Going down memory lane......9 years ago......

About 5 days old--I think--this was the first time I got to hold him in the NICU



still in the NICU--probably a few weeks old---every few days the nurses in the NICU would take pics of the babies and add holiday themes and borders to kind of cheer up the moms.....he's wearing a preemie sized onesie and it's still big on him.... 4 1/2 pounds.....


2002--what a year! I had a difficult pregnacy. I had to quit work in the 6th month and put on bedrest. My blood pressure was steadily going up at each dr visit. I went in for a weekly visit on December 3 and my dr sent me over to the hospital. I was in early stages of pre-eclampsia.The plan at that time was that they would take the baby in a few hours. Once I got settled in at the hospital they gave me meds to bring the blood pressure down and another to help the baby's lungs develop-we weren't due till February.But the magnesium worked in bringing down my blood pressure and they decided to wait it out and keep me pregnant as long as they could. We settled into my room-the hubby slept on the hard,lumpy,hospital couch every night. The nurses got a kick out of his snoring. On December 12,after coming in for early afternoon rounds,my dr decided that today would be the day. Hubby had just left to go home to get ready for work,so we had to track him down and I called my sister. They wheeled me into the o/r for an "emergency" c-section. They gave me an epidural,but something went wrong and it didn't work fully,so they had to put me to sleep for the process. Zachary was born at 1:27. He weighed 4 1/2 pounds. Sometime during the procedure,I stopped breathing and they had to intubate me. So,when I woke up,I was in ICU with a tube down my throat.That is a creepy feeling when you wake up and are trying to breathe on your own. I had a great nurse that calmed me down and helped me learn to let the machine do the work. I was in ICU for 2-3 days,I think. Zachary had to be on oxygen for a few days. After I got settled back into the normal hospital room after my stint in ICU,I finally got to see my son. He was so tiny. I wrote some predictions down in my diary and I tried to guess what his weight would be. I weighed a little over 2 pounds when I was born,and the hubby weighed 6 pounds--I kind of figured that our son would be somewhere in the middle of that and believe it or not,I wrote down 4 1/2 pounds. I was in the hospital until December 20th. We had to finish the nursery. It wasn't close to being ready. I think I should have rested more,but that's life. One of my sisters and her husband came over to help us paint the nursery.Her husband was the one who had the great idea of setting us up on a blind date. Sadly,he passed about 3 years ago-I miss BIG JOHN. He used to be an EMT.--and he took one look at me and nagged us all day saying that I should be back in the hospital. My little feet were swollen up to the size of loaves of bread. I was having trouble breathing when I would lay down,but we didn't know what it was. He scared my husband,so he ushered me into the e/r later that afternoon. After alot of tests and lasix drips,they admitted me into the CICU (the cardiac icu)-at first they were saying I was going into heart failure.But it turned out to be lingering affects from the pre-eclampsia and blood pressure related fluid retention. I was so scared to go to sleep that night in the unit. One of the nurses creeped me out and all I could think about was those true crime stories about nurses that kill their patients LOL. I tried to keep my eyes open all night LOL. I was in there for about 3 days and got to go home late on the Christmas Eve. I lost over 30pounds in just fluids.Because I had been on bed rest and in the hospital for so long,I didn't get to do much Christmas shopping. My sister (2nd mom to me--Zachary calls her GRANNY) brought tons of things for us and the baby. Zachary was still in NICU-he was having problems learning to suckle a bottle. We had tried pumping when I was in the hospital after he was born,but I never did get more than a few ounces at a time-and after the 2nd hospital stay they put me on heavy duty meds that wouldn't be good for a baby,so I couldn't breast feed. I found some preemie nipples and he took right to them. I went up to the hospital every day to feed him and hold him. He got to come home on January 5,2003--Exactly one year to the date that we lost our first pregnancy to m/c. Zachary is our miracle baby. He got to come home when he was about 6pounds. He came home on a baby apnea machine because several times in the NICU,he held his breath. Talk about nerve wracking--that machine drove us crazy.We would sit there and watch it blink and watch him thinking "BREATHE-BREATHE" before the alarm goes off LOL. We had a stressful few weeks while he was on that thing. I was so glad when we got to give it back to them. I can't believe it's been 9 years. It feels like it has gone by entirely too fast. Zachary is an inquisitive,challenging,smart,busy little boy. And we are so blessed to have him in our lives.