It's that time of year again to start fundraising for the March of Dimes. We were honored last year to be the ambassador family for Allen County and what a great experience we had. This year it is also nice to kick back, relax and just raise a little money ad attend the walk. It's such a great organization and really hits home for us as well as a lot of other families I have come to know and LOVE!!!
Many of you already know our story of prematurity but here is our story for those of you who don't know.
Now a little timeline of our whirlwind before I begin. Matt and I had our first date in april 2005, engaged 2 weeks later, married 1 year later, pregnant 3 months later and jack was born 24 weeks later! WHEW!!!!Matt and I couldn’t wait to start a family so we were elated by a positive pregnancy test. I would have never guessed I was pregnant, but you know those “fatherly” intuitions…Matt INSISTED I was. And at 11pm one night, he was right. I started going to my doctor right away (the next day) and started taking prenatal vitamins right away as well. It was a silly little pregnancy thing I was actually excited about doing. I couldn’t wait to get big and round and wear maternity clothes. I was ready to shop. I went to my doctor once a month. We found out at 19 weeks that we were having a baby boy. .
At 23 weeks things started going downhill. I had been experiencing some back pain from time to time and I just chalked it up as a pregnancy thing. I mentioned the discomfort to the doctor and he said agreed. He then took my blood pressure and it was on the high side . I was to come back a few days later for a recheck. When I went back y blood pressure was still high. He recommended bed rest and to do a 24 hour urine check to see if I was spilling protein. I was clueless as to what bed rest even was I even asked if I could work. He did give me the okay to go to thanksgiving with my family but to RELAX and check my blood pressure often We went to thanksgiving and before we went home my uncle checked my blood pressure. It was 160/110. I was instructed to call my doc if the bottom number was in the 90s. I called, I was told to head back to fort wayne and relax and lay down. My blood pressure had gone down and I was to take it often and call again if it constantly stayed up. I managed to make it to the next evening. The pain in my back was so bad and the pain meds that I was given weren’t helping. My blood pressure was climbing and at that point matt insisted I go to the emergency room. After a call to my doc, they were expecting us in the ER. I wasn’t nervous when I got there at all. The staff was pretty laid back about everything when we got there. They treated me for heartburn, even though I said it wasn’t that. They drew some labs. Once the labs came back everyone was rushing around. They scurried around and got me up to the labor and delivery floor. I still had no idea what was going on or what was going to happen.
The furthest thing from my mind was delivering our child.In my mind, there were two ways to deliver a baby, you had a full term baby and took him or her home or you had a miscarriage. There was no inbetween for me. You could say I was very naïve. So like I said, the furthest thing from my mind was having my baby boy born anytime soon.As we got up to the room, the doctor on call practically met us up there. He stated that I was in very grave condition and that I would be lucky to still be pregnant by Monday. Remember it’s Friday. WHAT?? I’m in grave condition?? I just have a back ache. My baby can be born?? I just started feeling him move around last week and Matt hasn’t even felt him yet. He was a pound and a half at my last ultrasound. He’s not going to be born. The doctor then stated I had a condition called HELLP Syndrome. It stands for hemolytic anemia, elevated liver enzymes and low platelet count. So in other words I had a life threatening condition and I was at risk for bleeding, my liver rupturing and having seizures due to high blood pressure.
I WAS SCARED TO DEATH.
After the doctor left, the whole room sobbing.. This couldn’t be happening. I was told that the best-case scenario was to spend 6 weeks in the hospital to bake baby jack a bit longer. That would put me at 30 weeks and give him a greater chance at surviving. To make the rest of the time short, I didn’t last very long. Jack Matthew Bowling was born the following Monday morning at 12:12am. The doctor was right….I only lasted until Monday morning. All my labs were looking ugly and they couldn’t wait any longer for fear of my liver rupturing. I was able to be awake during the c-section which was a blessing so that Matt could be there as well. Jack came out and we heard a little cry that sounded just like a newborn kitten. The doctor told us how much he weighed. I heard 15 ounces. I looked at matt and said….how many pounds, I just heard 15 ounces. He said “baby, there are no pounds.
Jack only weighs 15 ounces.”15 OUNCES??? NO POUNDS?? YOU HAVE TO HAVE POUNDS. HE WAS 1.5 POUNDS AT HIS LAST ULTRASOUND 4 DAYS AGO. NO POUNDS. ???
But in fact, jack came out weighing 15 ounces and was 11.5 inches long. Almost the size of a dollar bill, but a bit longer.
And so our NICU journey began. And boy was it a roller coaster ……..and quite a long one. He was put on an oscillator right away for life support and at 2 weeks he was put on a conventional ventilator. His biggest problem for the next three months was weaning off the ventilator. He couldn’t keep his oxygen sats stabilized…..ever. at one point they were even at zero. One of the hardest things about the beginning of the NICU was not being able to hold our son, let alone touch him. we didn’t even see his whole face for about 3 days due to it being covered up. They had built him an artificial womb and he was hard to see. We were unable to move him at all, even to weigh him until after the first week because of the risk of him having a brain bleed. At one week he had a head scan and it came back with no bleeds
WHAT A MIRACLE!.
At this point he was weighed and much to our dismay he lost weight….and at 15 ounces, you can’t get much worse. He weighed 12.3 ounces. I remember a doctor telling me that his main concern right now as getting him over the 1 pound mark and after that happened he would feel much better about his outcome. Matt wanted to start putting milkshakes in his IVS and feedings.And speaking of feedings. Jack started out at about 10 drops of breast milk every 3 hours and got all the way up to 2 ounces every 2-3 hours by the time we went home.
I can’t say that there was a point where things were SUPER scary. Everyday was scary. There were days that he had important tests done to determine more of an outcome for him. Like at 1 week old he had a heart echo and a brain scan to determine if he had a whole in his heart or if he had bleeding in the brain. Each of those results determined the next course of treatment. He was put on nitric oxide at about 1 month of age and stayed on that for the next 2 months. That was to help with pulmonary hypertension. And along with prayers, I think that is one of the things that saved his life!!!
And thanks to the March of Dimes, they continue to do research on the advantages of premature babies on nitric oxide. Also at about 1 month, something else happened that saved me. At this point during our journey I was already in a dark spot. I was depressed. I failed my son. I was robbed of my pregnancy. But On Christmas day, a wish of mine finally came true. After whining and begging one of the doctors, I was finally able to hold my son for the first time. It was one of the most incredible experiences I have ever had. I held him for about 20 minutes. He did wonderful. He was wide awake, his sats stayed up and so did his temperature. He also had his eyes checked numerous times for a condition called retinopathy of prematurity. He came extremely close to needing laser eye surgery, but just in the knick of time, his eyes started to look better and we were saved from that.At about 3 months of age, he was finally taken off the ventilator. We were very nervous about this. He hadn’t been tolerating being weaned off of it at all and even talked about a trach. Feb 27, 2006 he was taken off of it and put on a CPAP. He hated it. It lasted about 10 days and then he was finally able to be on a nasal canula with oxygen. He seemed to tolerate that pretty well.
During the course of our 133 day stay, jack had 12 blood transfusions and 3 platelet transfusions. 2 heart echos, 2 brain scans, 1 hernia surgery, 1 MRI, over 150 xrays, about the same about of blood draws and probably about 20 different IV sites. He had his first bottle 1 day after his original due date and came home about 1 month after his original due date. He came home with oxygen, an apnea monitor and a oxygen saturation monitor. He was home for about 2 months and was able to come off of oxygen. He started physical therapy and occupational therapy through Indiana First steps and participated in an hour of therapy a week for each. He graduated from therapy about 1 week ago and is doing outstanding. He did reach most of his milestones late. He sat up at 10 months. Crawled at about 13 months and walked at 15 months. Now he RUNS, jumps, dribbles the ball and shoots hoops!
Jack still sees many doctors. The pulmonologist, the ENT and the opthmalogist. They have become like family to us!! We have truly been blessed and are much more than thankful for the dedication of marvelous doctors, nurses, therapist, and the march of times, than we will even be able to express. WE HAVE JACK!!!
We thank the March of dimes in particular for the research that has been done in the past that impacted us directly with Jack. The nitric oxide, surfactant and many other things. And we thank them for all the research that they will continue to do to help other families in the NICU!!! So, you have the means, please visit Jack's fundraising website and donate. Even $5 will help. If not, please join us for our walk if you can!!!
http://www.marchforbabies.org/matt_lindsay0423
