Garrett's story, part 2.

I woke up from surgery and was greatful to be alive. Of course the first thing out of my mouth was how's my baby. He was doing good. He weighed in at a healthy 5 pounds, which isn't bad for being born 6 weeks early. The doctor told me that we had gotten in to surgery just in time. Once they were able to visualize my uterus, they say a window that was half the length of my previous incision.( A window is a thin spot in my uterus wall.) They didn't even make an incision. The doctor said once he got in there, Garrett was looking up at hime from inside my uterus. Then it tore open on it's own and he fell onto my lap. Luckily we were already in surgery so they could control the bleeding and work on Garrett. Every kept telling me that I must have a few guardian angels looking out for us, becasue they never catch a rupture before it happens. My beautiful baby was born on March 3rd, 2007 at 7:03 pm. He was 5 pounds and 18 inches long. He had some health problems, but at this point was doing good.

This is the first picture I got to see of him. They wouldn't let me go to the NICU to see him until morning so I could rest. It is a very daunting thing to see your baby for the first time like this. Everyone is telling me that he is ok, and then to see this just freaked me out. The doctors came down to tell me he was having a hard time breathing so they put him on a ventalitor. They would leave him on that and see how he was in the morning.

They started an IV in his umbilical cord, and kept him on the vent for a few days. He had jaundice for about a week, but once that was behind him we started working on his eating. Babies don't have the sucking reflux until they are about 34 weeks. Since he was born at 34 weeks and had other things to deal with at the time, eating became his last priority. Here he is under the bili lights to help with his jaundice. It was pretty cute that the eye covers looked like sunglasses. The bili lights look like a tanning bed so when you would walk in there would be these naked babies with sunglasses tanning all over the NICU, it was pretty cute. Anyway, his days got better and better, and his eating improved. He had a feeding tube in his nose the entire month he was there. They took it out the day before we left.

They only let the siblings of these babies come into the NICU once to see them. We had brought mikey in about 2 weeks before they let us go home. It was so hard for him to understand. That we had a baby that we couldn't bring home. The day I brought Garrett home, Mikey was asleep when we got home. Here is his reaction when he say me home with his new brother.

He was stoked! It has been a long haul. Garrett for the most part is a healthy 2 year old boy. He has asthma, with chronic bronchitis. He was born with no enamel on some of his teeth, and if small for his age. Last week he weighed in a 22 pounds. I guess my reason for posting his story is this: Nothing in life is guarenteed. I wake up every day knowing that anything can happen at a moments notice that could turn my world up side down. Garrett has defienatly given me a new outlook on life. I am greatful that he chose me to be his mom, and given me the oppurtunity to love him unconditionally. You will never know what a blessing you are to me little boy, but I loved you my whole life. Happy Birthday,

Love mommy.