Our Christmas Miracle

   First off, I cant believe it's been almost 8 months since I've blogged. I have two drafts, but I wont be publishing them now. So much has happened.... I'll give a short recap.... I got pregnant unexpectedly and struggled with that reality for a while, but eventually warmed up to the idea. My brother had a bad motorcycle accident and was impaled by a tree. Dustin quit his job and got a better one... Yeah! My Grandma passed away, that was rough! I turned 29 and Dustin turned 28. My whole family took an awesome trip to Sea World and all the kids loved it! We went to Ventura for Thanksgiving and spent it with Dustin's whole family. And I had a baby 10 weeks early.

So here's how this awesome miracle went down...
   The first week of Dec I was getting to the point in my pregnancy when you're sick of all your clothes cause nothing fits right, getting short of breath from just sweeping the floors and beginning to count down the weeks. I was almost into single digits and getting excited about bringing home a new little man to the family. I was emotional and nesting really early. I had been reorganizing and de-cluttering my house for weeks, almost in a panic. Little did I know what was to come. I started having trouble catching my breath more than I should be at this stage of pregnancy and needing much more sleep. Overall I was just feeling that something was wrong. Monday the 10th I started feeling really light headed and towards the evening I finally sat down and checked my blood pressure, 165/95!!! I layed down on the couch for a couple hours and checked it again. 165/104. A little panic started to set in because with Elliott I developed preeclampsia and had him C-section at 37 weeks. "I'm barely 30 weeks today, I cant have a baby this early", I thought. By then it was ten o'clock at night and I knew I could make my appointment the next morning if I just stayed in bed. Throughout the night my pressure never dropped and was still fairly high when I got to my appt. My doc told me go to triage so he could run a few test and said I could be there a few hours to a few days. I got Elliott situated with Dustin's mom and Dust and I headed to the hospital. I was in good spirits thinking they'll give me drugs for a day or two and send me home. Within an hour of being there my doctor informed me that my kidneys were in bad shape along with having preeclampsia and I wouldn't be going home till I had this baby. My doctor put me on medication immediately and was planning on buying Gibson four to five weeks before taking him C-section. If you think my blood pressure was high before, man did it jump after that conversation. How was i supposed to stay in the hospital for a month or more when I have a 21 month old at home to take care of. Big tears of concern for Elliott started running down my face and I was doing everything I could to hold it together. I calmed myself down just in time for my nurse to start my IV and pump me full of magnesium, which makes you so sick! I maintained sanity through the rest of the day joking with nurses and trying to plan how to take care of Elliott the next month. Luckily Dustin's mom was in town and planned to stay and help as long as she could, my mom was about to have her two week break from school and I had my sister and sis in-law available to pitch in as well. I felt a lot of peace that night knowing we would get through this month and have an early but healthy baby. Wednesday, more tests and ultrasounds took up most of the day and I was starting to feel like a lab rat. Unfortunately my kidneys continued to decline to 35% function and I was told I have stage3 Kidney Disease. Talk of  putting me on dialysis or delivering at 30 weeks began between my doctors. One of the head doctors from the NICU came down and told us that if they decided to deliver Gibson, he had a 95% chance of survival with few complications. At that point I felt like I could be strong and keep him in a few weeks longer...

    The decision was made wed evening that the best thing for both Gibson and myself was to go ahead and deliver him the next morning. At that point I broke down and Elliott was not my worry anymore. I was scared to death knowing Gibson was not even 3lbs. How could he survive this. I knew I could be a fighter and survive weeks of being in the hospital, but I wasn't sure Gibson could. I wanted to take this burden, not give it to him. But it wasn't my choice and the doctors knew my preeclampsia and kidneys would level back out again once I wasn't pregnant. I struggled to sleep that night and prayed so hard that we would both be ok. The next morning my sweet nurse got me up bright and early to allow me to shower before surgery. Of couse to add to the list of complications, I passed out in the shower and smacked my head pretty hard on the floor. They ran me upstairs for a Cscan before surgery to make sure there wasn't bleeding on my brain before they numbed my whole body. I was a total mess!!! From this point on the details are a bit fuzzy and things just moved so fast. They took me into the OR and Gibson Henry was born 2lb 8oz and 15 1/4in long on Dec.13th at 8:53AM. As they held him up really quick for me to look at him, I thought he looked more like an alien than a baby. They quickly put a breathing tube down his throat and took him upstairs to the NICU.

   I laid on the table with my eyes closed and the image of Gibson in my head, just trying breath. I wanted so badly to hear a cry of some sort but knew I wouldn't and just had to pray he was ok. After my doctor stiched me up, he very sweetly told me that my family is complete and if I really wanted to have a little girl, I needed to adopt. I just smiled and said "Dustin and I are already on that page with you". I knew after two miscarriages and lots of trouble delivering two boys I didn't want to do this again. We always wanted three, and secretly I wanted four, but I felt totally at peace knowing we are extremely blessed to have the two that we do. I didn't get to see Gibson till the next afternoon and I still thought he looked like a little alien, but he was my beautiful little alien. He was alive and doing well and thats all i cared about.

   The first two weeks of leaving him in the hospital and trying to split my time between Elliott and Gibson were very emotional and difficult. I broke down crying many times each day and just couldn't breath unless I was at the hospital with Gibson. Too many times I've had to remind myself to eat and find new ways to calm my anxiety, focusing on Elliott helps. It's been just over 5 weeks and I'm not quite as emotional but it definatley hasn't gotten any easier constantly leaving one boy to go spend time with the other. I've had to become a bit numb to how guilty I feel and just focus on getting Gibson home. All his nurses say he is a fiesty little man but so cute. He has pulled his feeding tube out of his stomach and nose many times, and even pulled his IV out of his foot one night before they got it taped down. Just in the last week and a half, he has progressed enough to no longer needing an IV or oxygen. He still has his feeding tube but luckily doesn't pull it out as often. He is up to 4lb 5oz and over 16in long. They just move him to an open air crib instead of his incubator, and when he learns how to eat totally on his own, he'll be on his way home. I know it's getting close with all the milestones he's hit lately, but I'm so scared to bring him home. I'm sleeping as much as I can now while the nurses watch him 24/7 because I know I wont get much sleep the first weeks (or months) when he's home, I'll be watching him breath day and night! I am so thankful for this Tiny Man inour lives and all the love and support from family and friends. WE COULDN'T BE DOING THIS WITHOUT YOU !!!