Instead of Dear Kaci this month...

I decided to sit down and write something really personal to us. I took my mother to have an endoscopy done of her throat today(she is okay by the way If you want to know more about that please don't hesitate to ask) But she had the procedure at Vanderbilt in Nashville and while I was waiting for her to come out of the procedure I decided to take a little stroll over to the Childrens Hospital next door where Kaci had her surgery. I got a little emotional to say the least. Walking through the doors really had an impact on me since it had been so long since we had to make that journey up there. I got to thinking that I really hadn't shared the complete story of how we found out that Kaci was going to have to have surgery and since this blog is for Kaci in the future I feel its only right that since we are coming up on her 3rd birthday that I share this on here for her to read in the future so she would know exactly how is happened and what she went through.

Well for those who don't know I had a seemingly routine pregnancy. I was sick a lot of time and I got hypertension there towards the end of the pregnancy but other than those things we had a few scares as far as Kacis health while she was still inside my belly. Now I won't get into all of that here but if you go back and read there is actually a letter to Kaci when we found out she had a white spot on her heart and cyst on her brain at 20 weeks old and they said those were markers for Trisomy 13(which is fatal) or Down Syndrome. Of course we all know she turned out to have neither but looking back it was of course terrifying to think something could be wrong but little did I know that was not the end of our journey with health issues. I had a pretty hard labor it was 23 hours and 1 minute long and oh how I wish I could go back and opt out of the medication they gave me. The whole day was like a haze up until it was time to push then it became a euphoric type of haze the really really good kind that you want more of. Of course its the kind you only think the really good drugs can give you as well but boy was I wrong. Not that I have done a whole bunch of drugs but lets be honest I had an interesting youth lol...but let me tell you having Kaci was the single most amazing feeling on the planet. Nothing tops it. That moment when she came out was like I was floating and when I heard that sweet cry whew I was a gonner. She instantly hooked me and her daddy and to this day she still has us wrapped around her little finger. Now once she was out she scored a 9 out of 10 on her apgar which is great especially since she was 2 weeks early. She was a healthy 7 lbs 0 oz and 19 &3/4 inches long born at 7:01pm on May 1st of 2009. Everything seemed so wonderful at the time I never remember once feeling like something was wrong that first day. She breast fed like a CHAMP was peeing and pooping just fine and wasn't spitting up. The next day the pediatrician came in to see us. Said she looked great but she was looking a little jaundice. He said it was nothing to worry about and if it didn't clear up on its own then there are ways to handle it when the time comes. I had seen many of my friends babies go through jaundice so it wasn't something I was all that concerned about. I remember the nurse telling me this day that Kaci spit up a little bit of blood the night before. Now, I had an interesting feeling my stomach when she told me this. I pressed the nurse for more info and the nurse chalked it up to having swallowed the amniotic fluid in my belly and it may have had some blood in it. At that moment I felt really uneasy about that comment. I had never heard of a 1 day old baby spitting up blood and it being normal. I trusted my nurses and doctors and tried to push the feeling aside because she was doing great. She didn't spit up anymore blood and was doing great and still eating wonderfully. I really enjoyed breast feeding. I know that some people thought it was weird and didn't understand why I went through all the trouble I did when formula is of course the easier option but I just thought nursing was the most natural and healthy thing I could do for my baby and boy did it turn out to REALLY be the best thing for her but more on that in a moment. I had to be hooked up the magnesium for 24 hours after delivery due to my blood pressure so they held me for another 24 hours after that just to observe so we went home on Sunday May 3rd. Boy was that a trip. First of all let me back up by saying that I did not know that I would be having her 2 weeks early. I thought I had at least 2 more weeks to prepare for her arrival so I had no installed the carseat and I had NO clue how to put a car seat in and neither did my husband. When we were leaving the nurse, who was super rude, literally told me I could not have my baby out of her arms until that car seat was in the car properly. Leave it to my good ol mom to save the day of course and she politely snatched my child out of the nurses arms as soon as the car seat was in. That woman was seriously lucky I was so swollen and could barely walk cause I wanted to come across her head numerous times throughout the 3 days we were there. When we got home things were normal. But, something felt wrong. I couldn't shake this weird feeling in the pit of my stomach that something was just not right. I told my mom that night when we got home and she of course said that all new mothers feel like that and I know they do but I always felt like my feeling was a real "something is wrong" feeling. That night is when things started to show. It always struck me as really weird that she was perfectly fine and eating great until the night we got home from the hospital. But anyways she wouldn't really eat much that night. I cried and cried trying to get her to latch on and things were going so perfect nursing before I never imagined she would stop wanting to latch. I tried every position possible and nothing worked. I tried to pump but at that point I wasn't making that much milk so I barely got anything. My mom and Brandon just watched me struggle and cry and just pray that she would latch but she just wouldn't. The next day after a long night of no sleep we had to go back to the doc to get her jaundice levels checked. We got there and the drew her blood off her heel of her foot and man does that break your heart !! She just cried and cried and I cried with her cause I was EMOTIONAL ! Keep in mind I still feel as if something was not right and I voiced my concerns to the pediatrician...his answer you ask?? FORMULA !!! Me being the naive new young mother I was I didn't argue at that point I was willing to try it because I was exhausted and I knew she had to be hungry. Her jaundice levels had went from I believe it was a 7 to a 12. The doctor wasn't too overly concerned but wanted to see her back the next day to check again. That night again she didn't want to drink the formula and she spit up every time she ate. Of course again it was no excuse but being a young mother I listened to people when they said that was normal. And also you know how babies poop is tarry like the first day or so...well Kacis never changed over to the yellow seedy colored poop that breastfed babies get. I again expressed my concerns to the doctor and they just brushed it off to her not eating a whole lot. The next day was hard. The doctor tested her jaundice levels and it had jumped up to almost 20. So he recommended we go and get her admitted back to the hospital so she could be put under the bili bed lights and it would clear it up overnight. Little did I know the case of jaundice she had saved my childs life. When the doc called to tell us that news I was devastated...my feelings of something being wrong felt even more like they were coming true because we had just left the hospital I didn't want to go back...I just always feel like bad things happen at hospitals so I just had a grim outlook. We checked in at MTMC and I got to have one of the parents rooms next to the nursery and I could go in and nurse her and feed her whenever it was time. Of course the nurses wouldn't let me nurse on demand like I wanted they HAD to keep her on a schedule. Here is where things get bad. Later that night on the 5th we went in for a routine feeding. The nurse told me that Kacis abdomen was distended but not to worry she probably just needed to have a good poop. When I attempted to nurse her and she wouldn't latch on the nurse said we had to do formula because the doctor had ordered her to be fed every 2-3 hours so it was very important that she get the formula in her. When Kaci wouldn't take the bottle for me the nurse asked if she could take over...I allowed her but I stayed right next to her. I assumed she knew was she was doing. The next thing I know I am watching her pretty much force a bottle down my childs throat all the while my daughter is screaming her head off(she was in pain due to her stomach but we did not know that at the time) Then it happened. Kaci started coughing and all of the sudden green bile SHOT across the room from my little babies mouth. All the while this HORRID nurse is still shoving the bottle down her throat. I reached over and pulled the bottle out of her hand and said "excuse me is that normal?" That nurse looked at me and said no maam its not a good sign but we will have to see what the doctor says. I inquired about what it could mean and she would give me NO answers. She then wanted to put the bottle back in my childs mouth and I politely DECLINED. We waited all night for word from the doctor. He took a ct scan of her abdomen and we patiently waited for his results. Brandon and I were in the parental unit room when Dr.Little walked in. He had this terrible look on his face and I knew that my gut feeling that something was wrong had been all to right at that moment. He explained that our daughter had something called intestinal malrotation and that essentially her intestines were twisted cutting off blood supply and that she also had 3 blockages in her intestines as well. I think at that moment it all didn't feel real. This just couldn't be happening to us. Things like this is what you see on tv it cannot be happening to my baby. I fell into Brandons arms and sobbed harder than I ever have in my whole life and screamed something to the tune of "Why is God punishing us...what did she ever do to deserve anything like this??" Of course looking back I know that God was not punishing us nor our baby but at that moment my whole world had stopped and I felt like I had to blame someone. When Dr. Little then told me that Kaci would have to be transported via the Angel Ambulance to Vanderbilt Childrens Hospital to have surgery we were in shock. How did we go from 4 days before that on this amazing cloud with a healthy baby to having a baby that is sick. And he couldn't tell us if she would make it or not. A Ct scan didn't show the extent of the damage whether or not she had half if any of her bowel. From there we walked over to her and held her close for an hour waiting on the Angel Ambulance to come get her. I cried and cried pleading to God to just make this go away make it not be real. Please just take me back to the wonderful haze I was in a few days ago...make this ache in my heart go away. When the ambulance arrived they made us sign some consent forms to transfer her. Up until this point Brandon was relatively quiet. He just kind of stared off into space and I don't think it felt real to him either. He was being so strong for me and for Kaci I had no clue how he was feeling. After we signed the forms we walked in the room to find that they had placed Kaci in an incubator for transfer and she had a million and one wires hooked up to her. They were trying to start an iv in her tiny little arm and thats when it happened...while Kaci was laying there screaming in pain from the needle I looked up at Brandon and I just saw tears streaming down his face...he looked at me in horror and I could tell he was still trying to hold it back. When they wheeled her off we followed her out into the hallway and when she got around the corner from us Brandon fell to his knees in the middle of the hallway of the hospital. He cried and cried and just let it all out and he looked up at me and said " why can't it just be me instead of her?" We stood there for a while I was trying my best to best strong for him in that moment because I knew he had held it together so well for me up until that point I owed it to him to help him through his moment of weakness. When he got done crying he stood up and didn't shed a tear after that. It was like it had been building and he just had to let it out. To this day I haven't shared this moment Brandon had because I know that he feels men aren't supposed to cry but I think back to that moment often remembering the hurt he felt for our daughter and the love he had for her...I fell even more in love with him in that moment just because we are all human. We can only take so much before it breaks us and he broke hard. But he picked himself up and we got in the car and head to vanderbilt childrens. When we got there the doctor explained that she would have to have surgery and how soon we weren't sure. They were shooting for the next day around 2 in the afternoon but if it became an emergent situation they would just take her quickly to the operating room. Of course we signed consent forms for them to do that because they would be responsible for saving my childs life. The doctor recommended we go home and get some rest but we just couldn't leave her that quickly. The NICU was such a depressing place I couldn't imagine her being there in that room all by herself. We stayed till around midnight and finally she was asleep and we went home knowing we would be back there bright and early to await her surgery. My aunt (who is a wonderful Christian woman) was planning to go up there with us to wait out her surgery. The next day we were heading up the hospital it was around 11:30am and while we were on our way I got a phone call...The doc said its become an emergent situation and they were going to wheel her back to surgery before we could even get there to see her once more. A million and one thoughts ran through my head at that moment. What if the night before last was the last night I got to see her alive?? Did she feel loved?? Did she know how much we wanted her and needed her to live?? At this time I won't lie...I was still angry with God. It wasn't moments I am proud of but I am woman enough to admit that I didn't know who to blame and it was so easy to feel like he was punishing me for something. My aunt didn't know I was at a war with myself over those feelings but its like she knew I needed to hear something uplifting. So there in the middle of the car she opened her bible and read me some scripture. Her words were my biggest comfort that day and I don't know if she will ever know just what a blessing she was to me in that time but I will never be able to thank her for just being there to give me the word of God in the moments I needed them the most. When we got there they said they had been back in surgery for about 25 minutes and it could be another couple of hours. We sat and waited ultimately thinking we would be there a long time. Much to our surprise they called our names about 20 minutes later. I was scared. I thought that meant something bad had happened especially since they put us in a room to await the doctor coming in. I thought back to those shows you watch on tv where the doctor has to deliver bad news to the family and I just pictured me being that mom they had to tell had lost her daughter. I know some of this may sound really hard to hear but I am trying my best to be as brutally honest as I can about how I felt. I really thought my child was going to die and I won't lie or sugar coat that one bit. The doctors had told us if they got in there in surgery and realized all her bowel had died there was NOTHING that could be done to save her. Luckily, the doctor did not keep us waiting long. He walked in and I remember him being really hard to get a read on he didn't have much of an expression on his face but when he didn't sit down I had some glimmer of hope that it might have went fine. I had no clue he was about to tell me news that shocked even him. He pretty much said he couldn't believe it but she had not lost one single inch of her bowel. He said he had been doing that surgery many times and he didn't see many cases caught as late as ours was that had the outcome ours did. And boy was she a fighter. He said they thought the surgery would take 3 hours it took him from start to finish 45 minutes. And he expected her to be on the ventilator for 24 hours after surgery and lo and behold when they brought us back to recovery to see that sweet angel she was off the ventilator breathing on her own. It was nothing short of an act of God and I am 100% sure of that. At that moment I could've fallen to my knees with how weak I was...I begged God to forgive me for lashing out at him and I thanked him for continuing to wrap his arms tight around her even in my moment of weakness. I wrote about the next few weeks so I won't get into all that. In the long run I had an amazingly healthy little girl who recovered wonderfully and now at almost 3 years old shows ZERO signs that she went through what she did. She is handful sometimes but I wouldn't have her any other way. She is my hero because in her first 6 days of life she went through more than some people do in a lifetime and she was so strong. I am truly blessed to have this miracle and true gift from God to call my own and I will forever be grateful to him for blessing me with her.