My Story

I was 24 weeks pregnant and started having some problems. My mother took me to the hospital where my OBGYN was located. After spending all day hooked up to a fetal monitor to check for contractions my doctor told me that they were going to have to transfer me to a hospital that had a NICU because they felt it would be better for me and my unborn baby. I arrived at St. Johns late on November 7, 2006. When I arrived there were tons of nurses and doctors, they thought I was going to have my baby right away. Seeing all of the doctors and nurses really started to scare me....Did they know more than what they were telling me? I was in the delivery room for about 3 days before they moved me to my own room. They had me hooked up to an IV that was pumping medicine to stop my contractions and they gave me a series of steroid shots to help my baby get stronger. The doctors were telling me that I was going to have to stay in the hospital on bed rest until I had my baby. My baby wasn't due until late February 2007, which was 16 weeks away. I really was confused as to why this was happening. I did everything the way I was supposed to do during my pregnancy. After the first week I kept asking the doctors if I could go home because I couldn't stand being in the hospital. The doctors kept saying "Do you understand that if you have your baby now at 24 weeks there's a big chance that your baby could die or have a handicap?" After hearing that several times I was scared that my baby wasn't going to make it and I had waited so long to be a mother. I spent 2 weeks in the hospital and the doctor finally let me go home on bed rest for Thanksgiving. I was so happy to be at home. I took it real easy at home like the doctors told me and took my medicine (to help stop contractions) every 6 hours. On November 29th I started cramping again. I didn't want to tell anyone because I didn't want to go back to the hospital and I figured everything would be fine and that I was just being a baby and couldn't handle the pain. Finally on November 30th I decided I should go back to the hospital. My contractions were about every 6 minutes and I was 1 1/2 hours away from the hospital. After I arrived at the hospital they hooked me back up to all of the machines and did all kinds of test to check on the baby. They pumped me with medicine to help stop the contractions. The medicine really makes you feel dizzy, you can’t focus on anyone, and it makes you real hot. I couldn’t eat anything because they weren't sure if they would have to do an emergency C-Section, I knew that couldn’t be good for my baby but the doctors said she was fine because they were feeding me through my IV. So you can imagine how upset and aggravated I was….I felt like crap from all of the medicine, I was starving to death because I hadn’t ate in days and I was tired because I couldn’t sleep due to having contractions. On December 4 they took me off of the contraction medicine and said that they would just see what would happen since it wasn’t helping anyway. My contractions slowed down for a bit so my family went home to get some sleep. About 2 hours after they left I started having real bad contractions. The nurses kept saying that I was fine and I wasn’t dilated anymore. They finally gave me a shot of pain reliever….that didn’t help at all. Nathan, my baby’s dad, was snoring in his chair while I was dealing with all of this pain by myself. I was so scared, felt so alone and just wanted to cry. I finally told the nurses that they needed to check me again because I was having a lot of pain. They finally came in to check me and they said the baby is here, it’s time to have her. The room quickly filled with a ton of nurses, NICU doctors, resident doctors and bright lights. Luckily all the commotion woke Nathan up. I had my baby at 2:35 am. As soon as I had her the NICU doctors took her and examined her. I didn’t get to hear her cry because she was still too young. They finally got everything under control with her and they brought her over to show me. I didn’t get to hold her because they had to help her breath. They took her down to the NICU right away. Nathan followed them so we would know where she was. She weighed 2 lbs 1 ½ ozs and she was 14 ¼ inches long. We named her Alexis Nicole. I was relieved that I had delivered her but very frightened because I knew that she was going to be in the NICU for awhile. I felt so scared when I looked down at my baby in the isolette (a see through box/bed to keep the baby warm). She had all kinds of wires on her, she was so tiny and I thought she was in pain every time her little body would jump. It was really hard for me to sit there with her at first because I was so scared for her. Alexis had a blood vessel in her brain that was bleeding from the trauma of birth. They told me that when a premature baby is under stress that it can make the bleed worse. The doctors said it was normal for premature babies but it could cause some problems if it didn’t resolve on it's own. I always asked the doctors what ‘not to do’ and ‘what to do’ for my baby because I wanted to help her as much as possible. On December 8th I got to hold her for the first time. They practiced the Kangaroo hold at St. Johns; you put the baby up against your chest so you can keep her warm. They say that it helps the baby bond with you and it is believed to help the baby’s health. I was so nervous the first time I held her because she was so tiny and I was afraid that I would hurt her. It was the best feeling I had ever experienced, having her so close to me. December 12th was when Alexis reached her lowest weight at 1 lbs 15 ozs. It was really hard having people visit Alexis because they were not aware of what ‘not to do’ and ‘what to do’ for a premature baby and I was afraid that they were going to stress her out and make her bleed worse. I worried a lot about her health. She was on oxygen, had jaundice, had to have a blood transfusion and some other minor problems but the bleed was the scariest thing for me. After about three weeks the doctors told me that her blood vessel was fine and I felt like so much weight had been taken off of my shoulders. In the month of December I had to drive an hour and a half every day to see Alexis. It was well worth it though. I would kangaroo hold her for an hour every day and sit and read to her. The NICU always had alarms going off so I was always so on edge there. It was hard to tell if it was your babies monitor going off or someone else’s. Even though I was always on edge from all of the alarms I dreaded having to leave every time I visited with her. I felt as if I were leaving her by herself even though she had lots of people to take care of her. I also felt like she may wonder why I would leave her and that always made me cry. Finally I found out about the Ronald McDonald house in St. Louis. So in the month of January we stayed at the house off of Grand. It was only about 15 minutes away from the hospital. I felt much happier being that close to her. January 5th Alexis moved to the South end of the NICU. The babies on the south end were much more stable than the ones on the north. She was getting bigger and stronger every day, thanks to all of the prayers. On January 12th, my birthday, Alexis got her first bottle. Premature babies do not know how to eat so it’s a real accomplishment to eat from a bottle. She did really well at taking her bottle. Every milestone was great but some of them were scary. One of the scary milestones was on January 20th when they took Alexis off of her oxygen. I just kept wondering how they were going to know if she quit breathing. I was so nervous for about a week. After that I guess I got used to it and knew that she was going to be fine without it. January 24th, my dad’s birthday, Alexis got to move in to an open crib because she was getting bigger and could maintain her body heat better. I really liked her being in the crib because I could hold her anytime I wanted to. Before I could only hold her once a day because they didn’t like getting her out of the isolette to much because she would get cold easily. I went to every class that I could to learn how to take care of a premature baby. On February 2nd they told us that we could take her home on the following Tuesday. I was so happy but so scared all at the same time. They were going to send her home with a heart monitor. Nathan and I were trained briefly on how the monitor worked. February 5th I roomed in with Alexis so if I had any questions about taking care of her I could ask the doctors before I brought her home. She didn’t sleep much. February 6th I brought Alexis home weighing 5 lbs 2 ozs and she was 19 inches long. It was the scariest drive of all times. I was all by myself and had an hour and a half to drive home. “What if she quits breathing?” I kept asking myself the whole way. I was so relieved when I pulled up in the driveway. It was so nice having her at home and being able to hold her without all the alarms going off. The first month was pretty scary because Alexis still had some problems choking when she ate. When she choked the heart monitor would go off because she would have a heart rate drop. It was always nerve racking to feed her. I never knew how tired I could be after having a baby. She was up every three hours to eat. It would take her 30 minutes to an hour to eat. Then I would have to fall back asleep, which took some time. Anytime she would move or make a noise it would wake me up. I didn’t get much sleep but Nathan snored every night like nothing had changed. After 6 months the doctors took Alexis off of her heart monitor. That was another scary milestone because I was scared that she would have a heart rate drop while I was sleeping. In June she started rolling over and in August she got her first tooth. Alexis is almost 11 months old and she now weighs 22 lbs and is 31 inches long. She has already passed up some kids in her normal age group and she is alot bigger than kids in her adjusted age group. Some people act like Alexis should be doing certain things at certain times but they don’t take in consideration that if she were born on her due date she would just now be 8 months old. I think she is doing great and she is the joy of my life. I thank God every day for blessing me with her and for taking care of her for me when she was in the hospital.