In two days it will be two years.
I remember how many times I checked
this page over and over, memorizing
each story to figure out if there were
any similarities to mine. When I was
in the hospital, I kept wondering if I
was going to write a PROM story with a
green hyperlink or not.
Yep, it's a greenie.
I'm going to make this somewhat short.
If I was smart and wrote it
immediately, I could give you every
temperature reading, every centimeter
of fluid measurement, every single
detail so you can internalize it and
memorize it and draw your own
conclusions.
But I got lazy and fortunate, and now
it's all just a hazy dream.
It all started when I was 3 weeks
pregnant (I know, I'm a freak when it
comes to charting my menses, so I knew
I was prg. right away), and I had
slight cramping and bleeding. I was in
and out of emergency rooms and
unfriendly/unfeeling doctor's offices.
No one could figure out why I was
bleeding. Everyone seemed to think the
baby wouldn't make it past the first
trimester. Then weeks later, I was
diagnosed with placenta previa, and
suddenly the unknown reason had a
name.
Every two weeks I would gush blood,
and a few times, I would have
debilitating cramps. All the while, I
had twenty-four nausea and vomiting. I
was on Zofran and was committed to
bedrest.
Magically, the second trimester mark
came and the bleeding stopped. I got
the okay to go back to work. The
placenta was in the right place. No
blood, no cramps... days later, my
water broke at 24 and a half
weeks.
My widwife was convinced it was over.
She was crying. The nurses at the
hospital treated me like dirt. The
NICU doctors who consulted with me at
3am when I could barely think straight
were so unhappy. But it didn't seem
right. My husband and I just shook our
heads. Everything they told us sounded
so dreadful, so final, but we both
knew that everything, for some reason,
was going to be okay.
Every day was supposed to be "THE"
day. There was no way I could go 12
hours without delivering, 24 hours, 48
hours, okay a week...two weeks? Try
nine weeks.
After 65 days of hospital bedrest,
squirting out fluid every time I
coughed, laughed, sat up, smiled, I
gave birth to my boy at 33 weeks
exactly -- an emergency c-section, he
was breach, with so very little fluid.
He cried on his own, and they
intubated him right away. 3 pounds 12
ounces.
The first weeks in the NICU are a blur
of my undying optimism. So many nay-
sayers and cynics and skeptics tried
to analyze his problems and give me
the statistics, but all I knew was
that he was alive and amazing.
He had lung damage, a brief spell with
NEC (not a NEC scare--the real deal),
and reflux bad enough to keep him from
going home for 70 days despite being a
decent weight and his various
illnesses being under control.
After we got home, a lil tv show
called "Bringing Home Baby" can fill
in the rest. We're so boringly normal
and happy and healthy. The only issue
we seem to have is that Saki won't
talk aside from "Dada" and the
occasional "Mama," but I hear that's a
blessing in disguise...
In two days he will be two.
http://geocities.com/koriams
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