The amazing Megan Frazier with her son Eli (2.5) and daughter Elyse (17 mo).
Megan says she loves motherhood and feels like it's all come very naturally for her. Her half brother was born a year and a half before she got pregnant and she feels that helped to prepare her. She was just 20 when she found out she was pregnant with Eli. Her pregnancy was going well and she felt great. At 20 weeks, they learned they were having a boy and were so excited. At 24 weeks, they went in for a check up and learned that something had showed up on Eli's brain during the ultrasound. There were sent to a high risk specialist, had a level 2 ultrasound and learned that her son had suffered a large brain hemorrhage in utero and had a cyst on his brain. They had blood work done to find out what had happened and monitor the hemorrhage. At 31 weeks she was diagnosed with Neonatal Alloimmune Thrombocytopenia (NAIT or NAT) Eli had not inherited her platelet antigens and because of that her body was attacking him as a foreign body. They immediately started Intravenously administered immunoglobulin (IVIG) treatments to hold off her antibodies and allow Eli the opportunity to rebuild his platelets. From 31 weeks to 37 weeks they continued treatment and she delivered via cesarean to minimize the risk of further trauma to his brain. Eli stayed in NICU for 5 days before he was transferred to a children's hospital for MRI then sent home. They were warned that due to the severity of Eli's injury he would have severe developmental and speech delay's and that cerebral palsy was also a risk. Between 6-8 months, they knew that he wasn't hitting his milestones and they started weekly physically therapy through their state's Help Me Grow program. He made great strides and learned to hold his head up. Megan and her family moved to a new county and they decreased Eli's therapy to once a week so they started taking him every other week to the local Children's Hospital for physical and occupational therapy. Eli's brain injury affected the left side of his body leaving him with limited availability to bare weight on his left leg and high muscle tone. At 8 months, he started to experience seizures and was diagnosed with epilepsy and in October he was diagnosed with spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy.
When Eli was 9 months old, Megan found out she was pregnant with Elyse which was quite a surprise. This time she was able to start weekly IVIG treatments at 12 weeks through 34 weeks. At 34 weeks she was diagnosed with preeclampsia and delivered Elyse that day. Recovery from this delivery was very difficult. With Eli's birth she had received 2 blood transfusions and this time she needed 4 and was so sick she was throwing up through her entire birth and recovery. Elyse was in the NICU for 9 days and had a difficulty with feeding in the beginning and needed and Ng tube but she's doing great now. Megan says it's been difficult to adjust to the balancing the care of both Eli and Elyse. Eli is still bottle and spoon fed while Elyse is more independent but still needing mommy time. Megan has struggled with the fact that her body, which was supposed to be the safest place for her son, was also the thing that "gave him the diagnosis" he has. Megan has had a difficult time with the changes in her body but has been able to see that while it will never be the body that she had before she doesn't want to ever to be the person she was before. She's a mother now, Eli and Elyse's mother, and they have given her this body. She says she doesn't love her body every day, but she doesn't hate it every day anymore either.