Front Porch Georgia Girl: Happy 11th Birthday to my baby girl, A!

I’ve seen a ton of birth stories lately and it has inspired me to write about how Amber made her appearance into the world.

I had a pretty normal pregnancy, well normal for me that is! I was not one of those beautiful glowy pregnant women. No, I was one of the sickly green throwing up all 9 months kind! With my first daughter, Daryan, we (my doctor, husband and I) learned that being sick the whole 9 months was normal for me. I actually had people accuse me of making myself sick on purpose… Oh sure, I loved throwing up everything I had just eaten all the time, it was a ball (shaking my head no, a lot!). And having severe heart burn was normal as well; I ate Tums like they were going out of style, so much that my daughter Daryan thought they were candy.

So about a week before my due date my doctor didn’t like how Amber was sitting over the uterus opening and sent me for an ultra sound. Everything looked good on it but even so I decided it was time to go ahead with my maternity leave from work. I think my work was relieved as they thought I was going to pop any day! I looked ready to pop most of my pregnancy due to having a short waist area and long legs. That weekend in the hot July sun outside I attended my older brother’s wedding, while my then almost 2 year old Daryan ran around as much as she could knowing very while I couldn’t chase her! The picture of my mom, my younger brother and daughter Daryan is one of the very few of me pregnant with Amber. I tended to hide from the camera while pregnant.

Due date came and no Amber but Daryan had been 4 days past her date so I was not worried. I remember going to bed the night of the 25^th telling my hubbie, Jay that we would be going to the hospital in the morning. All I got was a “yes, dear” comment as he went to sleep. About 430-500 am I woke up and started timing the contractions as they had become regular. I called my doctor who said to head on to the hospital, called my mom to come watch the other kids and then work up Jay. It was his day off from work so he was confused way I was getting him up so early, told him we’re going to the hospital, to which I got a sleepy, “why?”, had to explain that his daughter was ready to come out.

We got to the hospital got checked in and then didn’t see another nurse for an hour cause we arrived at shift change and apparently they forgot about me. I remember the nurse coming in checking me and saying, “Oh, I see you’re not using drugs.” I of course looked at her like she had grown a third head and told her YES I was which she then told me it might be too late to get them. I remember calmly telling her it better not be or someone would be paying for it! Off she rushed and got me setup with the epidural much to my relief! A was not a baby that wanted to wait; within 3 hours of being at the hospital she made her arrival into the world at 9:32 a.m. The nurses got her all cleaned up, checked her vitals and all that good stuff. The nurse suggested that I try to feed her, so I started to do this as hubbie left the room to call everyone (and have a smoke!) while the nurse went to grab some more blankets outside the room. I remember Amber latching on very while, leaning back to get in a comfy position and looking back down to see that she was BLUE in the face. I must have screamed as the nurse came running back into the room grabbed Amber and slapped her on the back, she instantly started screaming. I remember the nurse telling me not to worry, checking her heartbeat and saying they would send her to the ICU to get checked out just to make sure that nothing was wrong.

Fast forward about 6 hours later, I have been moved to a room, saw one doctor who briefly told me a cardiologist was going to check out Amber just to be sure all was good and going crazy out of my mind. At about the 6 hours mark the husband and I got a visit from the cardiologist who was super sweet in preceding to tell us that Amber had a condition known as Hypoplastic Right Heart Syndrome with Pulmonary atresia and would require 3 heart surgeries over the next 3 years to correct the problem. The simple explanation of the condition is pretty much when the heart folded over from a straight muscle it folded over so that the right side of the heart did not form all the way and was too small to support her blood flow to her lungs. (see the links above to read more about it). He let us know that the first surgery would be as soon as there was an opening at the children’s hospital. I remember him asking if we had any questions, I looked at him and said, “Can I please see my baby now? I haven’t seen her since she was born over 6 hours ago.” I was pretty much in tears at that point. I recall him being amazed that none of the nurses had told me I could see her or much less showed me where the baby ICU area was. I had only seen a nurse I think 2 in those 6 hours, looking back I think they felt sorry for me and were trying to leave me be.

It was so hard to comprehend there was something wrong with Amber as my pregnancy had been normal, no complications, nothing had shown on the ultra sounds. Later I was told that it was due to the way she was laying during the checks and the fact that she wasn’t actually trying to breathe in oxygen from the air in the womb. I was released from the hospital after being there 48 hours having to leave Amber there. I went home and tried to find out as much as I could on her condition. At the time there was very little on hypo right heart as it is not as common as hypo left heart. The right side of the heart controls that blood flow to the lungs; this is why Amber turned blue on me trying to feed, she couldn’t get enough oxygen in while trying to feed. She got transferred on day 4 to the Children’s Hospital in Atlanta, we meet with the surgeon that day and her surgery was scheduled for the next day. Her surgeon was wonderful and did a great job at explaining what was going to happened, even drawing pictures for us. He was great and even answered all my dad’s questions. I remember him being amazed that I knew so much already about the surgery, I had to do something since I couldn’t sleep at home without my baby there, so I read everything I could find. The next day we had a long 6 hour wait as Amber went through her first surgery. The hospital did a good job of keeping us informed of her progress. After about 7 hours she was in the ICU and we got to see her again. That was hard seeing her little body laying there connected up to all the tubes and the breathing machine. I’ll spare you all the long hours sitting with her as long as we could, going home at night to our other kids, it wasn’t fun and I don’t wish it on anyone.

I remember one time sitting out in the lobby waiting while the nurses had shift change and a girl sitting down next to me with her mother. I remember very clearly that she only appeared to be about 16 and sounding it as well as she talked to her mom about her baby. At some point she had stopped talking to her mom and apparently asked me a question but I hadn’t noticed as I was so tired. She looked at me and asked my how far along I was, this upset me cause I had already had my baby but this time my stomach hadn’t gone back down, probably due to not breastfeeding (really wasn’t an option when your baby has a breathing tube in her mouth), I was calm and told her my daughter was a few days old and had just had surgery. Without missing a beat she looked at me and asked “What chance did they give your baby to live? They only gave mine a 50% chance.” I was completely floored and pissed, as calm as I could I replied, “They never said that she wouldn’t” as I got up and moved seats.

Remembering back the surgeon had told us that Amber was lucky that it was the right side even though it wasn’t common for that side to have not formed all the way since right side controlled the lungs. The left side however controls the blood to the brain and babies with this side often have learning problems, etc due to lack of oxygen to the brain. She was also lucky in the fact that she had been a full term, otherwise healthy baby with no other problems along with her heart. The surgeon told us that they had to give the worst possible, which was that she could possibly have to have a heart transplant down the road and may not be able to carry her own baby full term. He said not to be discouraged though that who knows what technology would be available by the time she was ready to have her own kids. He did Amber's first two surgeries but moved to another state before her third. The surgeon that did her third was a jerk and had no bed side manner but he did the surgery wonderfully.

Amber got to come home 7 days after having her first heart surgery, with no monitors, no tubes, nothing, just her. The next day she got to meet all the family for the first time (she’d already meet my dad, of course!) as I had her sister Darayn’s 2^nd birthday party (I look really rough in those pictures!). The next surgery came at 6 months and the third when she as 2.5 (that was the hardest one on all of us.) With all the surgeries it was only 7 days in the hospital.

Pictures from 3rd Surgery (can't put my hands on the 1st ones right now)

Sitting with Mommy before surgery

She HAD to have her pacey and baby, and blanket of course.

Sitting with Daddy and sister Daryan post surgery.

I didn’t mean for this to be soooo long, the other 2 surgery stories will have to wait until another day. But needless to say they were a success and Amber has had no other issues, you can only hear a slight murmur when listening to her heart. In fact Amber has only had the normal children coughs, colds and one ear infection (which is how we found out she’s allergic to penicillin, another story there!). She is a wonderful stubborn, sassy very healthy child! There is no telling her that she can’t do something, as she will do it anyway, she is a big dare devil, not afraid of anything. Her specialty is killing spiders for her sister Daryan! Amber is a very creative, artistic too smart for her own britches kid! And she has never met a stranger in her life; she makes friends everywhere she goes.

Some random first year pictures of Amber

Sister Daryan and Amber

Grandma (my mom), me, Amber and my cousin Stacey (RIP, my birthday twin)

Amber and Grandpa (my dad)

Daddy and Amber

Mommy (me) and Amber

These are two my favorites of Amber as a baby, I love b&w photos.

I feel like there is soo much I’m leaving out but it’s late and I’ve got to be up early for work.

So to my beautiful baby girl, I say “HAPPY 11th BIRTHDAY!!!!” In a few hours she will be on her way to her yearly check up with her cardiologist, who swears A is his most favorite patient!

Pictures from the 25th