The staggering statistic is that all the stories either end in the baby dying, or with the baby suffering severe brain damage. It was what we were told in the NICU and sadly it seems it's the reality. I know there isn't much out there regarding full term infants with brain damage/injury of various sorts and what is out there is so so pessimistic and grim. These "odds" are what I fixated on, what brought me so down in the early days.
Lately I can't seem to shake these stories from my mind. Why is Noah so healthy? Why did he defy these odds? Instead of focusing on the "why us" of what happened, I can't help but be devastated for the families that lost their babies to similar injuries. I found the blog of a family whose little girl was born full term on 10/3/08. Just like Noah she was born after a great pregnancy and a seemingly harmless labor. She was born HEALTHY and in no distress. All hell broke loose after they took her to the nursery for her bath, just like Noah. She had severe brain swelling/seizures.....her MRI revealed that the swelling/seizures caused severe damage to most of her brain. The beautiful little girl passed away four days later.
Noah is here and she is in heaven. It's not fair. All the "it's not fairs" that I cried were not worth anything because I have my baby and this poor mother does not. It's so scary that these things happen. So earth shattering, life changing. Before Noah was born I figured if your ultrasounds looked good then there was really no chance that the baby would be born anything but "perfect". I figured when they monitored Noah's heart rate when I was in labor and it was "fine", then he was "fine".
Right now I am so very thankful for Noah and the past year I have had being his mother. I am so heartbroken for these other families that walked in our shoes....but then walked in another pair that thankfully I never had to try on. I will never know "why" or "what" happened and I will never know "why" Noah defied the odds. But what I do know is that I am lucky to be the mommy of this special little boy whose birth changed my views on so many things.
Scared is an understatement when I think of having another baby. We will be trying within the next 6 months. I am no longer naive. I will no longer walk into my 20 week ultrasound clueless only hoping to find out if it's a boy or a girl, figuring of course everything else will be fine. I will be paranoid. I will be terrified. Honestly I am hoping the pain of labor will be my focus instead of the horror that somehow my unborn baby is being starved of oxygen. I think the worst will be when they take the baby to the nursery...my husband will not be leaving the baby out of his sight!!
I know that when I am ready I will "know", that it will fall into place. I just keep reminding myself that the "odds" are in our favor...hopefully this time we will be just as lucky as we were with Noah, just in a different way.
1 comment:
i also naively thought that if my 20 week u/s looked good, the baby will definitely be fine. his brain looked fine then so i would NEVER EVER have guessed in a million years that something like a stroke could happen. i also only focus on the 50% who don't come out of this ok. i pray everyday that in this horribly unlucky situation, that my noah is one of the lucky ones. honestly, i'm a mess NOW and he's not even doing badly. imagine how bad i will get if he does turn out bad. i will really really lose it.
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