Tag Archives: baby

Something is wrong

22 Jan

Right after Oli was born the neonatologist I worked with, that had attended her delivery upon my request, took her over to the warmer to check her out. At 35 weeks there is always a small chance that the baby’s lungs will not be fully developed. Oli’s lungs seemed perfectly fine. She was lying on the warmer, pink and screaming away. The doctor looked her over carefully.

“She looks perfect. Good job Shannon. Let me know if you need anything else.” He smiles at me quickly before washing his hands and leaving the room.

After he was gone the nurse placed her on my chest. I really didn’t notice anything unusual about how she looked at first. After about 10 minutes I did think that it was strange that she wouldn’t open her eyes. My son had opened his eyes right away after he was born. Oli seemed to have hers tightly squeezed shut. I quickly ignored the small nagging feeling in my chest. The feeling that had all of a sudden returned. Sneaking its way through my heart.

Something is wrong with her.

After about a half an hour the nurse took her back to the nursery to clean her up, give her her vaccines and put medication in her eyes. These are things that the hospital does with all newborns. Seth went with the nurse to watch over our new daughter. A little while later he came back and told me that she was a little bit cold so they had placed her under a warmer to get her temperature up. Then he said something that made that nagging feeling grow a little bit stronger.

“The nurse couldn’t get her eyes open to put the eye drops in. She said that she is concerned that her eyes may still be fused shut.” He is looking at me with a significant amount of fear in his eyes.

“What? That doesn’t make any sense Seth. Baby’s eyes stop being fused after about 24-25 weeks. She’s 35weeks! No. They’re not fused shut. They’re just swollen. I’m sure they will be fine in the morning.”

“Well, maybe. But the nurse is going to call her pediatrician right away in the morning to come and look at her. I’m sure you’re right. They’re probably just swollen.” He looks slightly more relieved relying on my medical knowledge of newborns.

Deep down I knew that something was not right with her eyes. I knew that she should have opened them or at the very least the nurse should have been able to open them. I had to ignore those feelings though. I had to make myself believe that she was fine. I went to sleep early that morning after the nurses brought Oli back to the room. But before I did I sent a little prayer to heaven. The first of many prayers for my sweet girl that went unanswered.

Please open your eyes baby girl. Please open them and look at me.

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Fix her

21 Jan

“Once you had put the pieces back together, even though you may look intact, you were never quite the same as you’d been before the fall.” -Jodi Picoult

I used to get so mad when people would try to talk to me about “fixing” her.

They would say things like “You never know what the future holds. Someday they will invent a way for her to see”. I didn’t want to hear any of it. I knew they were just trying to give me hope and trying to get me to see the rainbow at the end of all this but, I couldn’t hear it.

I again, being a –worst-case-scenario- girl, wanted to make myself believe that she would never be able to see. Secretly, this was only part of me.

Secretly, I wanted to have hope.

Let’s face it. I am a nurse. I wanted them to give her some kind of magical pill or hook her up to some kind of machine and fix her. I just wanted so desperately to wake up one morning to a baby with vision. I wanted someone to tell me what her future looked like and that she would be okay.

I had that tiny seed of hope for a little while. Until one day I didn’t.

Until one day the growing list of things wrong with her outweighed any hope I had of her living a “normal” life and the disappointment became too much. Until one day, another doctor, another specialist, another therapist unknowingly squashed that little seed of hope like an insect they didn’t even notice. They never noticed that little seed of hope that I had for her future.

Let’s talk about all of those specialists.

Let’s talk about how to approach new parents of a special needs child. First of all, if you’re the pediatrician delivering devastating news to parents about their newborn, you should probably wait until both parents are present in the room. Not tell the new, already hormonal mommy by herself in the hospital room. You are changing somebodies life forever. You need to be compassionate and gentle. You need to have some kind of emotion.

Also, sometimes parents need a break in between all of the bad news. You can’t just sit parents down with a newborn and give them a 4 page list of everything they think, might be wrong with her. I don’t know. Break it up a little. Give us a coffee break. Offer us some pastries. By this I DO NOT mean send us back into your tiny overcrowded waiting room where we have already been sitting for the past 2 hours. Your waiting room is not that cozy and I do not enjoy your uncomfortable chairs or your rude receptionist. Obviously I’m not exactly sure how this should be approached with new parents. But, I do know this. They way it was done with my husband and I wasn’t conducive to acceptance.

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I Just Knew

20 Jan

“Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, ‘It might have been.” -John Greenleaf Whittier, Maud Muller- Pamphlet

I just knew. You hear that phrase a lot.  Especially from mothers.  “I just knew he was sick.  I just knew that she was in trouble”…  But that pretty much is what happened with my Oli.  Months before she was born, I just knew.  I knew there was something wrong with her.  I was working in a neonatal intensive care unit as a nurse at the time so it was easy for people to blow me off.  I would tell my friends my fear and they would say, “You’re just used to seeing unhealthy babies born.  That’s why you think something is wrong.”  I would nod my head in agreement but, deep down I just knew that something was wrong.  It was only a few days after Oli’s birth that I would remember my recurrent dream.  It’s weird because she is 5 years old now and I have never had that dream again.

I was 32 weeks pregnant when I started having premature contractions.  A trip to the OB/Gyn would confirm the contractions and designate me to my bed for a few weeks.  I am not the best patient in the world.  My husband will attest to that fact.  So after about 2 weeks I declared myself miraculously healed and headed back to work.  And of course, the contractions immediately resumed.  I remember sitting on my bed the day before she was born.  Still having regular contractions, I called my fellow NICU friend and former labor and delivery nurse, Michelle for advice.  I remember saying, “Michelle I think something is wrong with her.  That’s why I keep going into labor early.  Something is wrong.”  She tried to reassure me that everything was fine, but I didn’t believe her.  I just knew.

The contractions continued throughout the night and into the morning.  I called my OB/Gyn again and told them I was still having regular contractions.  A few hours later I was sitting in my doctors office being told that I was going to have my baby that day.  I was dilated to 5cm and there was no going back.  Excitement resumed it’s rightful place in front of all my other emotions.  I temporarily forgot my fears and smiled the entire way to the hospital.  She was going to be a little bit early at 35 weeks gestation. Having connections, I called up to the NICU to see if there was a neonatologist available to be there for her delivery.  Just in case…

I would often reflect on that drive to the hospital. I would try to conjure up those feelings of  excitement I felt as I waited to meet my new baby girl.  I would close my eyes and remember the girl I was before 11:00pm on May 10, 2007. I was so naively happy and content. I would look at old pictures of myself and just cry, telling the girl in the picture “Enjoy that smile.  It’s never going to look the same again.”  Awful, I know.  But I just could not get out of that deep dark hole.  Sadness had been slammed into my heart and I thought I would never feel carefree or happy again.

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In My Dreams

20 Jan

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” -Maya Angelou

I’m driving on an unfamiliar road during the middle of the day.  The windows are rolled down and I can feel the warm summer breeze blowing across my face.  Abruptly something happens and I can no longer see where I am going.  Darkness has overcome my eyes and I am suddenly plunged into a black abyss. Terrified I cry out and try to  pull the car off the road and stop.  I can’t see anything though and I panic.  I know I am going to crash but no matter how hard I try, I cannot seem to make my eyes work. I have somehow become blind.

Suddenly, I am ripped from sleep and wake up drenched in sweat and breathing heavily.  It was a dream.  I wait for my sleepy eyes to adjust to the darkness and realize that I can ,in fact, see.  I have not suddenly been struck by blindness.  Only a dream. Vivid and unshakable yes, but a dream regardless. One that I was fortunately able to wake up from.  I would continue to have that dream frequently.  Until years later, when I was not able to wake up from that dream.  Except, it didn’t happen to me.  I was not the one suddenly struck by blindness. My newborn daughter was…and it wasn’t a dream.  It was reality.  My beautiful baby girl Oliana, had been born blind.

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