One unbearable hot day in August of 1999, I jumped into mom's Kia
Sportage, overflowing
with anticipation of finding out what the baby I was carrying
was going to be. I drove to
the hospital and after only a few seconds wait, was taken
right in. the tech began the
ultrasound and to me, all looked good. Another tech
came in and the first one asked her to
take a look. She looked at the baby's picture and told
me, "What a pretty heart." I will
never forgive her for the lie that she looked in my eyes and
told me. They told me they
were almost done, but she wanted to get a doctor to look at
it. Instinctively, this set me to
wondering. The techs kept looking at each other in what
seemed to me, a strange way. I
put all the thoughts out of my mind. When I got home,
my ob-gyn's office had called. I
returned their call and stared at the people that surrounded
me in disbelief. I slowly dialed
the phone and called my mother at work before speaking to
anyone that surrounded me.
She answered the phone almost immediately, and I found myself
not knowing what to tell
her. I knew this wasn't going to be easy for her to deal with.
She was about to take the
news from three aspects. She had played the father roll
in this pregnancy since Kenny left,
so she was as the baby's father, the baby's ninny and a my
mother. As my mother, she
would be pained in another way, as a parent that couldn't
take the pain away from her own
child. There was something wrong with the baby.
They wouldn't tell me what. They told
me just to keep my appointment in two weeks and he would explain
everything. It was
something wrong with the baby's heart and I had to go see
a pediatric cardiologist in a
month. He was at the University of Alabama in Birmingham
and the beginning of
September, we would meet with him.
The two weeks until I went back to Dr. Banach's office seemed like torture.
My heart truly
ached with wonder as to what was wrong with this baby's heart.
Finally, the day arrived that
I had to see my doctor. He told my mother and me that
it appeared the left side of the baby's
heart was not functioning. Thus, an echocardiogram by
Dr. Pearce was needed. This was
enough to devastate me. As we arrived at mom's place
of work, I picked out an arrangement
for the baby's funeral. I went home and started a frantic
search on the internet, reading
everything I could about infant heart problems. But
with no diagnosis, no symptoms, it was
too much to sift through. So for two weeks I went through
the motions, going to work,
hanging out with my friends, while trying to maintain a good
attitude, while in reality, the
worry was consuming me. It was like a cloud of gloominess.
I felt as if the cloud hung over
me and only me, and it was starting to tear me apart.
It was quickly becoming too much. To
look back now, I was beginning to slip into a depression.
We went to UAB and had the echo.
Dr Pearce said that Hunter's left side of his heart was noticeably
smaller and weaker than the
right side. He told me that it could be something he
would outgrow inutero, or be fixed very
simply, or it could be at the severe end of the spectrum.
That would mean possibly a heart
transplant, or a series of open heart surgeries. But
that we would discuss all that later. Go
home and come back in a month. Mom and I went home and
with a little more to go on, went
to the net for answers. We read many articles on what
we found. It was a condition called
hypoplastic left heart syndrome. I found support groups,
talked to other parents. It brought
a lot of hope to me. Suddenly, I had found a little
bit of hope, a little bit of strength in it all.
Another month passed, and my depression eased up a bit. I went
back to the cardiologist.
He told me that it looked to be indeed the worst case scenario.
He diagnosed Hunter with
HLHS. Hunter's ribs were too developed. All we
could do now was to wait and trust in
God to keep the baby safe. He wanted me to be induced
and have the baby in
Birmingham, time was of the essence. And he wanted to
be where the baby was born. I
was to start going to an OB complications clinic for routine
check ups. They would set up
the induction. So I continued to go to Birmingham.
We were to induce on the 6th of
December, at 39 weeks. I tried to tell them we would
never make it, I had never carried to
39 weeks. We needed to induce the day after Thanksgiving
and I knew it. No one would
listen, but mom. So to wait we went........On November
27, 1999, I woke at 9:43 am having
slight pains. I had been moving the night before and thought
maybe it was from that. I
began to pull myself together and wander around the house
looking for my father. When I
found him and asked for his watch, he knew it was time.
By about a quarter after ten, my
mom was here, and we were on the way, with my sister as well.
We got to the hospital in
Enterprise and checked in. Once they pulled my file
and knew there were complications,
they got on the phone with the doctors at UAB. It was
all about to unfold into a whirlwind
nightmare for days and I had no clue. I got my epidural
just a little to late. As soon as I
finally got it, it was time for Hunter to come. It was
a quick labor as it always had been.
But again, something was different from my other pregnancies.
This labor hurt much
worse than ever before.
I felt as if my whole body was being torn apart. I wanted to cry,
I wanted to scream. I
didn't want him to come, he was safe as long as I carried
him. There were no other babies
in the nursery, no other moms, we were all alone. It
was almost an eerie feeling. After
going into labor and delivery at about 11:15 am, Hunter was
born at 12:43 am. He came out
screaming at the top of his lungs. He had a wonderful
rosy color to him. Those things had
never happened with the other boys. I thought that was
my sign, but it wasn't. I didn't get
to see him. They whisked him away without even really
giving me a glimpse. I was left in
my room, paralyzed from the epidural, while my family took
turns sitting with me, as the
rest of them went to the nursery. I begged the
nurses to put me in a wheelchair and take
me to him. They told me the epidural had to go away,
so I could try and stand up on my
own. One of the nurses knew I was desperate to see him.
She went to the nursery and
took two polaroids of Hunter for me. Those are my first
pictures of Hunter. When she
brought them to me, he looked so bad to me. If only
I had known how bad it was going to
get. When she brought the pictures, I was in the room
by myself and I got so sad. I started
to cry. Soon the nurse came in and explained to me that
the life flight was on the way to
get Hunter. They would land at the airport in Enterprise
at about 3:30, they would then
come to the hospital by ambulance and prep him to go.
They would come talk to me,
explain everything, and allow me to see him before he
left. I finally got my wheelchair
after swearing I could walk and almost killing myself.
I stopped at the nursery window to
peek at Hunter and decided I would go smoke a cigarette before
the UAB team got there.
There was a young EMT there that I will never forget. It seemed
so painful for him to see
Hunter like that, with all the tubes and being poked.
He left and didn't come back for a
while. When he left he was crying, when he came back,
he saw me almost in tears, and he
got me into the nursery. Finally, I was getting to see
and touch my baby. After only a few
minutes in the nursery, I began to feel myself falling apart.
I turned and saw my family
looking at us through the window. I asked my aunt to
wheel me out, that was about all I
could take. I went down and smoked a cigarette.
When I came back up, it was time for
Hunter to go, finally. There had been so many
problems. The wing on the plane had
broken and they had to call in another plane from Pensacola.
We had waited and waited,
now it was time for my baby to go to the miracle doctors.
He was almost 3 hours late
leaving, but he was going to go get the help he needed.
I wandered around the hospital all
night, scared and feeling very lonely. Dr. Reed said
after she looked at me in the morning I
could go. I wandered around the empty maternity ward
some more and waited on UAB to
call me and tell me how Hunter was. Finally, at one
am, I called them myself. A nurse
named Christy in the RNICU (Regional Newborn Intensive Care
Unit) told me that she
wasn't exactly sure what the diagnosis was, but they seemed
to think the trip to the cath lab
would fix him right up. He had been stable since he
had gotten there and was doing real
good. He had gotten there later than they expected because
something had gone wrong
with plane #2, and they had a problem with his blood pressure
on the way, but now he was
there and doing good. I told Christy I would be there
the next day, as soon as I could get
there. Finally, I could get some rest maybe. |