NICU day 2

Monday 28, the day started out great the doctors were still very impressed at how well she was doing. I was able to hold her again for an hour, then it was time for me to be discharged I was so ready to be home and sleep in my own bed! We got home and ate lunch when my kids came home, I was ready to get them back on their routine. We played for an hour then it was time for all of us to take a nap. When we woke up the kids rode their bikes for awhile, and we waited for our dinner we ate then got ready to go visit Halle. We dropped the kids off with my mom and we backed out of the driveway and my phone rang, I didn't know the number when I answered I heard the voice say is this Ashley Halle's mom? My heart sank, I started to tear up as she began to tell me to get to the hospital, they we're going to life flight her up to primary's that her Aorta started to close off. The news we had been dreading was here. I just looked at Brandon and said this is not good.
As we got to the hospital I had lost it, I was terrified not knowing what to expect. I got to the room, to my surprise she was 'stable' the doctors we're able to give her the meds that she needed to keep it open. The life flight team were there getting everything ready to go. I was able to ride with her, she was quite feisty they had to sedate her twice during the flight she kept trying to pull the breathing tube out!
When we got to primary's everything started to move very quickly, they pushed me out of the room and made me sign a crap load of papers. When I was finally let back in it was about 1:00 am and they had to do labs, and the Echo on her heart. During all of this Brandon was driving up, my sister was with me so I wasn't alone. When the Echo machine got set up and they started doing it Halle was awake and she kept grabbing the Doppler and the girls hand so they had to sedate her again. Poor girl was so tired. I got tired about 3:00 am and my sister and I went to go lay down in what we call 'the jail' seriously though you would think they would have a nice room to put you in, they don't! I slept for about an hour until Brandon got there and we went back in and got the results of the Echo she has Coarctation of the aorta a hole and only 2 valves (most people have 3) then the random vein in the left ventricle. The most important thing is the aorta the rest is on the back burner.
We went to sleep after this at 5:30 am

NICU day 1

Sunday 27th, Halle was doing so good, better than any doctor could of hoped for she was on room air and 5 liters of high flow. I got to hold her that morning and she loved it snuggled right in and stayed for 3 hours. They eventually went down to 4 liters later that day her echo from her heart came back and it was still looking good, had a few problems her hole in her heart was a bit bigger than expected but the big issue the narrowing of the aorta wasn't there.

We had a lot of company come and see her, so a lot of people coming and going all day, I got tired in the later afternoon and went and took a nap. Mason and Adalyn saw her also Mason is I love with her Adalyn was her normal crazy self, she said hi Halle then she was done, Mason loved to hold her hand he cried when he had to leave and asks everyday if he can come hold her. Brandon got to hold her too,

Everything about Halle!

Okay so I know there are a lot of questions about our sweet new daughter, so I'm going to start at the beginning, it's super long.

I found out extremely early with this pregnancy really with just a feeling, I took the test and was shocked I mean we were trying but I had an over whelming feeling something wasn't right I remember telling Brandon that something bad was going to happen, ( I figured a misscarage) but as we had our first ultrasound everything looked great heartbeat and just perfect. Our second ultrasound at 8 weeks was a different story, she had a cystic hygroma which is like a sac of fluid at the base of her neck, it's a huge sign of down syndrome I was by myself and in shock. I left the doctors immedatly called Brandon and told him I broke down for five minutes then I was good. Down syndrome isn't that bad she would still be my kid. So I was fine family members kept asking if I was okay with the news and I really was. That weekend came and I started bleeding (I do in every pregnancy) so I called my doctor and they rushed me in for an ultrasound to make sure I wasn't miscarring to our relief her heart was still beating but the hygroma had gotten a little bigger. Weeks went by and I had an ultrasound every week, but when I was 14 weeks and a few days I started bleeding again so I went back in that day, by myself i figured it was nothing, I was very wrong! As soon as the ultrasound text started we saw Halle's heart not functioning like it should of been, and her heart and lungs had accumulated quite a bit of fluid around them and her hygroma was bigger than her head. At this point I was just trying to keep it together, and I just looked at the tec and asked if this was one of the deadly chromosome disorders they were talking about, she looks at me and says she thought so. My heart broke but I still held it together, until the doctor came in and gave me a hug that's when the tears came, he sat me down with a box of tissues and told me that most likely that she wouldnt make it the next few days because of all of the fluid. I left and got in my car and just sobbed, I called my husband in a state that I have never been in before (pretty sure I scared the crap out of him.) I calmed myself down enough to drive myself home, my mom was watching the kIds for me and sent me a text on my way home asking me how it went I just replied not good at all. As I walk in the door the tears just came steaming down my face and I told her in between the crying. At that moment I just want the people close to me to know What was going on so I sent out a text to close family members and friends. I do better talking about things than holding it all in, and I didn't want one of them to say something about the pregnancy and then me break down in front of them. I was good for the rest of the day when the kids where around I didn't want them to see me upset. When they would go down for a nap and I was all alone my brain wouldnt shut off so the tears would always come, night times were bad I would wake up in the middle of the night and just sob, Brandon was so wonderful I knew he was feeling the same things I was but he was my support during this time. I had an ultrasound like every other day to basically just to see if her heart had stopped beating. Yeah it sucked not know if I was going to have a baby that day or not. My emotions were every where, one night unmade Brandon tell the kids about how she wasn't going to live with us because she was sick, Mason looked at him and said is she going to live with Jesus? ( just a week before he had asked me about death so I told him that when some people do get sick then they live with Jesus and us anymore) he remembered and totally made is tear up. We decided to do an amnio to make sure of the diagnosis at 17 weeks I was very nervous it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, but I never want one again. 1 out of 200 can get an infection or have there water break, I was one of the lucky ones that had there water break! Yes it broke at 19 weeks we went to the hospital and you can choose to be induced but I was not ready to say goodbye so we went home on bed rest to wait for basically infection to begin, I had to take my temp every 3 hours, the temp never came and my water started to accumulate again by 21 weeks it was back to normal her heart had figured out how to work with its defect and the fluid around her heart and lungs went AWAY! Her hygroma got so small, the doctors couldn't believe it. It seemed everything was going so bad to everything going good. The amnio came back and she had Turners syndrome it's a chromosome disorder, we're she only got one X instead of two(I'll go more into that later) the only other problem she was facing was they thought she had hypoplastic left heart disease the left side was very small they wanted us to go to primary's to see the cardeologist we waited till 24 weeks to go since I knew that if she didn't have problems she could survive outside the womb and we made to the appointment, we saw him and the only thing he could see is a hole in her heart and the right side was dialated(that's why the left side looked so small) but it was functioning, he couldn't see her aorta they way he wanted to so we scheduled an appointment to go back up on Nov 18 I told him I might not make it because usually by then I'm in preterm labor and in the hospital. We made it, besides all of the problems the first 23 weeks it was a good pregnancy contraction wise. Everything was the same it was before but he got a good look at her aorta and it looked good, oh and she has a random vein in the right side of her heart happens in a about 1 in 200 people. So we drove back home that same day, mason wanted to go to school that day so we just went up and back. Saturday nov 19 I went Christmas shopping that day with my mom and almost got all of my Christmas shopping done, about 8 we went to Walmart and I had a tiny contraction and I felt wet I did have to use the bathroom so I just figured I peed on myself! Ha so I ran to the bathroom went and was fine went back to my moms house finished wrapping my presents and then Brandon and the kids wanted a pizza so I went to go get one as I got out of the car gush my water completely broke I had black pants on so I went in grabbed the pizza and ran back to the car. Went home packed for me and the kids and we were off to the hospital. Well I'll skip all of the boring stuff in the hospital for 6 days went my contractions kept coming and going all day Friday till 9 that night they didn't go away consistent at 6-8 min apart until 2 am when they decided to up the pain by 10 and come every 2-3 min they checked me and I was only a 4! At 6 they moved me to the delivery room and they were the most intense contractions ever, coming every 1-2 min and still a 4 I wanted to do a natural birth I just hate being numb it's awful. The nurses told me I had to get one, after a c-section you have a high risk of an uterine rupture and other things so I got one at 9 worst experience ever! With hard contractions one after eachother in a ball hurts like nobody's business while I was in the ball my mom was holding me up you really can't control your body when your in that much pain. During that 5-10 min my blood pressure dropped way down, threw-up from the epidural and got a temp my mom was like I could feel your body get so hot so she was the ond that said check her temp. Then the epidural only worked on one side so I was still having to deal with the contractions she tilted me and it started working I was completely numb couldn't feel a thing!! At the end I thought I felt pressure but wasn't sure and she had just checked me 5 min before and I was an 8 so I just kept it to myself for a few min I told the nurse it wasn't going away but it wasn't bad she checked and said your full there's the head, then a rush of nurses and doctors came in the room they got me ready and my doctor was like oh she's delivering herself so he only needed a small push I literally lifted my head and she was out, she cried!! I couldn't believe it she looked so good. The Nicu took her and got her stabilized and they brought her back to me so I could hold/see her for a min. She was born 11/26/11 at 12:00 at 2 pounds 9 ounces and 14 inches long.