Three years old already

How did that happen? How can Jaden be three years old already? Wow!

Growing up I always thought my birthday was the most important day of the year. I would start the countdown a month before. Now, I can't even remember how old I am and need to be reminded when it's my birthday. But my excitement has transferred to Jaden's birthday. Each year is an accomplishment and a reminder of how very lucky and blessed we are. In a letter to Jaden Chris wrote "it took you about 10 seconds to take your first breath and it felt like 10 minutes and it probably took 10 years off of my life". It was definitely a difficult time for us.

Although it's hard for me to do it's also a little bit therapeutic for me to recount this story. It's my version of "exposure therapy". The more I can actually let myself remember the details and experience them the less scary it is for me. It was a pretty traumatic time for all of us. Thankfully this story has a very happy ending :)

For those of you who haven't heard this before this is my recollection of the day Jaden was born, and a few days prior.

At the time we were living in Parkersburg, WV and I had taken Anna up to my Mom's for a few days for a visit. Chris came up on July 1st to meet us. We took a ride up to IKEA to look for a few things for our new home (we were closing on our first home in just a week) while Anna stayed with Grandma. Before shopping we had a nice lunch (grown-ups only) with a couple of my friends from college. It was a really nice day. Later, when we returned my Mom was having a birthday party for my sister who just turned 16. While we were visiting with everyone I noticed that I wasn't feeling well. I thought that maybe I had just had too many Coke's with lunch and the carbonation was bothering me. I tried to hang around but I just didn't feel well so, I excused myself to go lay down.

The next thing I remember is waking up around 5 a.m. feeling a little wet. I got up to go to the bathroom and was very nervous. I felt too wet. It just didn't feel right. I thought my water had broken. I totally expected to see amniotic fluid but was completely surprised to see bright red blood and lots of it. I immediately yelled for my Mother and we quickly headed to the hospital.

My Mom is a labor and delivery nurse - this is both good and bad. Good because she is very well trained and knows what to expect, bad because she is very well trained and knows what to expect. It was comforting to be able to go to the hospital where she worked because I was familiar with it and many people knew me already. But, it was completely terrifying at the same time. How could this be happening? I was just shy of 32 weeks. It was still too early to be having a baby. And then with all the bleeding I knew that couldn't be good but I still wasn't sure what was wrong. They were able to determine that my amniotic sac had not ruptured but it seemed as though I was experiencing a placental abruption. (This is when the placenta begins to tear. There is a lot of bleeding and results in a loss of blood to both the mother and the baby and also possibly a loss of oxygen to the baby. Not good.)

They kept me long enough to stabilize me and make arrangements to transport me to a hospital in Pittsburgh that was better equipped to handle a premature baby. The idea was to try to put me on bed rest and slow the bleeding to try to keep me pregnant for as long as possible. I laid in the bed all day praying things would calm down but I continued to have contractions. They had me on some different medications that made me sort of "loopy" and made it hard for me to see. It was sort of an "outer body" experience. I still could not believe this was happening. Soon a resident came in to talk to me about what could be expected with a 32 week baby - rate of mortality, possibilities of complications, etc... Although I had accepted the reality and appreciated her thoroughness in informing me it was really hard to hear. I mean, I had been to all of my prenatal doctor's visits, I took my vitamins, I thought I had done everything I was supposed to - I had NO risk factors for an abruption! - why was this happening?

There wasn't too much time to contemplate this because around 10 p.m. the damn sort of broke loose. I felt the blood coming pretty fast. The resident who was in the room at the time tried to reassure me that it was just "old blood". No way. I knew better. There was way too much. That's when things got really crazy and I sort of lost track of time. I started having contractions really bad and there was no break in between. It really hurt and made me nauseous. This turned out to be a good thing because they gave me Phenergan. Even though I felt okay by the time they got me the medicine I gladly took it knowing that it would make me a little loopy. I was very scared and was grateful for the opportunity to have my reality slightly out of focus. It seemed like everything was in fast forward but Jaden wasn't actually born until about 1:30 a.m. on July 3rd so, I'm not quite sure what happened during those few hours in between.

I remember hearing people talking around me, I remember talking to myself and wondering if anyone could hear me and if they thought I was weird, and I remember being very, very cold and shaking badly. I was grateful for this as well. It took my focus off of Jaden because there was nothing I could do and it was the beginning of my accepting that I had to trust in God and the doctors and nurses who were there to take care of him. It is awful to feel so helpless.

I was told that he was very white when he was born because he had lost so much blood. I believe he did cry at least once but was quickly put on a ventilator.

I was taken back to the room and given lots of warm blankets. At some point I was able to finally rest. I don't remember when or how long it had been but I was woken up and taken to see Jaden in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. I thought I was scared before - it was nothing compared to what I was about to experience. I don't think I can even put my feelings into words. There he was - my sweet baby boy - so tiny and hooked up to lots of wires and machines, there were lights and beeps - it was hard to take it all in.

I at least knew somewhat of what to expect because my sister had been born 12 weeks prematurely and I was 15 years old at the time. But, it's much harder when it is your baby. It was a touch and go kind of week. He ended up needing to be on the ventilator the whole week. He just didn't do well on his own when they tried to take him off. By the end of the week they realized he had developed a staph infection. Once he began receiving treatment for that he began to improve slowly. He was one week old before I was able to hold him for the first time. He stayed in the hospital for a month before we were able to take him home.

Despite such a rough start we have been remarkably blessed in how well he has done. He has been very healthy and has developed completely normally. The only area that he's experienced difficulty in has been speech. He was diagnosed with a speech delay and began receiving services at 22 months old. But one year later and he's doing great. We are thankful everyday.