Happy 4th Birthday!

Yesterday I "reminisced" about the days before Josh was born. I'll continue it here.


We had hoped for even a few more days. What's a few days in labor? The contractions weren't regular so it could happen right? Well it was not to be. They had sent me back to a regular room and we had dinner (not the best idea considering LOL)  Later in the evening they put me on the monitor for a 30 minute check of his heart rate, this was all routine. They noticed that every time I had a contraction, his heart rate dropped. This is called decelerations. They thought that because there was very little amniotic fluid that when I contracted, the cord was getting compressed.  They warned me that this was not good. If it happened 4 times in an hour, we were going to have to deliver. It was about 3:45 in the morning when they decided that this was going to happen. I won't lie. I cried. I was scared. We knew he was going to weigh a little over a pound. We also knew that he only had a 75% chance of surviving. But we did have some science on our side. I had gotten steroid injections as soon as we hit 24 weeks to help strengthen and develop his lungs.


C-section was the only option. This scared the hell out of me. That wasn't even in the plan, but then again none if this was. It was an urgent decision. The prep was fast and in we went. Dave was amazing. As scared as he was he was trying to amuse me at the same time. Josh was born at 4:42 in the morning. They took him away  as soon as he was born. I got the "it's a boy" before he was taken to be worked on. Dave got to see him a few times before me. It would be another 10 hours before I could get out of bed and get to the NICU. What a motivator I tell you!


I wish that no parent ever has to go through what we did. And even this was mild compared to some. There are some babies that suffer terrible brain damage due to bleeding in the brain and some that have issues like CP. We have been so blessed.


Josh is now a happy, healthy 4-year old with a few minor issues that frankly are not all that bad considering where we started.


So


HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOSHUA DAVID HARRINGTON!

Valentine's Day - Not what you think

Today is Valentine's Day. It's truly a Hallmark holiday. I believe you should tell the ones you love that you love them every day - it's nice to get a card or a present, but why today? Do this for me on a day that I am not expecting it... that would be better. Valentine's day has other memories for me.

Having said that, it was today, 4 years ago, that we knew we were going to have a baby at 24 weeks. I can almost remember it like it was yesterday. I had been at John Dempsey for a week already. My water had broke on the 12th. Now for some, this would be okay. This is called PROM (Premature Rupture of Membranes), and there have been some ladies who have had this for months and delivered full-term. I was the worst case scenario, I was already having contractions and had been for a week. The only reason I wasn't was because they had me on meds to stop them. Once your water breaks, they take you off those drugs. It's too dangerous, risk of infection, lots of reasons they do this. So having my water break was the worst news ever. It meant that we were having a baby. If not that day then soon. Once they took me off the meds, it was waiting. It took about 12 hours for the contractions to start again. I had high hopes that it wasn't going to happen and was deflated when it did. That was on the 12th. Dave had decided to stay home that day. There was a storm coming, and he and Arran had been with me all weekend. Contractions meant that I was going to deliver sometime very soon. Of course he changed his plans to come up. By today, we were waiting. They had me on the delivery floor for most of the day but the contractions were still not close or regular so they sent me back to my room. Valentine's day went by without delivering. One more day in utero was a blessing.