asked if we had any family history of issues in utero and of course being born forever ago(we will just leave our ages at that hahah....and not having the same technology we have now) we said "no".  The doctor went on to tell us that he is referring us to a specialist in Obstetrics and he would no longer be able to assist us.  I freaked out....."what is wrong?"...."will our baby be ok?" ......"why can you not tell us anything?".  Questions were flying out of our mouths and the doctor simply said that once we could get into see the specialist he would tell us what we have to face.  "Everything will be just fine."....I can not stand those words anymore....everything was not fine.  The day came that we were to see the "specialist" for our little peanut.  All the normal things happened....weight was taken, vitals, sonogram performed in his office.  Doctor walks in and introduces his self and asks us what seemed to be a million questions.  After all the non-sense(because we didnt care about anything but answers) he looked us in the eye and said "we are not sure what we will be facing when your baby is born but we do know that the kidneys in your fetus are not looking well."  My heart shattered!!!  I felt helpless.  I mean how could I be chosen by God to protect this child he has graciously served to me to shelter, feed, grow, raise, educate, etc.  and discover somewhere, something bad went wrong.  I have just failed at my first attempt to be a Godly woman that I believe any lady feels the moment they discover they are pregnant.  Months of doctor visits went by with no new update besides we knew the baby would be assesed immediately when it was born....oh yeah, the moment SHE would be born!!!  It's a GIRL,  our dream came true.  The day we found out a GIRL, Mark said "um what am I going to do with a girl?"  I said "well she will be pretty in pink camo."  :)  The last doctor visit came quickly.  "We will be inducing you at 39 weeks."  I was nervous, petrified, estatic, and ashamed all in one.  If God gave me the honor of protecting this baby girl from day one as a little peanut/cell and I failed how in the world am I going to feel if I fail at labor?  Thoughts rushed through my brain.  Morning came, checked into the hospital and did all the blah, blah, blah stuff :).  Nurses came in to check me, no progress....."we will begin petocin to speed up contractions"......no luck.  "We will speed up labor by puncturing your sack of amniotic fluid.".....no luck.  Doctor came and went it seemed like for an eternity.  My body was exhausted......by this time I had been admitted into the hospital for 32ish hours....I was fed up.  I told Mark he better tell the doctor to get this kid out of me or we may have issues hahah.  Doctor was called up to the hospital later that day(by this time it was a Saturday).....nurses had called him because I was finally dialated to a 10!!!!  Now brace yourself because I had now been in the hospital trying to get a baby out for 33 hours....my specialist walks into my labor room and says "you interrupted my football game!  Let me see if we are going to get this baby out."  Mark and a couple of nurses had to hold me down :)  I didnt care that I couldnt feel my legs I was about to get off that bed to hurt him LOL....MEN.  So doctor had me push a few times, no baby....doctor used foreceps to help assist, no baby.  Last resort, vaccum to make baby girl come out....NO BABY!!!  All of a sudden nurses were releasing the breaks to my bed and doctor gives the "lets get her into the O.R. STAT"  I felt like I was going to faint.  Fear hit me...oh great, I failed yet again...geesh good going soon to be failure mom...is what I thought to myself.  We get into the O.R. doctor starts the c-section and all of a sudden the most amazing sound....my first child, I grew inside me, for 9 months.....was crying!  I remember looking at Mark and we were both crying.  It was magical.  THEN the unimaginable happened.....the doctor said "oh sh*t call in Dr. **** and Dr. **** call the lab get blood stat......" it all happened so fast....I looked over at my anesthesiologist and all I remember was how quickly he was injecting my epidural with sedatives and I was out!  I woke up to nurses hovering over me and the doctor shaking me asking if I was okay.  The doctor said "I believe you are going to be okay".  Yeah just what every new mom wants to hear....when you have no clue what just happened to you.  Long story short, I almost bled to death because I had what they call severe placenta accreta(my placenta totally grew into my uterus) and it went undetected the entire 9 months of sonograms because our baby girl was covering the problem up in the pictures.  Oh my goodness, my baby where was she, was she okay, what, what, what?????  So many confused questions running in my head.....just then Mark comes to my side white as a ghost!  Petrified, he said he never had been so scared in his life....mom is dying, baby girl was whisped from his arms to be searched over due to her kidneys and fluid on her lungs(common with c-section babies).   Our stay in the hospital was 4 days.  We were given a okay to go home since my blood loss was at a stand still and my body could start building my blood supply back up.....our little girl......we named Sophie Ann :)  she was beyond PERFECT!!!!!!  I always told Mark if we have a girl she would be named Sophie after my grandma that was so dear to me.  I lost her when I was 9 years old to CANCER...I HATE CANCER!!!  There is not a day that goes by I do not think of my grandmother.  As Sophie began to grow and thrive in the coming weeks I KNEW my grandma had something to do with this miracle she was protecting her....Sophie(baby girl) did not need her first surgery until she was a few months old.  VERY, VERY sick her kidney doctor(Urologist) told us we would have a long road ahead of us.  Sophie was born with a duplicate kidney, ureter tube, cyst on the ureter tube into the bladder all on her right side of her body.  She had a extremely bad case of Ureteroceles all in her bladder and needed surgery on her urethera to function properly.  Surgery 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.......WOW time was taking its toll on us......surgeries kept being thrown at us year after year.....over 1/2 of Sophies right kidney died on us and they had to remove it(it is called a partial Nephrectomy).  With our main focus on Sophie's kidney disease we have also been thrown many other health obsticales in her 10 short years of life which include but are not limited to(in case I forget some):  Arnold Chiari Malformation 1, Cromosome abnormality, GERD, severe pelvic junction obstruction, asthema, sleep apnea, eye issues, speech imparement, dyslexia, learning disabilities, heart murmer defect, kidney issues, chronic bladder issues, and bowel issues.  Here we are 2015 and Sophie has endured 26 surgery/procedures and countless MRI, MAG3, Sonograms, cardiograms, EEG, EKG, VCUG's, Xrays, etc....scans.  You name it, we probably have done it!  Financially we have paid well over $110,000.00 since she has been born OUT OF OUR POCKET.   Insurance helps but not as much as you would think.  Tried for over a year to get her on Medicad with the state but continuly got denied.  Tried to do a buy in insurance program with tge state, again got denied.  Trying to afford her prescriptions each month is a fight to scrape up change anywhere we can find it.  Medical bills are endless.  Debt collectors are on speed dial and call us daily.  Somany months, which this is hard to admit, we pick and chose which bills will pay.  Groceries, well I can not tell you last time I paid for them out of the bank account.  They go on credit cards each month with most of our medical debts to make it to next paycheck.  We made a move to be closer to Marks work and a easier commute to the hospital but at this point cost of living is eating us alive and the in crease of more medical bills flowing in.  Unfortunately, nothing is getting cheaper and incomes are not on any significant rise as we all, well know.  If you can find it in your heart to help GoFund SOPHIE no words will be able to thank you.  We would be forever grateful  and would pray God blesses you ten fold someday.  Please join Sophie's Journey on Facebook for updates on Sophie's Chronic Kidney Disease.  

Favorite Quotes that keep us going:

"Beginnings are scary, endings are sad but it is what's in the middle that counts so, when you find yourself at the beginning, just give hope a chance the float up and it will."

"Everything happens for a reason."

"We are blessed."

"Having a rough day?  Place your hand over your heart.  Feel that?  It's called purpose.  Your alive for a reason.  Don't give up!"

Thank you for following Sophie's Journey page and this campaign.  We love each and every one of you.  May God bless you and keep you safe and healthy.  

Love,

Valerie & Mark
(Sophie's Mommy & Daddy)