The Miracle of Two.
I have always been told that having a baby completely changes your
life forever - For me that would be the biggest understatement I would
ever hear!
After one year of a fairy tale marriage we found out that we were
expecting. Mitch and I were so excited about our new baby and had
many expectations of how our new life would be. Four weeks into the
pregnancy we had already chosen baby names and painted the babies
room. We both were overwhelmed with joy.
Days went by fast but things did not go as well as we would have
liked. Every Dr's Appointment we found something else wrong. By week
eight I had lost my baby. That was heartbreaking. We went on about
life trying to overcome our overwhelming sensation to have a baby
but before we knew it we were pregnant again.
This pregnancy was completely different. I was very nauseated and
by my forth month I had lost 11 lbs. We soon were scheduled to have
a sonogram to see the sex of the baby but we decided that we did not
want to know. We so desperately like the thought of a natural birth,
and we both thought of us holding each other and learning of our new
babies sex together. We felt as if that was the largest surprise in
life and we did not want to take it away.
Days went by and I was still very sick. By my 24th week I was very
swollen, achy and had a hard time making it through my days at work.
My feet and ankles were swollen together and I was miserable. Little
did I know that this was glimpse at what was to come.
On January 8th I had a Dr.'s appointment. Everything was well. By
Jan 10th our world completely turned around. That was a Saturday,
my busiest day at work. I am a cosmetologist and it requires me to
be on my feet all day. I came home more swollen than I had been in
the past.
That night I went to bed with horrible "heart burn". My
husband is a Intensive Care Nurse at a Level 1 Trauma Center and we
both figured that it was just the heart burn that you hear so many
pregnant women having. That night I did not sleep a wink. I sat up
all night eating Rolaids like candy. The next morning I felt better
so I slept most of the day trying to make up for lost time.
That night my husband went to work. The pain in my chest seemed to
be getting worse and soon I began to feel as if I could not breath.
I called my husband around 10:45 PM and told him how I felt and he
told me to call my Dr. I did and the Dr. told me to meet him at the
hospital on the Labor and Delivery Floor. He would have a room available
for me. I felt that this was somewhat strange but at the same time
I was hurting to badly to think much more about it. I felt that I
was not able to drive myself to the hospital so I contacted my husband
and he came home and picked me up from work.
We arrived at the hospital late on Jan. 11th and little did I know
that this was the start to a nightmare that would not end for 4 months
or more. They immediately checked me into the hospital and took my
blood pressure. It was 184/113 . I had no idea what was going on I
just knew things were happening fast. I looked at my husband after
the nurse told him the readings on my blood pressure and he turned
as white as a ghost. This is what I had always feared, I had Toxemia.
My mother had Toxemia and had lost my baby brother to it and she nearly
lost her own life.
My husband was very calm and told the nurses to give me something
to help me with the pain. I later learned that they knocked me out
to keep me from stressing the baby out and to keep my blood pressure
down. I don't remember much more from that night. I later learned
that through the night they ran many test and found out that my blood
platelets were 84,000. They had dropped from 225,000 to 84,000 in
two hours. This classified me as not only having Toxemia but also
having what they call the Hellp Syndrome. To hear this was like giving
me my death sentence. I knew how bad Toxemia was and had watched my
mother struggle with it at a young age and now I had not only Toxemia
but also Hellp Syndrome. How could I survive?
I was told that very few women have this but most women that do
and survive end up having a Kidney and or Liver Transplant. I later
learned that the reason that my chest was hurting was because my Liver
and Kidneys had been shut down for up to 2 days and my Liver was swollen
into my chest cavity, causing me to be short of breath and having
chest pain.
They could not believe that I was still hanging on and as coherent
as I was. I was told that my Dr. was so confused because most women
in my state of being would not be as awake and attentive as I was.
He could not believe that I was able to walk and perform like nothing
was going on be just heart burn.
By 6:00 in the morning of the 12th my platelets had dropped to 60,000.
The Dr. just kept looking at all my test results and kept telling
my husband that the readings did not match what I was doing. Apparently
I have a very high tolerance for pain and I let everything go for
way to long before I called for help. Could they save me and my baby?
At 7:10AM a friend that my husband had gone to school and worked
with came by and pulled my husband into the hall. He told Mitch that
they had a room sat up in NICU for our baby and that they were planning
on delivering soon. He felt that Mitch needed to hear it from a friend
rather than a stranger later. My husband replied, "They can't
take the baby she isn't due until April 17th, 2004!" Shawn tried
to explain that I wasn't doing well and that with the baby inside
me I would never make it. He tried to explain that the baby would
not survive if I did not survive either. Mitch soon came back into
the room and told me what Shawn had told him. Mitch said that he really
did not think that they would take the baby this early and no longer
than he said that the Dr. and three nurses came in. It was 7:45 AM.
I remember the Dr. setting on the foot of my bed explaining everything
to me. He said that there was a 70% chance that the baby would survive
and actually at that moment the baby showed no sign of any stress
at all. He reassured me that I was in one of the top hospitals for
Premature Births and they held one of the highest survival rates of
many hospitals around the USA. He told me that I was very ill and
that they had to act fast. The entire time that he was talking to
me the nurses were prepping me for surgery.
I called my mom immediately and told her. I did not have much time
and in fact only got to tell her that much before I let her go. My
husbands family was out of town and 13 hours away. He called them
and asked for prayers. My biggest fear was that he would be all alone
when he lost me and his baby. Mitch held my hand as they wheeled me
into surgery and kissed my forehead. He told me everything would be
alright and he loved me very much. He said, "the next time I
see you we will have a beautiful baby." All I remember from that
point is being told to take some really deep breaths and soon I was
fast asleep.
Our baby girl was born at 8:01 AM, exactly 15 minutes after being
told that they were doing an emergency C-section. She weighed only
1lb 12 oz and was 12 inches long. My husband was all alone when she
came into this world and they say that he was beaming when he learning
that it was a little girl. I would do anything to be able to see the
look on his face when they told him that his baby was al ittle girl.
She was so small but already had her daddy wrapped around her little
fingers.
I was under for 2 hours before I woke and by this time I was surrounded
by my family and friends. Since my husband worked in the ICU it was
against hospital policy to have me in that unit so they transported
several nurses up to the Labor and Delivery Floor to take care of
me. I was so critical that I had a nurse with me every minute.They
were my angels on earth and I truly feel that they are what saved
my life along with the grace of god.
The first thing they told me when I woke up was that I had a beautiful
baby girl. I asked to see her but they insisted that I had to wait
because my blood pressure was still to high. I soon asked if they
had named her. My husband told me that he named her after her beautiful
mommy. He named her M'Kinley Mae. Mae is my middle name and her Great
Grandmothers name also. It was a strong name with lots of meaning.
He immediately showed me her footprints that they had stamped on his
arm. They were so small but so perfect. Mitch said that it was proof
that she walked all over her daddy since the moment she was born.
Soon my platelets dropped to 6,000. They told me that anything less
than 5,000 was incompatible with life. The Dr. came in and told me
that the baby was doing wonderful but mommy was fading fast. Over
the next day they gave me 2 ten packs of blood platelets and 1 blood
transfusion. Days went by and I kept asking to see my baby but they
kept turning me down. For me everything just kept getting worse and
worse and finally I told the nurse that my last wish was that I wanted
to see my baby. Four days after M'Kinley's birth I finally got to
meet my sweet little baby girl that everyone kept telling me about.
I remember them trying to explain to me that she was very little
and had many tubes hooked up to her. They explained to me that her
skin was not fully developed and that she would look different than
a baby born at term. I said that I understood and that I was ready.
I was still on Magnesium and this made my vision blurry and made me
feel dizzy. My husband wheeled me into the NICU slowly and helped
me scrub in. We then went quietly to the very last room in the NICU,
the most critical room in the unit, and on the door there was a sign
that stated, "MICRO-Preemies Please be very quiet and still.
Babies are very sensitive to light and movement."
I entered the room and looked at my baby for the first time. Looking
at her she looked perfect. I did not notice all the tubes, and discoloration
of her skin or even how tiny she was. She was more perfect than I
could have ever imagined. I then over heard one of the nurses talking
to M'Kinleys Dr. She told him that there was a good chance that I
would not survive and wanted to know if he felt that M'Kinley would
do alright if I held her. He said that he thought she was very strong
and that I could briefly hold my baby. I got to hold her for 34 seconds
and it was the best 34 seconds of my life.
The next several of days were long but I slowly started getting
better. I went home on January 17th but the next several months were
stressful and tiring. On January 20th we got a phone call at 7:30
AM saying that they were going to do heart surgery on our baby and
if we wanted to see her before they did surgery we needed to get there
ASAP.
We flew to the hospital and saw her briefly before she went under.
By this time I was still very week and was still on blood pressure
medications. I was unable to lift myself out of a chair or out of
bed but I insisted on staying there for her. We waited in the waiting
room for around 40 minutes before the Dr. came to talk to us about
the procedure. He said that her lungs were very undeveloped and that
the next several days were critical.
She pulled out very well and the surgery seemed to give her an extra
boost of energy. The next several weeks was very up and down. She
would take 1 step forward and 5 steps back. It was very stressful
and hard. We were able to see her every 3 hours when she would get
to have her diaper changed and get rolled over. This was a new life
for us. It was like we were in a world all of its own. We had to scrub
in and completely cover our clothes with sanitary drapes every 3 hours.
By just a couple of days doing this my hands were scabbed over and
raw. I did not know how I could continue to do this for many months
to come. I just knew that I had to. The skin on my hands was literally
being scrubbed away. One day a nurse noticed my hands and told me
not to scrub them again just to wear a set of sterile gloves when
I was to visit.
The days were long and seemed never ending. Mitch got to hold his
little bundle of joy for the first time on February 17th, 1 month
and 5 days after she was born. He said that it was like a piece of
heaven was cuddled up in his arms and he never wanted to let go.
The next couple of months M'Kinley had RSV, many infections and several
collapsed lungs. We were even told that she might be blind, deaf and
even mentally Retarded. Finally on March 3rd 2004 we received the
best news we had heard in along time, M'kinley got off her ventilator
and was breathing with just oxygen. This was the turn around point
that we were so ready for.
We finally got to start holding her, bathing her and for the first
time actually nursing her! This was such a relief. When we arrived
at the hospital on March 29th we were told that M'Kinley was finally
ready to come home there was just one small thing we had to understand
first. They told us that she would be coming home on Oxygen and 2
monitors that would be hooked up to her 24/7. Mitch already had the
training needed to operate these machines but I needed the same training
in order to take her home.
I agreed to take the classed needed and I also had to get certified
in infant CPR. M'Kinley Mae came home on March 30th 2004, eighteen
days before her due date weighing only 4 lbs 11 oz. M'Kinley came
home healthy with not one thing wrong with her.
She is a very active, healthy baby girl who will turn two in Jan.
I am 21 years old and yes I would agree that having a baby has completely
changed my view on life and life itself completely. I live every day
with no regrets and the knowledge of knowing that in January 2004
at least two miracles were preformed, the life of myself and my daughter.
God has a special plan for us and I will not let anything blur my
vision on accomplishing it. Life is truly a gift that can change in
the blink of an eye, the flash of a car or in my case the birth of
a child.
Brittney Wesley
I would love to hear from anyone with questions or thoughts about
my storie.
You can email me at britty_mae@sbcglobal.net
* M'kinley - 1 month old.
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* M'kinley - 18 months old
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