Wow. It's been a year ago Saturday. A whole year. It's been a crazy year. The whole first two months of your life were spent in a hospital incubator. We had scares of MRSA, isolation, bleeding intestines and not gaining weight. You're still not gaining a lot of weight. You're gonna be a little thing I fear. You're my runt!
I remember being so scared to even be a mom. Then I found out I was pregnant with you. I went to the doctors office and they did some testing. Based on the date of my last period and the level of hormones in my blood, I was six to eight weeks along. So they did an ultrasound, to make sure that everything was okay. My heart fell out of my chest when the doctor told me that there was nothing there to indicate a pregnancy which left them to believe that you were either in my tubes, or I had miscarried. I cried for hours. That was on Wednesday Mar 19. Two days later I went in and had testing run again. They drew blood once more. This time the hormone levels were almost three times what they were two days before. SO, since my OB was on vacation, I was sent down the road to do another ultrasound and they find something. Something that would indicate that you were in my ovary and if they didn't do emergency surgery, it could rupture and it would just be bad all the way around. So I'm sent up to the hospital that my doctor works out of and I'm rushed in for surgery. They put me under, go in to remove you only to find out that there was nothing there, and what they thought was you, was actually a cyst on my ovary. I was either still pregnant, or I had miscarried.
Couple of days later I'm rushed back up to the hospital because I start bleeding. They run an ultrasound and they find that the bleeding is caused from the surgery, perfectly normal and guess what's there...the yolk sac. You were still cells. I was only three weeks along and not the original six to eight weeks like we all thought.
So, then we go back, the doctor puts me on all kinds of vitamins and things and we go on. Well we have a few ultrasounds, your grandpa starts a pool to see who'll be right about your birth date, and is absolutely convinced you'll be born on the 21st of October. Well they come up for a visit, at the same time that we go in to do an ultrasound to find out if you're a girl or a boy. Now by this time, your dad and I have already decided we were going to name you Chance no matter what gender, but the middle name would have been dependent. So I surprise my parents and tell them the morning of, what we were actually doing. They come in and see the ultrasound where the tech tries and tries to find out what you were. When she was getting all of your measurements you were still as everything. Then I just HAD to get up and pee, because I'd drank so much water for the ultrasound, and when I came back into the room, you'd woke up. She thought you were a girl, but try as she might, she could not confirm. Well, your grandpa had been convinced since the time I told him I was pregnant that you were a girl. You couldn't have argued with him otherwise. Well a couple of weeks later we go in and do another ultrasound, this time to make sure blood flow is good and everything else, and the ultrasound tech starts lookin around and low and behold you stick your little butt right to the monitor and show the room that you are indeed a girl!
Well with that ultrasound we learn a few things. I've got problems with blood pressure already and that causes other issues with blood flow through the main artery leading to you. Now this whole time, I'm expecting to be able to feel you moving any time. Most things I've read says I should feel you any where between twelve and sixteen weeks. And I'm not feeling anything yet. Turns out not only was the placenta at the back of my uterus, but my uterus was tilted. Double whammy. I didn't feel you until about twenty weeks. Little did I know that I'd only be able to feel you for another ten. When I really started feeling you good was when my family threw a baby shower for me that I was unable to attend because I had to work. Your Godfather brought back all the stuff and we were opening presents. One of which was a little fishing pole that had a little reel that was a bath toy. You could turn the reel and it would make a loud clicking sound. Well I clicked it and you went ape crazy. It was the first time I really felt you and I did it again and again and again! It was so amazing to feel you wiggling around. Well time went on, I wound up getting put on bed rest because I was toxic and my blood pressure would not regulate. They even sent a home health nurse out to look at me. She did a couple of tests and boom, I was back at the hospital. Coincidentally, my doctor was on vacation! LoL! But I'd gotten to know his associate doctors well in the few weeks leading up to that so I was okay. Oh, one other time before all of this I had been sent up to the hospital to make sure that they didn't need to admit me for Toxemia. Well, this time they admitted me. That was the 19th of September.
The week that ensued is a whole other story in itself that I will get into at a later time. But regardless, Friday morning they came in before I could get into my breakfast really good and told me that after the blood pressure episode that had happened the day before, they decided they were going to take you that day. Man I was scared stupid when they told me that! Holy crap, realization set in, I was gonna be a mama that day. You were coming. Suddenly, I wasn't ready! I was scared to death. You were so early! What was going to happen to you? Would the steroids that the doctor had given me for your lung production worked? I mean, that had only been 2 days before that I'd finished the course. I had a million questions. Would you have any development issues? Would you be normal? Would there be any issues from you being so small? Then I realized, none of the questions mattered. I could ask them all day long, but you were still going to be born that afternoon regardless. I called your grandma and told her. I said "Happy Birthday, you're gonna be a grandma today." She told me later that she was meeting your grandpa for dinner, he was taking her out for her birthday. At the moment you were born, she looked up in the sky and saw a rainbow. She knew at that moment that everything was going to be okay, and that you were going to be fine.
Well, they prepped me for surgery, made the whole bottom half of my body go completely numb, and at 3:47, you were born. And I remember, it was so hard, because I could barely see you for five seconds. They had to immediately intubate you to help you breathe, because you couldn't do it on your own. I couldn't hold you at all. And I remember, I was so out of it from the anesthetic for the surgery that all I could do was fall asleep. When I woke up, it was almost ten o'clock and I was able to go see you. You were so tiny. All I could do was cry. I couldn't even get out of the wheel chair. I wasn't allowed to do too much because I'd just had a pretty major surgery. I sat up there for about ten minutes and made just about every nurse up there cry with me. It was so hard. You were so little. In that moment I felt so guilty. It was my body you were in. I must have done something wrong that you were born early. If I had done this different or that different would it have made a difference? You were so little and so helpless. And in my mind at that time, it was all my fault and I don't think the Pope himself could have convinced me other wise. But whether I felt that way or not, you were here.
A whole lot has changed in a year. You came home after almost two months and there are still moments that I don't think I can do this. But it's strange, because I watch you now, crawling around my living room with the biggest smile on your face and I know, everything is alright. You were meant to come home to me. You were meant for me. One of my biggest fears now is that I will let God down. He trusted your daddy and I enough to be your parents and I hope we can make him proud. My hope is that we don't let him or you down.
Anyway, Happy Birthday baby. I can't believe you're a year old today. Time has flown. Wow. You're beautiful and you have enriched my life so much. I love you.
Mama
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