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| A MOTHER'S STORY |
| This is my story of my premature daughter named Tiffany Ann. Tiffany was born on May 22nd, 1996 in Charleston, WV. She was 3 months early and weighed 1 lb. 11 1/2 oz. She was 12 inches long, and, by the grace of God, breathing on her own with a little help from an oxygen tent. The doctors said her chances weren't good because she was also badly dehydrated. They didn't believe she would live the first 24 hours. That is the worst thing a new mother can hear and I was so sick that I could not even see my baby. I begged and begged to see her. I wondered second by second if my baby girl was still living and what she looked like. I wondered, are they doing everything they can for her? Why did God let this happen to my baby? I thought God was a loving God. Where is He now? Is she alone and scared? Is she cold and hungry? What did I do to cause this to happen to my baby? Why couldn't I die and let her live? Why? Why? Why? I hated God for what He did to my baby. I didn't understand why He was doing this to Tiffany. All through the night I was sending my husband to NICU to keep an eye on Tiffany and bring me back reports. He was continually bringing me something back. Once it was one of her tiny diapers, then her little sun glasses for when she went under the heat lamp, and even one of her little blood pressure arm cuffs. As the next day finally dawned, Tiffany was still living which amazed all of the the doctors. They told us that Tiffany had a very strong will to live which was good. The doctors were still trying to convince me that she wasn't going to make it out of the hospital alive. There was one thing after another that they were telling me that Tiffany was dying of. First it was dehydration, then leukemia, fiber myalgia, bowels undeveloped, cystic fibrosis. Then they needed to put a central line in because her little veins were collapsing. It was bad news after bad news. On the third day after my surgery, I was very excited because I was finally going to get to see Tiffany Ann for the very first time but I was also being released from the hospital. The nurses only let me see Tiffany for about 20 minutes and then I had to check out of the hospital. My parents and brother came to get me at Charleston, WV from Mineral Wells, WV which is about a 1 1/2 hour drive. I was going to stay with them because I was still sick and very sore from my surgery. The hardest day of my life was leaving Tiffany in the hospital. My heart broke into a million pieces. I felt so empty. It was like I was abandoning Tiffany and would never see her again. The nurses assured me that they would call and update me daily at 1:00 p.m. I waited every day by the phone. Sometimes they would forget to call me at that time. I'd call them then. My parents tried to take me to Charleston every other day. Dad was working 40 hours in a factory and traveling for 3 hours every other night was hard on him. After a week of recuperating I had to go to Charleston and start really bonding with Tiffany and not just visitng her. Tiffany and I had never had a chance to bond like a full term baby and mother do. Having had a premature baby I feel as if I have missed a lot of something. A lot of people take for granted their normal healthy babies and their childhood. I treasure each and every moment of Tiffany. A day doesn't go by without Tiffany knowing how much I love her and how much I thank god for her life. You know, I use to hate God because of this but I don't any more. I'm too busy praising Him for having His healing hands on my daughter. I was so far from God that it took this to turn my life around. Later I learned that maybe this wasn't God doing this but maybe the enemy. Maybe I was blaming the wrong person. Whoever did it, good came out of it and I'm so grateful for it. I often wonder what it would have been like if God didn't allow me this opprotunity to go through this miracle with Tiffany. On July 14, 1996 at 10:00 at night Tiffany was finally released from the hospital. She weighed 3 lbs. 13 oz. when she was released. They normally don't release babies until they weigh about 5 lbs. Later I found out it was because they believed they could do no more for her. More or less they sent Tiffany home to die. God had a different plan for Tiffany. She was sent home on an apnea monitor which I had very little knowledge about. This is a machine that was supposed to let me know when she quit breathing or when her heart would stop. The first week we had approximately 30 alarms. Evey time the alarm would go off we had to stimulate her. I called the monitor place about all the alarms. They told me that there was no one that could help me right then but from past experience. with that many alarms, that a lot of them were probably false. Later that same day, Tiffany had to be taken to the hospital because she was going into one alarm after another. She started not to respond to my efforts and was turning blue. I thought we had lost her. My mom and dad called for an ambulance and for our preacher and some of the church family to come and pray for Tiffany. The preacher anointed Tiffany with oil and we laid hands on and prayed for her. Immediately the monitor quieted down and Tiffany started getting her color back. The ambulance finally arrived. The next day the monitor people came to the hospital to check the monitor and all the alarms. He told me that it was a good thing that I didn't ignore any of the 30 alarms because there were no false alarms among them. If I had relaxed my guard and missed taking any of the alarms seriously, Tiffany could have died. The next day Tiffany was released from the hospital with an in home nurse that came every day to check her and was on call when ever I needed her. The hospital signed us up with Early Intervention and Right From the Start. All of this was supposed to have been set up when Tiffany was released from Charleston but it wasn't. Finally we were getting some outside help. A couple of months later Tiffany was finally out of the woods enough where she didn't need the nurse any more. By then we had workers from Early Intervention coming twice a week to help me deal with some of the issues and to work with Tiffany on some physical and growth skills. They kept an eye on everything from her eating habits to her emotions. They were a big help to our family. When Tiffany got older and stronger they had a physical therapist named Sharon Lindsey working with her. She taught Tiffany to sit, crawl, walk and worked on her low muscle tone. Another lady who came to the house to help Tiffany with her speech, fine motor skills and low muscle tone was named Angie Williams. These two ladies were the answer to a lot of prayers and we owe them much. |
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