Saturday, January 5, 2013

Welcome to Holland

I remember reading this Poem whilst in hospital, sitting by my babies humidicrib. It is in a special diary, titled Premature Baby Diary, One Day at a time, This diary was given to me as a gift and is one of the best gifts i have ever been given, and i would have been lost without it. The Diary is filled with stories of other premature babies journeys and also has pages to fill in with all the dramas that have happened in the babies day and believe me sometimes alot can happen in a day.
This poem I have reread so many times and was so appropriate at the time, I'm not sure of the authors name but it was obviously written by a parent going thru the same experience.

Welcome to Holland - Author Unknown

When u are going to have a baby,
its like planning a fabulous trip to Italy.
You buy a bunch of guide books and make wonderful plans.
The Colosseum, Michaelangelo's David, the gondolas in Venice.
You may even learn phrases in Italian.
It's all very exciting!
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives.
You pack your bags and off you go.
Several hours later the plane lands.
The flight attendant comes and says, "Welcome to Holland"
"Holland"? you say, "What do u mean Holland"?
I signed up for Italy.
But there's been a change of flight plan.
They've landed in Holland and there you must stay
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible disgusting,
filthy place full of pestilence, famine and disease.
It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new books
And you must learn a whole new language
And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met
It's a different place.
It's slower-paced than Italy.
Less flashy than Italy.
But after you've been there for a while and catch your breathe, you look around
and notice that Holland has windmills,
Holland has tulips,
Holland even had Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is coming and going from Italy.
And they're bragging about what a wonderful time they had there.
For the rest of your life you will say,
"Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. thats what I had planned"
And the pain of that will never, ever go away because the loss of a dream is a very significant loss
But if u spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy,
You may never be free to enjoy the very special, very lovely things about
Holland

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Ready or not, here I come

During the next few days I had so many blood tests and scans to decide if the baby should be delivered sooner rather then later.  The Dr's decided to wait and see what my body was going to do.  It was now Friday night and I again suffered from a bad headache and chest pains, apparently my blood pressure was thru the roof, and the Dr was called to look at me, It was about 2 in the morning and he was very concerned about seizures and it was decided I would have an emergency Cesarean in the morning, ifmy blood pressure didnt go down alot with some medication, and of course it didnt.

I remember the midwife phoning Mum and Shane and advising them to come in ASAP.  I can also remember another nurse coming to see me and explain about the NICU - Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, where my baby would go. - I cant remember much of what was said but i do remember the nurse saying that if the hospital were more prepared for me and my baby i would have been able to go on a tour of the nursery then I was asked about what breathing equipment I would like to be given to my baby - ventilator or CPAP machine, this didn't make any sense to me, wouldn't they (the Dr's) do what is needed for my baby, if it survived, I mean geez 25wks is just over half way, what chances does the baby have.  There was so much going on in my room I was so overwhelmed and just wanted to go home and wake up from my nightmare.  I don't think I really knew what was about to happen, Miss S had been in Special Care Nursery so i knew what it was all about, right, no wrong this was nothing compared to her.

It was about 11am now and I was wheeled into the theatre for the cesarean.  At 12.08pm my little girl was born, Miss M.  She weighed 505gm and was 30cm long.  She was tiny, one of the smallest babies to be born at KEMH.  Her skin was transparent and her arms and legs were no thicker then my fingers.  I did not get to see her for 2 days as I was rushed to the Adult Special Care Unit for monitoring.  All I was given was a photo to look at.  I wasn't allowed visitors apart from my immediate family, mum dad etc even my other kids were not allowed in.  I was all alone wondering what the hell was going on.