Peoria Standard

One family’s NICU experience

After becoming pregnant following a diagnosis and treatment for polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), Miranda Yazvec’s biggest concern was carrying the baby to full term.

During the Lewistown, Illinois, woman’s pregnancy, she continued taking progesterone that was prescribed as part of her PCOS treatment. Progesterone is known as the pregnancy hormone and helps a fertilized egg to implant in the uterus and then helps maintain a pregnancy.

Miranda continued taking progesterone until week 36 of her pregnancy. The hormone was taken as a pill for the first three weeks, but her progesterone level was not where it needed to be to maintain a pregnancy. After three weeks taking it in pill form, Miranda had to switch to injections every other day.

While the every-other-day injections “were awful,” she said, the end result was a baby carried to 39 weeks.

Welcome, baby!

On July 19, 2022, Miranda had a scheduled C-section at OSF HealthCare St. Mary Medical Center in Galesburg, Illinois, and baby girl Ellisen came into the world.

The C-section was necessary because Miranda had given birth to her son, Greysen, by C-section five years earlier. She also had undergone surgery on her ovaries three months prior to becoming pregnant with Ellisen as part of her PCOS treatment.

Miranda couldn’t wait to hold her newborn.

“I was so out of it. I just remember waiting to see her and as soon as I got to see her, they said they had to take her. She was having a hard time breathing,” she said.

After a pediatric team worked on Ellisen, Miranda and her husband, Darrin, were told the baby was having a harder time and they were calling in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) team from OSF HealthCare Children’s Hospital of Illinois in Peoria.

“I was instantly hysterical,” Miranda said.

The NICU team transported Ellisen from Galesburg to Peoria by ambulance, and made sure to keep the parents informed. The hardest part for Miranda was she couldn’t go to Peoria with Ellisen since she was still recovering from the C-section.

“My husband went to Peoria and I had to stay in Galesburg, and the next morning I went there,” Miranda said.

Original source can be found here