curve balls...

4 | 20 | 13

The day that began the biggest and most rewarding challenge of my life. I was scheduled to be induced to have our forth and highly anticipated baby. We knew that we were having a girl and my pregnancy had been pretty much the exact same as the other 3, ultra sound didn't show anything abnormal except that she was a little small. All and all everything seemed to be a repeat of my other 3 pregnancies. I was hooked up to all the machines pumped full of pitocin and waited and waited and waited 14 hours until my body was ready. Dr. Jacob was amazing and patient, he even slept in the next room waiting for me to be ready to deliver even though his shift was over a couple of hours before. (Incidentally he almost missed the delivery because the night nurse forgot to tell the day nurse that he was sleeping and to wake him up when I was ready, but luckily he woke up just in time.) It only took a few pushes and out she came....a precious little girl that I had been waiting to meet.

Dr. Jacob cleaned her up and sucked gunk (an official medical term) out of her mouth and set her on my stomach to let the nurses finish the job. She was crying faintly, but not very hard and the nurses continued to try and get her throat cleared out. I watched the nurses and will never forget the subtle change in the nurses face as she went into her worry, let's get this kid breathing mode. She quickly picked up my little baby and took her over to the warmer. Without knowing where they all came from there was suddenly a slew of doctors and nurses in my room, all talking quietly as they crowded around my little baby that I loved so much after only meeting her for a few brief minutes. As the Dr. finished up my delivery all I could do was helplessly watch fighting tears until I couldn't hold them in any longer and within seconds there was a incubator wheeled in the baby was whisked out of my room and Brandon was invited to go with them and that was it. I didn't even know what her name was, all the expectations that I had were gone and I was robbed of all the moments that I had been looking forward to for 40 weeks!!

She was immediately put on a CPAP that was pushing oxygen into her lungs to help her breathe and we kept getting different answers. She would only be in the NICU for a few hours and then she should be back in my room, or she would be there for a few days to a few weeks. I had to wait until my epidural wore off before I was able to see her and that was all I wanted to do. When Brandon came back into my room I asked him if she had name and he said Brooklyn Jane, which sounded perfect to me. It took what felt like forever before I had enough feeling in my legs to be moved and then they wheeled me down to NICU so that I could see my precious little girl. She was really tiny and I watched her in her bed so overwhelmed and hoping that all she was going through would be resolved quickly so  that she could meet her siblings and truly be a part of our family. Because of the CPAP machine I wasn't allowed to hold her, which was torture, so I touched her leg and arm, praying that she knew how much I loved her through my simple touch.

The next few days were a blur going back and forth from my hospital room to NICU, trying to let my body heal, but also wanting to spend as much time as I could by her side. She was weaned of the oxygen fairly quickly and went from the CPAP to high flow oxygen which made it so that I was able to hold her for the first time the night she was born, it was only for a little while, but really meant so much to me.

She was incredibly swollen for the first few days so it was hard to tell who and really what she looked like. She also had a few physical features that looked a little different then the norm so the doctors decided to do some genetics testing. They also noticed in a routine exam that she a very small soft spot and they were worried that the plates of her skull had fused, which shouldn't happen until much later and would cause problems allowing her head to grow. While we waited for the results of the genetics test, which we were told could take weeks, we tried to prepare ourselves for all sorts of possibilities. It seemed like every time we talked to the doctor there was some new diagnosis that it could be. Brandon was really good at googling the big words that the doctors used to give a little more information about what we were dealing with. 

They took an Xray of Brooklyn's head to see if the plates were fused and while the Xray was clear and it didn't appear that her plates were fused, which was good news, the Xray didn't give them all the information that they needed, so they decided to do a CT scan as well. 

The day that I had to leave the hospital, but couldn't take my baby home with me was a really rough one for me. Even though I knew she was in good hands, as any mother can understand, a baby immediately becomes someone that you would gladly give your life for and will forever be a part of you. I remember thinking how hard it was going to be to split my time between the hospital and my other kids (I had no idea what that would eventually mean, at the time she was 10 minutes from my house). 

I think one of the hardest things to deal with during all this time was the waiting. It felt like we were constantly waiting for different test results, it was always going to be just one more day until we had some answers. I remember the day that she had the CT scan, Brandon and I went to the hospital late that night, the same day that I was released. They were going to try and feed her and we could spend as much time in there as we wanted, no matter what time it was. I asked the night nurse if she knew the results of the CT scan. She said that we would have to talk to the doctor in the morning, which I thought was kind of odd, because they had always just looked up that information for me before. However, I just accepted her answer and went on. This was the first night that we really got to spend some quality time holding Brooklyn and it was the first time that Brandon has held her at all. 

I had no idea that the next day.....my world would truly be turned upside down.

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