Every doctor visit went smoothly. All the things I was so scared about was just me being paranoid. (Atleast that is what we were told.) The only real even was on Christmas. We were getting ready to go visiting everyone. We stopped at Roberts mothers house to exchange gifts before we were to go to his Grandmother's for dinner. On the way out, I slipped on the steps and fell down 4 steps belly first. We were so scared. I had sharp pains all over my right side. We went to the hospital and they did all kinds of tests. They did an ultrasound just to be safe and calm me down. It was totally normal. No abnormalities and a strong heart beat. Thank goodness, our baby was ok.
My labor was induced Wednesday 2/25/04 because Cody was getting so big. He was full term. I was ok with that because my daughter, Summer, was induced with no problems. After almost 12 hours of hard labor it wasn't progressing like it should. He was so big he was having problems coming down the birth canal. His heart rate started dropping after the second push and everyone started to panic. Then at 6:12 pm he was finally born. A big baby boy weighing in at 9lbs 5 oz. He was 20 1/2 inches long. He was beautiful.
When the nurse was taking him to the nursery to clean him up and check him, he stopped breathing. They had to do CPR to get him back. They asked if we wanted to have him sent to a bigger hospital that was better equiped to deal with neonatal problems. Of course, we agreed. The helicopter came for him within a hour. Our baby boy was going to fly before I did...
Cody made it to the Huntsville Hospital RNICU by 8 pm. He was evaluated and was doing great. They didn't know what was wrong. He was put on a breathing machine through the night. His daddy and Grandfather went to see him and take pictures so I could see him. He removed the tube early the next morning (Thursday) all by himself. He did so good all day that day so they moved him into the NICU. That is where the problems began again. They gave him some medicine to make him relax because of the stress of moving him. He slept most of the night.
Early Friday morning about 4:30 a.m. I woke with the feeling that I couldn't breathe. I started to panic knowing something was wrong with Cody. By 5 a.m. the doctor at Cody's hospital called. He said his condition was declining and if we wanted to see him we should come now. That is words no parent wanted to hear. I couldn't leave because I had not been released from the hospital in Boaz yet. Robert called my mother to come and sit with me while he went to be at our son's side. He didn't even have time to leave for the hour trip when at 7 a.m. the doctor called back with those dreaded words, "I'm sorry, your son didn't make it. We did all we could, but couldn't save him."
The hours after that were unimaginable. We couldn't say anything. We just cried and cried. We wanted to hold him, touch him. Why did this have to happen? We couldn't understand. He was so perfect it just didn't make sense.
It took my doctor till around 10:30 a.m. to release me so we could go see Cody. When we got to the hospital, we got to see him and hold him for the first time. He was gone. Why couldn't heaven wait for this angel? Why couldn't we have more time? Why???
Planning the funeral was harder than we had ever imagined. A parent shouldn't bury their child. A child should live a long happy life. We shouldn't have to do this. We picked out the perfect outfit and blankets for him to be put to rest in. He was purely heaven sent.
We finally recieved the results of the autopsy. They believe the cause of death was Myocardial Infarction (Heart Attack) or Paradoxial Embolism which caused a Myocardial Infarction. We waited 9 months for the results.
Keep the pictures close to your heart,
Our little angels are watching!!!
