(...here I continue on with the book for Ada, a chronicle of the first five years of her life from my perspective...)
Chapter Two: Waiting for Your Birth
I mentioned in the last chapter that we got pictures of you
in your first ultrasound, when you were 20 weeks along growing in my
tummy. For 20 more weeks you were in my
tummy, growing a little bit every day.
My tummy got bigger too and you probably got more and more smooshed
inside! Every month or so, daddy and I
would go again to Dr. Nydam’s office for another echocardiogram. She wanted to keep watching your heart as it
grew for many reasons. The more the
doctors knew in advance, the better prepared they would be for helping you
after you were born. But as long as you
were in my tummy, you were safe and protected.
This was a time of a lot of emotions for Daddy and me. We were very excited, knowing that soon we
would become a family of three with a precious little baby to hold in our
arms! But we were also very nervous
because the doctors explained how serious it was to have a baby with major
heart defects. The truth is that we were
kind of expecting that we should have an easier time with this baby, since the
baby that was in my tummy the year before you were born died before it could be
born. I maybe even felt like I deserved
to have healthy baby with no problems. I
wanted God to give me the easy path, and He didn’t. I spent a lot of time asking God why you had
things that were wrong with your heart.
But I also knew deep down that sometimes life just is really hard, and
God helps us through the really hard times.
In the morning of June 14, 2011 I had invited my friend
Marisa over for some hang out time. We
were going to go swimming, but I didn’t feel great, so she brought me some food
instead and we ate a little lunch. I
would feel kind of icky every few minutes, and she calmly told me that maybe
this was the little baby getting ready to be born. Sure enough, I was in labor, but hadn’t even
recognized that myself! I had just thought I was sick from eating at Garbanzo a
couple of nights earlier! I called Daddy who was painting and he hurried
home, and I called the nurse at the hospital to say that I was coming in to
have a baby. My mommy had already
decided that she had better buy a ticket to fly out to Denver from Minnesota,
so she was on the way, and would make it just in time for you to be born.
When we got to the hospital, the doctors and nurses took
good care of me. Daddy was there all the
time too, and we had family and friends in the waiting room, very excited for
you to be born. It was a long day and
long night, but finally at 1:45 in the morning you arrived into the world. Even before I could see you, I could hear
your cry, and I got tears in my eyes. My
little baby was now out of my tummy and into the world, and you were
crying! I was so GLAD to hear your cry,
too, because it meant that you had energy and strength to put up a fight. It was your first time to feel cold air, your
first time to see bright lights, and everything was new. The nurses checked you over quickly, then
swaddled you up and put you on my chest.
Now it was my first time to SEE you!
You were perfect – beautiful dark eyes looking up at me and dark hair on
your head. Your fingers and toes were
teeny tiny and so precious, and you would wrap your fingers around mine. Daddy announced to everyone in the Operating
Room that your name was Ada June, and everyone loved the name. Soon it was time for the doctors to take you
into another room for your first echocardiogram outside of my tummy. Daddy stayed with you the whole time as Dr.
Miller took pictures and watched your heart beating on its own.
Before babies are born, they rely on their mommies to get
them the food and water and oxygen that they need. So this was a huge test for you- we knew that
it was very likely that you would need to have a surgery almost immediately after
being born, but in the hours and days that followed, it became clear that you
were going to be able to skip the first surgery in the series. This was largely because of those holes that
were between your atria and ventricles.
They were wide open and your blood was able to circulate and be pumped
to your lungs. If I remember correctly,
it was also good that you had pulmonary stenosis – this is the narrowing of the
pulmonary artery on your heart. This was
a huge answer to our prayers. Babies are
so very small, and so their hearts and other organs are also very small, so a
surgery on such a small person would be very hard. If there was any surgery in the series of
three that we wanted to skip, it would be the first one, and thank the Lord, we
were able to! You had many doctors
watching over you carefully and helping to advise us and make decisions for
you. The first 24 hours of your life you
were in a part of St. Joe’s Hospital that is called the NICU – Neonatal
Intensive Care Unit. It is a quiet and
protected part of the hospital for babies who are born early or with health
problems and it helps the babies to be safe and cared for.
Daddy was there with you almost all the time, and I came to
visit you when I could. I was in another
room of the hospital recovering and resting, but I was so excited when the
nurses discharged you – after only one day! – to my hospital room! We were now a family of three with a sweet
baby girl who looked like a sweet little angel.
Three days after you were born we were able to go home, together to our
apartment. This was such a relief.
Chapter 3 – Home
Ada, when we brought you home for the first time, we were
delighted! Delighted and scared. It is normal in life to feel more than one
feeling at the same time, sometimes. We
were delighted that we could bring you home, that you were alive and beyond that,
you were healthy enough so that you could skip your first surgery. You cried most of the 45 minute drive home
from St. Joseph’s hospital, so we got our first taste as parents of how to
console a crying baby. Some people say
that mommies just know how to soothe their little ones and calm them down, but
I will say that especially in those first days of your life I was just trying
everything I could. Daddy and I learned
that you loved to sleep with your arms above your head, so even when we had
swaddled you up tight for a nap, you would somehow sneak a hand up by your
face. You were persistent!
You usually slept in a bassinet by the side of our bed, even
though we had another room next door all for you with a crib and the glider
from the Eaves family. Above your crib I
had page after page of messages from family and friends all over the country who
had heard about you and your special heart and had started praying. You had received so many prayers and so many
gifts even before you were born! Your
closet was full of precious outfits and dresses. Since you were born on her birthday, the
grandma downstairs from our apartment brought us a huge box of Pampers
diapers! This was a very special gift
because we knew she didn’t have a lot of money, but she spent her money on
expensive diapers for you, the precious baby we were waiting for! You also share a birthday with my friend
Jessie who made a contribution to your college fund – how fun! She is the one who took the beautiful newborn pictures of you. Many people far and near care for you,
Ada. Friends brought us meals, tasty
meals, which helped so much as daddy and I were exhausted and focused on you!
All was well.
It was hard, though.
And I wasn’t sure if you were okay all the time. We watched you carefully, all day and
sometimes in the night, too. To have
something wrong with your heart is a big deal, and we all knew that. I spent a lot of time worrying because deep
down, I didn’t know if I would know when you weren’t doing well. We knew you were getting less oxygen than
normal, and you couldn’t talk yet to be able to tell us how you were
feeling. We checked on you many times
every night to see if you were still breathing.
It was very hard to relax and trust that God would take care of
you. Sometimes I would watch other
mommies and how relaxed they seemed with their babies and I wished that I could
relax, too. But I knew that I needed to
take care of you and protect you the best way that I knew how.
When you were 6 weeks old, we brought you in to the doctor
for a regular visit. We weren’t sure if
feedings were going well for you or not.
You hadn’t grown very much when the nurse weighed you and looked at your
growth chart, so Dr. Berents, your pediatrician, had us give you a bottle in the
office. It took you 45 minutes to drink
2 ounces of milk. We didn’t have any
other babies, so we didn’t know that that is way slower than normal. What that meant was that nursing and drinking
from a bottle was a lot of work for you and your heart. We were so sad! We were sad that maybe you were hungry but
too tired out to do the work to get the food! So
starting then, I would nurse you 7-8 times a day – every 3 hours or so – and then
we would have a little bottle of milk to give you right away afterwards to “top
you off”, since drinking from a bottle was a little easier than nursing. Also, we would add some formula to the
breastmilk in the bottle so that it had more calories and would give you more
nutrients with less work. Then, after that I would immediately pump so there
would be milk for your next feeding, and then I or we would clean all the
bottles and pump parts. All in all, this
process took about 8 hours of every day, and it was very hard. We kept records every day of the time you
would eat, for how long, then how much bottle you would drink. Day after day, week after week, month after
month.
This continued until you were 4 months old. You had picked up a cold or a stuffy nose and
were having a tough time nursing, so for about a week we only gave you
bottles. After that week, you gave up
nursing, and I don’t blame you – it was too hard for you! Bottles were hard enough! You should’ve seen all the little tricks we
used to try to get you to drink your bottles!
We would distract you with a tiny hand held fan (that also could cool
you off, poor thing – you would get so sweaty from all the work!) and we would
spin your bottle every so often to keep you awake and drinking. I felt the pressure that we needed to get you
to grow. The bigger you were at the time
of your next surgery the better, as it would mean that the surgeon would have
bigger parts to work on. So if you had a
feeding that didn’t go well, we got nervous, and if the next one also didn’t go
well we would get stressed out, again and again. I would go in to a breastfeeding support
group every few days and weigh you, but I would also get so sad and scared when
you wouldn’t grow.
But half ounce by half ounce you did grow! We had a party when you were 10 pounds – on September 6th, and by the time of the surgery you
were 12 pounds. It was only then- when
you were 5 months old – that Dr. Nydam mentioned her amazement that you had
breastfed to 4 months old, longer than any of her patients with the same heart
anatomy. I felt… proud? Maybe.
You got as big as you could, and then when you leveled off and weren’t gaining
any more weight, Dr. Nydam said it was time for the surgery – the Glenn.
No comments:
Post a Comment