Oh,
Baby!
It
was Thanksgiving Day, 2010. My husband Jared and I sat at the dinner table with
our two rambunctious little boys Preston and Derik. Our sweet newborn, Abby,
was asleep in her car seat on the floor next to us. As I looked at her, I
reflected back to how our family came to be and how lucky I was to be a mom.
The difficulty I had in bringing this little girl into our family was foremost
in my mind. I would never again take for granted the precious gift of life and
how much Heavenly Father had blessed us since I first learned I was pregnant
for the third time.
Unfortunately,
my third pregnancy was cut much shorter than I expected. In the summer of 2009,
at eleven weeks pregnant, I began bleeding and having severe cramps. We were
living in Dongducheon, Korea and had to drive two hours to get to the hospital
in Seoul. It was an emotionally and physically agonizing drive. I was finally
seen by a doctor and was told I had miscarried. My heart dropped and I began to
sob. Jared and I were both devastated. I spent the following months crying myself
to sleep every night. I felt like my heart was in a vice, being squeezed so
tightly it would stop beating. That September, I finally got some medication
that helped my depression and I started feeling better. Although I knew I
couldn’t get pregnant again right away, I was looking forward to the time that
I could.
In
April of 2010, my parents came to visit us in Korea. I was thrilled when they got
there that I was able to tell them I was pregnant again. I was nervous about
having another miscarriage, but was doing well and feeling better than I had in
years. A couple of months later we moved from Korea to Colorado. In July, we
found out we were having a girl. After having two boys, I was so excited to
have a girl. We decorated her bedroom, bought some cute new clothes, and were
waiting with great anticipation for our little girl to come. She was due just
after Thanksgiving. She, however, didn’t
want to wait that long.
In
early October, my feet and hands were so swollen that I could barely use them.
I had to wear braces on my wrists, or I would wake up in the middle of the
night with my fingers clenched shut and my hands bent forward awkwardly, making
straightening them agonizing. I also started having throbbing headaches. One
started on a Saturday night and continually got worse, until by Sunday night it
was excruciating and I couldn’t sleep. I went to the emergency room at Evans
Hospital on Fort Carson Monday morning. They took my vitals and immediately
admitted me. My blood pressure was so high that I was at extreme risk for
seizures. They gave me morphine for my headache, and although the pain was not
completely gone, it was the most wonderful thing that had happened to me in
weeks.
After
a few hours of the doctors trying to stabilize my blood pressure, I was taken
by ambulance to Memorial Hospital. I was put on a medication to get my blood
pressure under control, given steroid shots to develop the baby’s lungs, and
told that I would deliver her no later than when I was thirty-four weeks along.
That was just over a week away. Within hours, my whole world had changed. Although
I was pretty out of it, I remember looking at Jared and seeing that he was
terrified, but trying to be strong for me. I had never seen him, my tough
husband, so scared and vulnerable. He didn’t know if I was going to survive. I
knew my baby wasn’t ready to be born, and wondered what was going to be wrong
with her, or even if she would survive. The medication I was on made me feel as
if I was another person: a person who liked to chomp on popsicles, was hot all
the time, and hated the smell of her husband’s cologne. More than my body
feeling different, I had a new respect for life and how precious it is.
By
Thursday, October 14, the steroids had time to work and the doctors said it was
time for Abby to be born. I was in labor for six hours, but nothing was
happening and the baby was in distress, so I was abruptly taken to the
operating room. As Jared nervously waited in the hall as I was prepped, I silently
prayed that everything would be okay. I immediately had a peaceful feeling come
over me, comforting me. What seemed like hours later, but was actually only
about twenty or thirty minutes, my princess was delivered via cesarean section.
My body was fighting so hard and I was so exhausted. I struggled to keep my
eyes open so I could see my daughter before they took her to the NICU (Neonatal
Intensive Care Unit). I saw her briefly, then the next thing I remember is
waking up in recovery. I remember very little of that day and the next, but
they were spent trying to gain enough strength to visit my darling baby, who I
knew I had seen, but it seemed more like a dream than a memory. As I sat on my
bed trying to eat yogurt, but falling asleep between each bite, I was angry at
my physical weaknesses. I needed to
eat. I needed to sleep. All I wanted to do was hold my baby. I finally
got to see her and hold her Friday night. All I could say was “She is so tiny”
over and over. My baby girl, although only four pounds, two ounces, was one of the
biggest blessings I’ve ever received. Nothing was wrong with her, except that
she was a little bit too small.
I
spent the next four days before I was discharged sleeping and visiting Abby as
often as I had the energy to walk down the stark hallway to the hand washing room,
where the sterile scent of the soap slowly became loathsome to me. From there
we could go into the tiny room where our baby was connected to several beeping
machines, letting us know her heart rate, oxygen levels, and blood pressure,
and feeding her through a tube in her nose. I was sent home, but Abby had to
stay, which was emotionally crushing. She struggled over then next few weeks
growing and learning to breathe and eat on her own, but she was strong and
fought hard. Jared and our boys loved that little girl, but none were as
touched by her as I. She would always be my precious angel. I spent every
minute I could with her, and was thrilled when they told us we could take her
home.
As
my husband and I drove home from the hospital on November 17, 2010 for the
billionth time, I couldn’t help looking over my shoulder to try to get a
glimpse of my tiny Abby in her pink car seat. We were finally taking her home!
After thirty-three days of waiting, we finally had our precious angel in our
cherry red Durango, which had aged hundreds of miles over the last few weeks of
driving back and forth. I couldn’t hold back the joyful tears as I realized how
lucky I was to have my husband and my three amazing kids, and that we would all
be together for Thanksgiving. After all we had been through, our family was
closer than ever before, and I made a vow to never take that for granted again.
