Isabella Mae Hernandez

Isabella was born on December 17, 2004 by a scheduled c-section at 39 weeks.  She weighted 6 lbs. 3/4 ozs. and was 16 inches long.  She was also born with 12 broken bones.  Isabella has Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI).

My pregnancy with Isabella was much the same in the begening as was with the other 3.  I know right off she was a girl for I was just as sick with her as I had been with her sister and had never been with her brothers.  But as the pregnancy progressed I began to feel like somthing was just not right.  I couldn't explain the feeling I just knew somthing was wrong!

Parkland is the community hospital here in Dallas where Isabella was born.  I received most of my prenatal care through one of there clinics.  Parkland delivers about 17,000 babies in any given year and is said to be the hospital in the U.S. delivering the most babies each year.  For this reason they do not do sonos unless there is a problem.  I kept asking them for a sono and telling them that somthing was not right and they did not want to hear me.  I just got blown off with "Your measuring fine, your weight loss (I am one of the lucky women that looses each time I get pregnant) is fine, your blood preasure is fine, and the babies heart rate is good."  They just would not listen!

Durring this time my best friend was in  Mexico.  She called me one day and suggested that I go to the hospital and tell them I was bleeding and that they would give me a sono.  At first I was aginst doing so, I didnt want to lie.  As the weeks passed and my concern that somthing was wrong continued to grow, they continued to ignore me.  I decided to do it.  I was going to be heard, I needed to be reassured that my baby was ok.

I went into the Labor and Delivery and told the nurse that I was spotting and wanted to see a doctor.  They examined me and found that I was dehydrated and gave me an IV and scheduled a follow up sono just to be sure a week later.   The sono lasted 1hour and 45 minuets and when I left I knew that my daughters left leg had 3 breaks and that she had a skeletial displaysia.

They told me that a skeletial displaysia was another way to describe a bone deformaty or disease.  They also told me that they couldnt tell me what disease she had because there were over 400 different kind of displaysias, however she did tell me that she suspected Osteogenesis Imperfecta.  When I asked her to repeat the name for me she told me that she could not tell we because there was no way to be sure till Isabella was born and they could examine her.  I went home knowing that all I could do for the next 9 weeks was worry and wait.

They had me come back every 2 weeks for aditional follow up sonos.  They were all usually 1 1/2 hours long.  Each time they found new fractures.  Isabella was due on Friday December 24th (Christmas Eve) but because she was breech they did a c-section a week early.  All went well with the dilevery.  After her dad was sure that I was ok he went to check on Isabella.  I was so scared.  It took her forever to cry and when she did it was not a normal cry.  She sounded so... I dont know how to explain it.  Her cry was so high pitched and she sounded hurt!  

Her dad came over to me with the bigest grin on his face and he said she is PERFECT.  She looks ok.  She is so beautiful.  They showed her to me but only for a second and they took her away to do test.  When the doctors came to me in the recovery room I just know somthing was so wrong.  The doctors said that Isabella had Osteogenesis Imperfecta.  I looked at my husband and at that moment I knew that that is what the lady had told me when I got the first sono.

The doctores continued to explain what OI was and that there were 4 formes and that our daughter had one of the 2 worst types and only time would tell which form she had.  He told us that in his opinion she had the worst form and that she probably would not live past 48 hours.  He said that she had 10 fractures in utro and they had broke 2 of her bones when they delivered her.  WHAT!  My baby had 12 broken bone and was not going to live for more than 48 hours!  I felt so helpless!

Isabella was taken to the NICU and was 2 days old the first time I got to see her.

Under Construction

check back soon for more of Isabella's Story!