Just another day.......

Tomorrow's my birthday, yay. LOL I hate my birthday. I have for a very long time. Not sure exactly why, i'd just as soon it be anyother day. Friday i'll have 19 weeks clean. Lets skip tomorrow and go straight to friday. LOL Wow, 19 weeks. That's 133 days. That's somethin' to be proud of i suppose. Turning 30, not so much. So i think tomorrow will just have to be Friday and my birthday can just, well, be skipped this year.

4 Years ago.....

4 years ago today, at this very moment, i had been laying in a hospital bed for about 12hrs. 12hrs worth of labor, 12hrs worth of every drug there is to stop labor; which apparently i can't take any of them since they all make my heart want to explode. 12hrs worth of being poked, prodded and hooked up to all kinds of machines that beeped, buzzed, or made funny looking charts. 12hrs to come to terms with the fact that our daughter, this little life my husband and i created, was comming entirely too soon. 12hrs to think i had atleast another day or more. But, that little bitty life inside me had other plans. About 4hrs later, around 4 in the afternoon, my body had one last, hard contraction; and they lost Bitty's heartbeat. It only took a matter of seconds to realize everything that i thought i was prepard for, i wasn't. From that moment, everything became one big blur of blue scrubs filling my hospital room, doctors and nurses from every which direction talking to me, trying to prepare me for what was about to happen. In an instant i went from having a conversation with my nurse, to her sitting beside me as they rushed me to an O.R. diligently trying to find Bitty's heartbeat.
At 4:24pm on November 11, 2007, a little girl came into this world via emergency c-section weighing a whopping 2lbs 15oz and 16 1/4 inches long. She let out one loud cry, then she was whisked away. This wasn't what i signed on for when i got pregnant. We were suppose to have 11 more weeks. 11 more weeks to get things ready. 11 more weeks to decide what our daughter's name was gonna be. But here she was. This wonderfully perfect little person that we created, would now have to fight for her life; and all we could do was stand by and watch.
There is no worse feeling than being told that you cannot touch your baby, because simply put, your touch will hurt them. That their skin is so thin and fragile, even the lightest touch has the potential to cause them great pain. All you can do is sit there, watching their little chest cave in and out through an inclosed isolet.
I don't remember when exactly the first time i was able to see her was. Husband tells me it was after i was out of the recovery room, to me it feels like it was atleast a day later. I'm not sure if it's the incredible amount of blood i lost, the pain medication, or just the sheer shock of what happened that has caused me to not remember, but no matter how hard i try i just can't seem to grasp a time frame on the days that followed. Her lead nurse is an amazing woman, really they all are. When i couldn't bare to look at my daughter, the life i helped to create but that my body had let down, she looked at me and with all the confidence in the world, told me not to worry, my daughter was going to make it. She told me she had be a NICU nurse for many, many years and that my daughter was a fighter. And then she sent me back to my room. Don't get me wrong, all nurses are specially and don't get the credit they deserve, but NICU nurses, those are some of the most incredible people on this planet. If you never get the chance to personally know some or see them in action, i would be over joyed. But if you do, or you happen to run across one, thank them.

11 weeks doesn't exactly sound like a long time frame. To put it in perspective, Bitty's due date was January 27, 2008. I know it still to this day astounds me. But what astounds me more is, every obstacle we were told she would more than likely have, she didn't. The only problems she had were the ones every single preemie has, immature lungs and a heart mummur. We were told that virtually no preemie passes their eye exam on the first test, it's not what you think of when you hear those words; what they check is to make sure their eyes are developing correctly. But she did. Preemies have to go a full 7 days without any alarms in order to be discharged, we were told very few do this the first week they're able. But she did. We were told that preemies born at her gestation rarely come home before their technical due date, she came home December 28, 2007. She weighed a little over 4lbs. Less than a bag of sugar. We were told that most preemies catch up by around 18 months old. She was walking by her first birthday. This little bitty life, this force to be reconded with, came out in a hurry and never once slowed down. She's a spitting image of me and while i don't always know if that's a good thing, her start in life makes me glad she inhareted my stubborness.