Alexa's journey... The beginning...

Let's start at the beginning...  Kev and I met while he was still in the army, instantly falling in love.  I finished college, we got married, had a baby(beautiful little girl), bought a house 2 dogs and a cat later we wanted another baby.  After trying for 5 years with multiple heart breaking miscarriages, and all the ups and downs of infertility.  We finally got pregnant, through IVF.    Our dream was finally coming true.  With the realization of that dream comes the terrifying fear that something will go wrong.  Sure enough when I was 8 weeeks pregnant I started bleeding and clotting.  How can this be happening yet again...?  I can remember that devestating 1 &1/2 hour drive to the doctors  office, just knowing I lost the baby.  I WAS in the process of miscarrying a baby, but there was another heartbeat going strong!  I was miscarrying one of twins.  I bled for 6 weeks, getting ultrasounds everyother day to ensure that the other little bean was still thriving.  What a bittersweet experience, on one hand we have this beautiful baby developing, but on the other we knew we had lost another baby. At 17 weeks we got a call from the doctors the AFP test came back elevated for a chance of down syndrome.  So three sleepless nights later we went in for an ultrasound, and met with a genetecist. Yay!, No markers for down syndrome, but they found something called a lemon sign.  This is a big indicator for spina bifida like a 90% chance she would have it.  Again they followed her with ultrasound, and they found no other indications that she would have spina bifida. At this time they offered to do an amniocentesis, but because of the increase in miscarriages we opted not to do this.  This test would only be able to confirm or deny the presence of these illnesses, and since having the baby was our only option, we didnt think the risk was worth it.  Throughout this all I had this dreadful feeling that something was just not right.  I knew in my bones that this baby would be a very fragile child.  Call it mother's intuition, but the rest of my pregnancy I felt as though I was preparing myself for the worst case scenario. The rest of my pregnancy went well, and we prepared our home and our hearts for our little bundle of joy.

On Sunday November 29, 2009 Alexa Belle was born via c-section 7lbs 3oz and perfect.  Kevin and I fell in love with her instantly.  She looked so different from Kaylie her beautiful older sister, but was beautiful in her own way.  Meeting her was like having a dream come true.  That baby I dreamt about for 5 years was now here, she was now a reality.  I was so overprotective, opting not to do some holiday plans so she wouldnt be exposed to anything.  We would bathe in antibacterial gel, and never left the house.  She was by my side at all times, my little buddy.  What an eater she was.  I remember asking the doctors if it was possible for her to be eating too much.  Alexa did have a heart murmur which we found out to be something called pulmonic stenosis, and she also had aortic valve thickening.  This was something the doctors felt could just be monitored, and might need to be corrected later on.  Needless to say I was in bliss I had the best kids, and Alexa was ok, no major health problems that we could see.

On Tuesday January 12, 2010 at 330am everything changed, Alexa was 6 weeks old at the time.  I had nursed Alexa but she was just being really cranky so Kevin took her upstairs so I could rest for a little while.  He put her in her porta crib, and let her fuss for a little while.  About 10 minutes after she quieted down he went to check on her.  Thats when he realized she wasnt breathing and was completely blue and lifeless.  He scooped her up and started running through the house calling me.  I remember it like it just happened, I can hear the terror in his voice when he came running towards me with our limp, blue daughter yelling "Amy! Alexa's not breathing, Alexa's not breathing!"  I remember seeing him come towards me with her lifeless body thinking she was dead.  I grabbed her and started feeling her all over trying to remember her touch, face, smell.  When Kevin yelled at me to do something.  In my shocked state I wasnt trying to revive her, just remember her.  As an RN I'm expected to react calmly and quickly, but I couldnt think clearly.  I should have started cpr right away, but in my devestation wasnt functioning as a nurse but as a mother.  When Kevin told me to do something my mind started working as if in slow motion, I knew there was something I could be doing but couldnt think where to start.  So I did the only thing that came to mind and that was to strike her hard 3 times on her back.  By that time my mind started working again and I remembered to start CPR.  I turned her over but she had started sputtering and her eyes were open flickering back and forth.  She didnt cry though, just layed there looking at us.  This was and will always be the scariest time of my entire life.  We rushed her to the ER and they transferred us to a trauma 1 hospital. 

This started the endless tests, procedures, and hospitals stays that would eventually become our norm.  More to come but the baby needs me.