After delivery.....amazing!

Now that she was here and breathing on her own Dr. Clark came in to assess her and confirmed the Trisomy 18. I still has hope hat maybe they were wrong. I didn't see anything wrong with her except her weight, but unfortunately Dr. Clark looked her over as I held her in my arms and he said that in his professional opinion she was T18. Even though that was a crushing blow I was still on cloud nine and didn't care. My prayers were answered. Everyone that wanted to meet her was able to and the ment more to me than anything in this world. Shortly after Dr. Clark left the nurs asked me if I wanted to give her a bath and I was extatic!! "YES I do!" The nurse brought over a tub filled with warm water and I had rought some bath soap from home because wether she was still born or alive my wish was to bathe my baby. They sat the tub up on the warming table and got her ready fro her bath, but I wasn't able to move my legs due to the epidural, so Joey and his sister began to wash her as I sat helpless beside her wanting to be the person who was going to bathe her. I watched as they gave her her bath almost feeling like I was robbed of the first. I knew she wouldn't have many first's and I wanted to be there and participate in all of them. I think that the nurse saw the sad look on my face so she offered to push my legs apart and sit the tub on the bed facing me so that I could be apart of this special moment. I couldn't have been happier. I gently washed her face, careful not to get any water in her eyes, and I washed that jet balck hair ever so carefully. I think that I cried the whole time, because I never thought that I would get all this much time with her.
After the photographer left,the nurse came in and said with a huge smile on her face and said"let's get this baby to your room and get you two comfy." As they were wheeling us to the room I could hear the nurses with excited voices saying " She's going to be admitted into her room!" I could hear Tammy saying "Take that white bow off the door! We have a live baby coming in here!" I was the happiest woman on earth. She was a miracle. Already beating the odds.
About an hour after we were in the room my nurse came in and asked had she been fed yet and I told her no. She sad that she would be right back. In just a few minutes she came in with a bottle and a premie nipple for her and gave me some advice on how to get her to eat. I took the bottle and rubbed her cheek and sure enough she was eating! She was eating on her own!! She was breathing on her own , eating, peeing, pooping the whole works! I never thought that I would ever be so excited to change a poopie diaper in my life, but I welcomed it!!

The Big Day..........

"Here we go baby!" I said to Joey. He just smiled from ear to ear. I could tell that he was just as nervous as I was, but he tried not to show it. The nurses did the usual thing, strap the monitor to me and checked her for about 30 minutes or so then she removed the monitor straps and told me when I was ready to let her know and she would let me hear her heartbeat again. You see when we decided on comfort care we also told them that we only wanted intermittent heart beat checks, because normally if a baby's heart went into distress they would do a c-section to get to the baby as fast as possible, but in my case since the baby was so sick, there was nothing that they could do to save her life. This way IF she did pass away in the labor process I would still know, but I wouldn't be focused only on that, I could think more positive. It was for my sanity more than anything. If she had passed during labor and I knew when it happened I don't think that I would have been able to handle it. This was better for me and her, less stress. 6:00 came and the nurse came in and gave me an insert pill to open my cervix. She told me that that would probably get me good and started since I was already at 2cm when I came in. So we called Kathy, Rabecca's mema. (our blessing, and level head for this situation) She was on her way home from Atlanta and it was getting late, but she said that she was on her way there before she went home. She came in as they were giving me another insert for labor. A few more hours went by and nothing! This lil booger was on her time and that was it! 11:00pm came and they couldn't give me anymore insert medication cuz I had the max, so we went to get a good old dose of petocin. 2 bags later still in the same spot. 3.5cm, obviously she was not ready for an appearance. I began to get a little uncomfortable so I went ahead and got the epidural...........then went to sleep! I slept for the entire labor. I never woke up until about 6:30am for a "check".....STILL at 3.5cm! She was definitely not coming until she was ready. Some time around 6:45am I thought I'd peed on myself so I asked Joey to call the nurse and tell her I peed the bed, when she came in she said "That's not pee it's fluid. Your water broke." "But I'm not dilated enough." I said. "Don't worry you have plenty of time, you still have a couple of hours at the least before you are ready." WHHEW! I started to get nervous and called my mom and mema's and papa's and aunts and uncles to let them know my water had broke to be listening for the phone. It wasn't even 10minutes I felt like I had to "go to the bathroom" then it got worse and worse and worse, so Kathy called the nurse and said that she thought Becca was coming now. The nurse came in and said "sure enough, let's have this baby!" "NO NO NO not yet. Really right now? " I asked her. She just smiled and said "the doctor is on the way honey, you'll be just fine." It was pure mayhem in that room! There were nurses, doctors everywhere putting the table down. Mema Kathy was taking pictures left and right (thank goodness!). For a reason that I didn't get at that moment, there was such a peace and calmness that came over me and I knew that everything was going to be okay. I was a little scared, but not to the degree that you would think. It seemed like I was watching all this chaos go on around me, but it was in slow motion.
" I need to push" I told the nurse "OK just go ahead when you feel like it" I looked at the doctor standing at the end of my bed. He was just watching, and waiting on her to come. I gave a pitiful, tiny little push. "Come on now you can do better than that. You are not going to hurt her." said the nurse. I took a deep breath and pushed real hard. "She's almost here, a little harder this time" I took a real deep breath and pushed with everything inside me. I looked over at Joey and he was in complete amazement and was smiling saying "come on baby, she's almost here" "HAPPY BIRTHDAY RABECCA!!" said the doctor. "Is she crying...... is she crying?!!" Then I heard the most beautiful sound in the world.......her tiny little angry squeek of a cry! SHE WAS ALIVE!! I heard my baby cry!!!! It sounded like a thousand angels singing to me. I felt the presence of God in that room that day. I began to cry a happy cry and I got to reach down and touch her little body as they took her legs out. I wish I could have put that very moment in a bottle and kept it forever. They took Rabecca over to the weight table and she came in a whopping 3lbs 12oz! The doctors quickly evaluated her. I was trying to look over and see her, but I couldn't. I could hear her squeek a little here and there. Rabecca was quickly wrapped and brought to me. I was holding my baby girl ....ALIVE!!! Thank you God!!!!! I was so in love with her at that very moment. That was all I asked Him for. Just let me tell her I love her Lord, was a prayer that I had prayed a million times during my pregnancy. I must have said it to her 100 times, till her daddy said very softly.."Can I hold her?" "You haven't held her yet?" I asked " No" he said . I immediately kissed her head and handed her to her daddy. I have the most beautiful picture of Rabecca and her daddy. He is looking down at her with such love in his eyes. I believe that is the happiest that I have ever seen him. As we were enjoying all the chaos I hadn't noticed the room of people who were flooding in to meet her. There were all 6 of her brothers and sisters, her grandparents, aunts and uncles, close friends and a photographer who was taking the most beautiful pictures in the world for me to remember this moment. My baby was alive!! She was breathing all by herself, her heart was beating properly, she was responsive, and I was holding her. This was the most beautiful day ever!!!!!

Finally a peace was coming over me.......

I am getting excited for the first time and I am liking it! Our bags are packed, Joey has taken the week off from work and the kids are here at home. Everything is in place. Now it is Sunday the 30th and we are having a breakfast at church that I put together for our youth, that had been on a camping trip, and their parents , hoping to reach some of the families that have no home church. We are small, but we have a huge heart at Skypointe. Everything was going pretty well. Kids were streaming in and parents were staying. It was a great service. During the middle of the worship time I broke down and began to cry frantically. I couldn't catch my breath and the walls of the church seemed to be closing in around me. It was all hitting me at once. This was it. I was going to go and have my baby who's fate was in the hands of the Lord and I didn't know if I would be able to see her eyes open, or hear her cry, or even tell her that I love her just once. It was the beginning of the end to me and I was in a panic. I left the service and excused myself into the back room where Miss Lillian and G'ma Jo and Joey came in to comfort me and reassure me that God was in control and that I needed to trust him. I gathered myself together and went back into the service.
Joey and I had talked about having the church have a special prayer for Rabecca that happened to fall on that particular Sunday. After the service was over Pastor Scott asked those who would to please stay for a very important prayer and to my surprise everyone stayed. He pulled up a chair in front of the congregation and asked me to come and sit down. I did and he told everyone that I was his sister-in-law and that the prayer he wanted to have was for my unborn baby. He asked me to tell what this prayer was for and I couldn't speak, so Joey told everyone that the baby was terminal and gave them a brief, but thorough description of what was going to happen today. After Joey told our story, Pastor Scott asked anyone who was willing to come up front and place their hands on me and we were going to have a mass prayer for Rabecca's life. To my amazement everyone in the church, even people I has never met before came to the chair where I was sitting and placed their hands on me and the baby and prayed like I have never heard people pray before. There wasn't a dry eye in the sanctuary when we were through. These people that I knew and a lot that I had never met in my life were praying for my little girl's life! It was an amazing thing. I literally felt the presence of Jesus in that room. My sister-in-law sat in front of me and held my hands. It was the strangest thing I have ever felt in my life. I felt a calmness come over me and the fear began to leave me. All these weeks of wanting this feeling and now I was finally getting it. When the prayer was over and I began to stand up, people surrounded me and whispered to me that they loved me and that they were going to continue to pray for me and lil Becca. It was an incredible feeling.
I went home and got my things together, got Rabecca's bags and we headed to the hospital. It was so surreal, almost like I was watching someone else walk in the hospital and begin a terrifying journey. I checked in and they took me to my room and handed me a gown. I looked at the nurse and told her that I had my own pj's until the induction tomorrow. "Oh honey we are going to begin the induction around 7 pm tonight." "WHAT? I was under the impression that this would all begin in the morning not tonight. I wanted to make sure the kids and the grandparents could come. This was too early to begin the labor process. " I said. "Nope we are ready to start tonight". Now Joey and I are making phone calls to everybody that we could think of. "Be ready when I call you." We were telling people. "It may be sooner that we thought." We were on pins and needles. I tried everything I could to prolong the beginning of all of this. "I haven't eaten yet." I told the nurse hoping that would buy me a little longer. Well it didn't work. She told Joey to hurry up and go downstairs and grab me something to eat, because at 6:00pm we were going to begin the induction.
I know that the Lord knew my heartache, because for some reason it was gone and all I was , was excited, still a little nervous, but I was excited. Something in my heart told me that it was going to be okay. I listened to my heart..........

I picked her day......

This doctors appointment made me so nervous, because I knew that I had to pick a date for Rabecca to be born. You see we knew the possibility of her being still born or the possibility of only getting a few minutes with her, so at the previous appointment I was told to think about inducing her and that I needed to pick a day. Hmmmmm....pick a day. Thoes words rang throughout my mind, only it sounded more like "You need to pick a day for your baby to die" It sent chills up and down my spine. I know that I was picking the day of her birth, but in my mind I was picking the day she would die. I could'nt stop thinking thoes words. Over and over again. I got down the calendar and decided it would be a Monday, so that the kids could all stay at the house over the weekend and then come to the hospital as soon as labor began to meet their sister. I didn't want to make it for more than a week before her real due date, because she needed all the time she could get to develop thoes lungs and grow as much as possible. "October 1st 2007" I said out loud to Joey. He said "are you sure?" "I am positive."

The next Monday was my last doctors appointment and I went in and talked to the doc about what would be best for me. Should I have a C-section or natural birth. I had already talked to Dr. Clark about this and I guess I more or less wanted to see if we were all on the same page. We were. She said that my best chances at a live birth were to have her vaginally. I agreed and then she asked me if I had decided on a day. I told her that yes we did October 1st. She asked if I was sure and I said yes then she excused herself from the room and came back in about 15 minutes with a lot of papers and said that it was all set. I needed to be at the hospital on Sunday at 3:oo pm. My heart began pounding. I was going to have a baby in 1 week and I was terrified! You'd think that this was my first considering how nervous I was. She alos said that my blood pressure was way up and she wanted me to stop working. I called Tammy when I got home and I asked her to be there and she said she would. I needed all the support that I could get. We called the family and told them our plans so that anyone who wanted to be there could. We wanted to share her with everyone that could come. I began to get that nesting feeling and I cleaned my house from top to bottom at least 3 times that week. I packed my bag and I finally talked myself into packing one for her too. I went to the crafts store and bought hand and feet print molds and 2 scrapbooks. I wanted every momento possible from the hospital. I was beginning to get excited! That was a wonderful feeling. It was something that I had wanted to do from the time I knew she was sick, but I just couldn't .............not until now anyway!!!!! Now I was excited as could be. This was the calm, wonderful feeling that I was looking for. I am going to have a baby in a few days!!! I couldn't wait!!!

My count down was beginning......

Time was beginning to run out for us. I had written a VERY specific birth plan for what we wanted. Things like she was not to be referred to as "the baby", she was to be called by her name, Rabecca. There were to be NO students, only the necessary people, and they were to be informed of the situation before entering the room with us. That was to protect Joey and I from having to explain her condition to every person who entered our room. Rabecca was to be VERY quickly assessed, then wrapped and handed to me. All the vitamin K, weight and anything else unnecessary was to wait until her daddy and I could hold her and whisper to her how much she was loved. It was a very extensive birth plan, but no one questioned it and they kindly obeyed our wishes. Tammy had taken time out of her schedule and toured the rooms that we would be in and showed us where the family could wait close by. As we walked and talked to Tammy in the hospital she knew that our time was very near, only one more ultrasound and just a few more weeks till her due date. As we talked to her in the labor & delivery room she asked me if it would be alright to do a couple of things for me. I said "sure what kind of things were you thinking about?" She said to me" Julie, you are going to be going through a difficult time here in the hospital. When babies are born mothers get a pink or blue ribbon hung on their door, and there is nothing for mothers with a grim outlook, there is nothing available to hang on the door, would you mind if I made you a white bow with a little pink it to show that there was life here and that it mattered no matter how short of time she was here?" I just cried and hugged her and told her that I would love to have that. She also wanted to paint me a tile with a beautiful butterfly on it with her monogram. Then she asked to do a second favor for me. "I know how hard it is to find clothes for preemies , even though she will be full term she is going to be very tiny and I don't want you to have to worry about finding her a dress for when Jesus comes to take her home. Would you mind if I had her one made? I work with a wonderful group of ladies that will do it free of charge." I was ecstatic! "YES! I would love that !" Tammy was truly a God send! She was thinking about all the little things that I would have never thought to do. She was helping me make memories already. I couldn't have been more grateful to anyone! She told me things that I never knew that I had an option to do, like bathe her in the delivery room, stay with her as long as I wanted after she passed, taking pictures for me, getting a lock of her hair, little hand and feet prints in a mold. Things that I can never replace and if it were not for her I would never have gotten.
A couple of weeks later was the last ultrasound. The doctors looked at her very closely, because up until this point there was nothing visibly wrong with her. He told us that all 4 parts of her brain were there and getting the blood flow necessary to function. Well after all that bad news I had been getting Joey and I started clapping and squealing like two little school girls going to the prom! The doc just looked over his glasses and said in a tone I didn't like too well "Do you not realize what the extent of the baby's condition is?" DUH!!! I've only been living it for the last 18 weeks!! I, in a smart a** tone said " Yes I do know what I am facing, but any good news is worth cheering about! This is my daughter and I am happy to hear something besides the tough stuff!" Well I spoke too soon, because a few minutes later another doctor came in and looked her brain over and told us that he wasn't absolutely positive, but he thought she had Dandy Walker Syndrome. Another slap in the face! "What's that I asked?" He explained to me that in the back of her head where her brain was suppose to come together it has a separation in it. It controlled her movement and balance. "It could just be a shadow, but I think I am probably right." CRAP!!!! CAN'T I GO TO THE DOCTOR WITHOUT HEARING ALL BAD NEWS? I was due in 3 weeks and I told Joey no more ultrasounds! It is what it is and I can't put myself through anymore of this! I needed to go home and plan for her birth.