Meet Felicity

• Baby Saves

• 10.29.18

Our daughter, Felicity, would not be a healthy, thriving girl if we had not followed Count the Kicks. Starting when I first felt her move, around 20 weeks, I monitored her movement in the morning and just before going to bed. I saw the posters in the doctor’s office and had been educated on how to count the kicks by my OB doctor.
On Friday, November 22, I was at the Ankeny Community Chorus Concert with my husband. Our baby loved music and normally would move around like crazy when she heard music. Friday night though she didn’t move as much as I had thought she would. I counted the kicks that night before I went to bed and we got our ten kicks in one hour. The next day, I counted the kicks both in the morning and evening but it was taking two hours instead of the typical one. Sunday morning, I was having Braxton-Hicks contractions when I woke up, so I wasn’t able to Count the Kicks. We went to lunch after church and before going to a movie that afternoon, I told my husband I needed to go home, lie down and Count the Kicks. I didn’t get ten kicks in two hours, so we called the doctor’s office and went into the maternity triage unit. We fully expected to meet my parents at the movie that afternoon.
The baby’s heartbeat was monitored and a biophysical ultrasound performed. She barely failed the ultrasound test, so the doctor recommended we stay for observation. At 9:30 p.m., another ultrasound was performed and this time we weren’t close to passing. We had to have an emergency C-section. Our beautiful 2 pounds 11 oz girl arrived at 11:24 p.m. on November 24. She was 30 weeks plus 6 days.

There was no evidence that anything was wrong…. The amniotic fluid was clear, the cord was not knotted or wrapped around her, the placenta was healthy. We were told by the doctor that we were within hours of losing her. If I hadn’t counted the kicks, we would have lost our second child (our first was born at 16 weeks due to a subchorionic hemorrhage blood clot).

We were able to take our daughter home with us on January 25 after spending 62 days in the NICU. We feel so blessed to have her. She is such a happy baby!