Happy 4th Birthday James!

It's amazing what can happen in 4 years and how fast the time flies.

4 years ago on March 31st I was in for a rude awakening. I was just barely 25 weeks pregnant. I woke up on a Monday morning and had a little spotting. After talking it over with my mom and a friend who was in nursing school I decided I'd go to urgent care before my Monday morning lecture (I was in the middle of the internship). As I was being examined the urgent care doctor told me my bag of waters was bulging and he was going to call the on-call OB doctor. I was young and it was my first baby-I had no idea what my bag of waters bulging meant. The doctor came back and said they were going to send me up to OB. I assumed the clinic but as I was being pushed in the wheelchair I quickly figured out we were going to the hospital. I really had no clue what was happening. When I got to the hospital the nurses were waiting for me and hurried me into a room, put in an IV, hooked me up to all the usual monitors and a doctor came in a few moments later. He checked me and asked how I slept and if I was having any pain or contractions. I told him I felt just fine and slept great the night before. He seemed baffled. He said you're 5 cm dilated. I was a little confused but that was when I realized how serious it was. I called my school director, and my husband. Andy rushed to the hospital so we could wait and see what happened. They put me on a drug called nifidepine (not sure about the spelling). About an hour or so after I arrived at the hospital I started to have contractions. The drugs helped to stop them and they had me laying down "standing on my head". My hips had to be higher than my head-basically just using the law of gravity to help me from delivering. It sure made it hard to eat, sleep and pee. Eventually they had to put in a catheter because as my bladder would fill my contractions would become worse. They gave me a shot in my butt called betamethasone. It's used to help develop the babies lungs. My husband was good enough to get me some movies to watch and we settled in to wait. Not much more happened Monday. The OB doctor came in later to explain to us that I wasn't leaving the hospital until I delivered a baby-whether it was a day or 3 months. Tuesday brought the same things except we got a visit from a neonatologist. They have to inform the parents of all the risks and possibilities that come with having a premature baby. She came in with a binder that had tons of graphs that showed all the chances of death, developmental delay, brain bleeds, etc. The day continued the same as Monday, just standing on my head. Same on Wednesday, except around noon they told me they were taking me off the drugs and moving me to a regular room. It seems that after they get 48 hours of the betamethasone they stop and that's all they can really do. They kept me on bedrest and told me to let them know if I had any changes. About 5:00 that night I went to the bathroom and had some bleeding. Immediately the doctor had me moved back to the delivery suite. About an hour later I began laboring. At 2am on Thursday April 3, 2008 James was born. We couldn't see him. The NICU nurse immediately took him to resuscitation room. I don't know if we really knew what to expect. I was taken back to my delivery suite (He was delivered in a high risk delivery room that's attached to the resuscitation room) to recover. About 2 hours later they took us to the NICU to meet our son. We couldn't believe how small he was. I think we were so overwhelmed we didn't even know what to think or say. Here was this tiny baby, that didn't look like a normal newborn, and we were barely allowed to touch for fear that too much stimulation could be painful for his smalle underdeveloped nerve endings. We were introduced to the rules of the NICU, the machines and the nurses around us that would become our lives for the next 4 1/2 months. They warned us there would be good days and bad days and our lives would quickly become a rollercoaster. Little did we know how right they were. James had good days, okay days and bad days. And they could change so fast.

With all this I don't think we realized how amazing James would be. We had no idea he'd have special needs, not be able to talk or walk, but nonetheless we loved this tiny baby we didn't know.

Happy 4th Birthday James! You are an amazing little boy that we love so much and can't imagine you being any different! You've brought so much joy to us and many other people. Everyone just loves your smile! You've taught us all so much and can't wait to see what you've got in store for us in the next year!