My sweet biggest angel turned 10 years old today! I can't believe I had her 10 years ago. I remember the day like it was yesterday.
One day on our way home from church and I told Craig I knew God wanted us to try for a baby. Craig and I immediately got pregnant and I was blessed with morning sickness for the next three months. This being my first baby and my sister-in-law giving me a wonderful pregnancy book I was trying so hard to be healthy and eat all the right foods to grow this little one in my womb. But within a few weeks I was so sick I couldn't even look at a vegetable let alone smell them. So burgers and anything meat and cheese was what I constantly craved. Also, pickles on anything. I loved it on tuna and peanut butter sandwiches (only the peanut butter when I had eaten the tuna allowed for the week). I also craved oatmeal cookies like crazy and chocolate milk.
One night during the very beginning of my pregnancy I had this horrible dream and I saw my baby and I saw it would be a girl with big dimples. We were at a house (which we didn't even know of yet because we still lived in an apartment) and I saw her get hit by a car and she had this horrible head injury. It was so bad she died.
Now if you know me well enough you know how I am about my dreams. I know now that I'm a follower of Christ whether the dream is from Him or not. This dream scared me to death. Later I would find that it was only vaguely similar to what would happen to my little angel during her first year.
With this scary dream I anticipated and anxiously awaited every doctors appointment and ultrasound to confirm her growth and well being. And then On February 9th after being put on bed rest for a month I woke up feeling a weird twinge that I just knew was the beginning of labor. The midwife I saw doubted I was in labor but checked my cervix and was surprised at how well I knew my body. She told me to rest and get some lunch because I would probably have the baby later that night. I called Craig at work excitedly and told him this was it (for real this time since for about a month I thought it was the time) and he met me at Chili's where the contractions got so strong that I couldn't eat a thing and got sick in their bathroom.
We were trying to figure out if we should leave for the hospital now since rush hour traffic was starting. I felt we could wait a little so we walked around the mall until around 6pm and then we headed on over. The doctor checked me and said I was definitely in labor but because it was my first it might not happen til early morning. So he gave me the choice of staying or going home and coming back when labor was stronger. I opted to go home. And then on the way home right when we turned down our street I got some really strong contractions. I told Craig and he told me to just calm down and get a shower and rest a bit since we just left the hospital. We got in the house and I took a shower and then my contractions were so strong I screamed downstairs to Craig that we needed to go back NOW!! He carried his big pregnant wife down the stairs because I couldn't walk with contractions so close together.
The entire trip to the hospital I was screaming in pain and Craig was about to throw up he was so scared. By 9pm we made it and they immediately gave me an epidural in between contractions and I was finally in peace. Then we rested and the nurse came in and said she had been monitoring my contractions and it was time to push. Trinity Katharine was crowning but little did we know she had sagittal craniosynostosis which meant her skull was fused together where normal newborns have a "collapsible" skull that allows them to squeeze through the birth canal. She would not come and I pushed for an hour. The doctor was getting frantic and said if I didn't get her out soon he was going to have to deliver by emergency c-section. He finally used a vaccuum suction and delivered her at 6:01am. She was 7lbs 10oz and 21 1/2inches. She was perfect (other than her little swollen head from the suction). We saw her little cleft chin like her Daddy and dimples like me and she had beautiful strawberry red hair that curled. She was just beautiful. She looked like a girl (you know some newborns you just can't tell). She was absolutely angelic.
After a trying time nursing and bottle feeding I finally got the hang of it (and it was not easy and it was extremely painful). But Craig and I kept noticing her head was a strange shape. We mentioned it to our pediatric practice that had 10 different doctors and they all said she was fine. But after getting frustrated with going back to work and my mother-in-law worrying about her stools I took her to my OB's pediatrician and he immediately confirmed her stools were perfect breastfed stools and said she has craniosynostosis. I had no idea what he was talking about. From there we were in emergency surgery with a pediatric surgeon that at 6 months cut her entire skull open allowing for the sbrain to grow to prevent the complications of craniosynostosis (such as blindness, deafness, mental retardation, and facial deformities). We almost lost her due to blood loss and lack of communication between the hospital staff and the surgeon's office and they had to rush her back into emergency surgery, all while telling me as I'm bawling and don't want to give her to them for fear she won't come back out alive, that she may not make it. But she did. And what a huge leap gigantic step forward in my relationship with God. And what a miracle of blessing He gave me by keeping her here with Craig and I.
She is now an amazing young woman. With her thick head of hair you can't see her scar that travels from the rear of her forehead to the nape of her neck unless you brush her hair or cut it. She is the most sensitive, sweet, angelic, pleasing child I know. She always wakes up with this sweet smile and hugs you every morning no matter what. My life would not be complete without knowing her. And I just pray that I can bless her life as much as she has blessed mine. She makes my life of pain worth living.
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