Launched into Motherhood
If you haven’t heard by now… we are matched with a baby and have brought her home! While we wait to officially become a finalized family I thought I would share the story of how this miracle entered our lives and how so far jumping into motherhood (and parenthood in general) has not gone exactly how I imagined…
On March 2nd (the day after my birthday) our caseworker called me with a potential baby. Born as a safe-surrender and a little premature, with a known diagnosis. We were given a few details about birth mother and asked to pray and think about it. I called Chris and we dove into what her condition entailed and then unanimously decided to move forward.
At this point Chris was struggling because his first thoughts were “why am I here, when my baby girl needs me at the hospital?” I was still guarded, unsure how the safe-surrender cases worked and still wounded by last summer’s mis-match. We talked with the birth mom’s caseworker and gathered a little more information and she clarified some questions surrounding baby and she mentioned about 5 other families had been contacted as well. We told her we were interested in talking with doctors to get a better picture and clarify any medical questions we had. I still wasn’t committing to the idea of being “mom” especially when 5 other families were contacted.
The birth mom case worker called me again the next day to finalize our hospital meeting details and told me where to meet with her, the timeline of the afternoon and that if we gave the green light we would be acting as parents for this baby moving forward! It finally started setting in… we would be the deciding factor for this baby… wow!
Chris and I arranged things with work and 2 days later we were on our way out to meet this baby! The drive out there was the same direction we had taken last summer and so our anxieties were high, I kept watching my phone and counting down the time until we made it to the hospital, praying not to receive a phone call. We made it, waited in the lobby, met with the caseworker, checked into the hospital and made our way up to the NICU floor.
We scrubbed in and were introduced to this sweet baby girl, tears instantly filled my eyes as a nurse asked me if I wanted to hold her. I sat down and she gently placed this baby I had been praying for my entire life, into my arms AT LAST! I fell in love the instant I met her.
We were then ushered across the hall to meet with all the doctors and specialists that had been working with our baby the last 2 weeks, they gave us an abundance of medical information as well as all of the unknowns of this diagnosis. To say it was overwhelming was an understatement. They all left and the caseworker asked how we were feeling, Chris broke into tears and she gave us a moment alone. This was our baby, we both had no doubt, but the amount of information was so much that Chris’ body had to release. We talked about how it felt like we were destined to be this baby’s parents with all the support and resources and flexibility we had as a couple. We brought the caseworker back in and made our decision, we wanted to be her parents. We signed some papers placing us as temporary guardians of her and dove right in to learning all about her medical needs.
The next 20 days, felt like an eternity, some family and friends drove out to visit, but we felt so far away and isolated from our very large support system! Sometimes I think we wondered if we’d ever make it home and out of the NICU, but my heart really does go out to those parents who are navigating it with months ahead in their journey. We knew we’d be home sooner than later and we focused on loving and caring for this tiny little baby.
There was some difficulty in getting discharged, due to a conflict in receiving her needed equipment for home. But we eventually made our way back to our home and our pup! That first night was rough, she let out a cough and then her lips started to turn blue, we were able to stimulate her back and the rest of the night we were up with an inconsolable baby. We saw her pediatrician the next day and after explaining our eventful evening, were admitted into our local NICU. For the next week and a half we had her being monitored and while there she had a G-tube surgically inserted, I will make a whole other post advocating for babies with feeding tube needs and how we’ve had to navigate this lifestyle as parents.
We spent 3 days home before she had an event where she stopped breathing again! We rushed her to the children’s ER where we (with our pediatrician’s guidance) wanted to get her tested for seizures. The ER docs didn’t feel like we were describing seizure symptoms but admitted us into the general pediatric floor. Over the weekend we learned that her body was doing what it needed to prevent choking on her spit-up/reflux, but her brain was delayed in remembering how to breathe. She was placed on a reflux med, we switched to a different formula and we were given parameters for when to bring her back into the ER: more frequent BRUE events, events lasting longer than 30 seconds, behavior/physical changes following an event.
Over a month home and we didn’t experience any other BRUE events and began acclimating to life at home as a family of 3. Chris went back to work, home-healthcare made regular visits in Physical Therapy, Nursing and Occupational Therapy.
The Sunday after Mother’s Day weekend, we found ourselves in the ER again, from having an event Saturday and 2 Sunday afternoon. She had a cold and was struggling to pass the excess mucous. I read in our baby book, that NICU babies have a higher likelihood of ending up back in the hospital within that 1st year, every single time we’ve had to bring her back in I feel like I’m failing her in some way, which is completely untrue but as a parent you really do try to do everything that’s right for your little one
The rest of May was filled with watching our baby grow physically and developmentally. I think because of all the warnings of the possible set backs and delays from her birth condition, whenever she does coo, smile, chuckle, grab objects, holds head up, moves body equally on both sides, tracks objects and people, we get really excited because there’s always the slight possibility that she won’t do them.
She is just now starting to sleep through the night (about 5-6.5 hour stretches) and we are learning so much about being parents to a newborn but also parents to a child with extra medical needs. We still wait to finalize our adoption but are so beyond blessed to have finally met our baby; Schuyler (“Skyler”) Faith
