From early on I had my suspicions that this child would be a girl. I noticed I didn’t have as many headaches, I was way more tired, and I wasn’t nearly as sick as I was with T. We went and had our ultrasounds done to see the baby’s heartbeat and all. I had blood work drawn to check for genetics abnormalities and gender. It took about 10 days to get the results back from that test. I had an appointment with my OB and Seth was off to go with me. My doctor had our nurse call for the test results while we were there. We were nervous and excited to find out the gender. The genetics test wasn’t even on our radar. Then Tara comes to get me and put me in a room. I could tell by the way she looked at me that something was wrong. Stacie walked in and she was shaking. Tara came in right behind her with a box of tissues. Stacie told us we were having a girl! But.....she has a high likelihood of Down syndrome.
Wait. What? Are you sure? Not our little girl. This has got to be wrong. My heart broke as I watched the man I love fall to pieces. He blamed himself because he was the one that had asked to have another child. So naturally he thought he was to blame because if he didn’t ask for another we wouldn’t be facing this. It’s all nonsense. There’s no way we could know this would happen. But, it was happening.
Fast forward to at least one, sometimes two, appointments a month. Lots of visits with the specialists in the city. Countless times of being told my uterus was basically 100. I finally reached out to the Facebook world and asked for prayers. I had many people ask if they couldnprayfor our baby girl not to have Down syndrome. I felt that was selfish. God doesn’t make mistakes. He didn’t give me this child as a punishment or an accident. He gave her to us for a reason and there was no way o was going to ask God to change what He knew I needed.
I hurt in the beginning. My anxiety tripled. At one point I made my best friend, Elizabeth, go with me to the doctor to discuss all of the anxiety I was facing. That was after a visit with the ONE doctor I actually liked at the specialists. He told me there was a chance Faith wouldn’t make it or wouldn’t live long. Something inside of me broke that day. Without Liz going with me to the doctor, I’m. It sure how I would have made it the rest of the pregnancy. It was a dark time. It was a scary time. But, I made it through.
At each appointment the doctors would tell me how I was going to carry this child until 38-39 weeks. That we would schedule a cesarean for that time. I smiled. I knew better. There was absolutely no way my body could or would hold out that long. I knew my body better. lol and behold at 32 weeks I went in for my weekly ultrasound to check Faith’s growth. The ultrasound tech couldn’t find her taking practice breaths. So off to labor and delivery they sent me to have a “non stress” test. Now if you’ve never had one of those, let me tell ya, it’s stressful. You’re amped up and worried because there could be something wrong with this tiny human inside of you.
I called Seth as soon as they told me I needed to go to labor and delivery for the testing. He didn’t answer. I called Elizabeth and told her what was going on and begged her to come meet me. I finally got ahold of Seth and he came up right about the time things got serious. My blood pressure was incredibly high and I was contracting every 8 minutes. Things looked to be progressing rather quickly. So since they couldn’t get my blood pressure down and I was contracting, they called an ambulance. I got to ride it all the way to the hospital in the city. I listened to Eric Church as tears streamed down my cheeks. I was scared.
Seth met the ambulance at the hospital. He rode the elevator up with me & my amazing ambulance crew. We got checked in and they asked me a million questions. Dr. Porter came in to tell me they didn’t want to deliver yet but that I was not going home still pregnant. He expected me to be in bed rest in the hospital until the birth several weeks later. Yeah, that didn’t happen quite like he planned. He left and another doc came in. I had a terrible migraine and they were afraid I would have a seizure or a stroke. They gave me meds and said if it wasn’t better they were taking the baby via cesarean. Thirty minutes later and I still had the migraine. So.....doc said let’s have a baby.
I remember them taking me to the operating room and hooking me up to IVs. I remember there being a radio on or maybe I dreamed that. I remember the epidural guy sucked and I wanted to tell him my last anesthesiologist was much better but I didn’t. I vaguely remember them bringing Seth in and I threw up on him. They started the cesarean and I remember them setting this tiny pink bundle next to me wrapped in a blanket. Seth and I took a photo with us and her. I remember nothing else until 3:30 in the morning the next day when my nurse came and asked if I wanted to go see my baby.
What kind of question was that? Of course I wanted to see my baby. So off to the NICU we went. I shrill couldn’t use my legs much so I was wheelchair bound. I couldn’t hold Faith yet because she needed some special stuff done or something. I don’t really remember. I just remember this tiny pink beautiful thing in an incubator that was enormous compared to her. She looked a lot like her brother did when he was born only on a much much smaller scale. She was at least half the size he was when he was born. She was bitty.
We spent five days in the hospital for me and six days in the nicu for Faith. They were the longest days of my life. I was away from my baby boy and my heart hurt. I was so torn. Mom & Dad brought him up to see me. It wasn’t for very long but my heart needed to have him near me. When we finally got to go home I don’t know that I could have been more excited. I was ready for my family to be together.
Faith Elizabeth came into this world at 9:49pm weighing a little over 4 lbs. She was the tiniest thing I had ever laid eyes on. But boy was she full of sass! She originally had oxygen in and she took it off. They taped it on, she ripped it off. So they took it off completely and let her be on room air. She was a fighter from the start. Everything they said she couldn’t or wouldn’t do....she did. The doctors did scans of her heart, brain, intestines, and pretty much every other part of her. She was perfect. The parts of her brain that we were told were full of excess fluid, well, they weren’t. Her brain and skill were formed different. It was her normal. No life threatening problems at all. She was perfect. My heart was so full of thankfulness. You see, before this I prayed. I believed in God and His amazing works. But, I hadn’t ever experienced them first hand. This was all Him. Every single bit of this child’s life.....it was all God.
Today Faith is just a little over 6 months old. She weigh 8 lbs and is now 21 inches long. She is trying SO hard to be on the move. This busy girl has places to go and people to see. She doesn’t want to be tied down we see a therapist for her every two weeks. We work on muscle tone and find ways to improve her tone. She is doing absolutely amazing.
Talent has taken to being a big brother better than I ever imagined. He loves this little girl fiercely. Being able to watch him become a big brother has been really me of the greatest joys of my life. He knows she has DS and he doesn’t care one bit. He loves his Sissy more than anything in this world. He likes to hold her and cuddle her. He loves for me to wake him up with “sister snuggles” in the mornings. Oh and heaven forbid I pick him up from school without her!
Let’s be real, having two children with special needs is hard. Managing T’s food allergies for the last seven years had been one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. But I look at that struggle and see how it has prepared me for the work I have ahead with Faith. I have learned to step out of my safe little comfort zone. I’ve learned to accept differences and overcome my own fears. I learned through this entire experience just who i could count on and who would be there when I needed them most. I was surprised by some that reached out to me. Some people I never expected to be kind. I learned that people change and I’m so thankful for the friendships I discovered during all of this.
Faith is going to be my unstoppable child. She is not going to ever take “no” for an answer. She is going to be absolutely amazing. I can already see it. We were told she wouldn’t be able to nurse because of the DS....she’s exclusively breast fed. We were told she wouldn’t likely be able to roll over until well after six months....she’s been doing it since month three. This girl is absolutely incredible already. I can’t wait to watch her grow and change. I know the world is going to be a better place because she is in it.
