Tomorrow our baby girl will be 4 years old! So hard to believe! So, I searched my computer and found Sydney's birth story. I always tried to write the kids' birth stories down as soon as possible and put them in their scrapbooks. It's amazing how much you forget so quickly.
I had my 33-week appointment on Thursday August 18, 2005. Sydney was due October 6. At my 30-week appointment my blood pressure and weight gain were excellent. I was so proud of myself. However at this appointment my blood pressure was pretty high. This often happens to me when I go to the dr., so we just kept trying to get it down. It wasn’t happening. My dr. (Dr. Alford, the same dr. who delivered Corban) told me I had to get someone to watch Corban and I needed to go home and lay on my left side the whole day and drink tons of water. I did. Luckily my mom had the day off of work. She came over and took care of Corban. I cried because I was worried about Sydney (we knew she was a girl) and also worried about how I’d take care of Corban if I had to be on bed rest. I also cried because this is the same thing my mom went through with me. I was born at 32 weeks weighing 2 lbs 14 oz. I knew that ultimately I was fine, but I had to be in NICU for 6 weeks. I just couldn’t imagine that happening to us. But, at the same time, I really felt it wouldn’t, couldn’t happen to us. Especially since I didn’t deal with pre-eclampsia with my first baby. He was born 3 weeks early, but only because my water broke. I had a couple instances of high blood pressure with him, but it would go down once I left the doctor’s office.
So I spent the whole day on the couch. I had to go back in the next day, Friday August 19 for another blood pressure check. I woke up the next morning and had literally shrunk. I lost so much water weight it was almost scary. I kind of knew then that something was probably wrong. Mike almost didn’t even go to the appointment with me because we were so unbelieving that something would go wrong. Thankfully he did. We went while Mom watched Corban. Luckily again, she had the day off. This was actually supposed to be the first day we let Corban spend the night at Grandma and Grandpa's. We wanted him to be ready when I had to go to the hospital to have Sydney. My mom was going to have him that night and Mike and I were actually going to go on a date. Well, at the dr.’s office my blood pressure was even higher than the day before. I had also lost about 3 lbs bringing my grand total of 16 lbs gained down to 13. The nurse and dr. tried and tried but couldn’t get my blood pressure to even slightly go down. They sent me straight to the hospital. We figured they’d monitor me for a bit and then put me on bed rest.
As the day went on it was becoming obvious that my blood pressure was not going to come down. By around 11:00 am they gave me a shot of steroids to help Sydney’s lungs mature quicker. You are allowed to have 2 shots, and each shot takes 24 hours to “mature”. The plan at first was to give me the 1st shot Friday morning, the second shot on Saturday morning and then get me to 34 weeks, the following Thursday. By the afternoon the plan was to get me the shots and then induce labor on Sunday. They also put me on magnesium sulfate to help lower my blood pressure and try to prevent any seizures or strokes. The problem was even with that my blood pressure wasn’t going down. If anything it was going up. They had a dr. that was a specialist with toxemia who was checking on me. He had an ultrasound done to check on Sydney. She was supposed to be 33 weeks but was only measuring around 26-28 weeks. Her head measured right on, so we knew the due date was right. The dr. said that toxemia attacks women in different ways. In some it attacks their hearts and in some their livers and in some their placentas. This is what was happening to me. Sydney was not getting enough nutrients from me through my placenta. This is why she was measuring so small. They estimated her weight to be about 2 lbs 14 oz.—the same weight I was when I was born! As you can imagine my parents are flipping out each time we call them with an update. My mom was trying to be strong for me, but I know she was crying and my dad was a mess.
At 10:00 pm on Friday August 19 the dr. that was a specialist with toxemia came in and said it was just too bad, they had to deliver Sydney right away. So, they prepped me for a C-section and away we went. I do remember that for about 2 minutes in the middle of all of this Mike and I were in the room alone and we had a chance to pray. I know how much God was looking out for Sydney and I that day. Only God can make such a wonderful thing come out of such a scary situation. I was very nervous about having a girl and having that “mother-daughter” relationship. Well, now Sydney and I have a huge thing in common, not only are our birth stories so similar but also we went through this together.
The NICU nurse practitioner came in to tell us what we might expect from a premature baby. We were told she would be put on oxygen right away and taken to NICU. We were also told that we probably wouldn’t be able to hear her cry because she’d be too little and need oxygen.
I was taken to the OR and prepped for the surgery. I have to say right now that a c-section is so, so much harder to go through than a normal delivery. I was able to be awake for it, and I often wish they had just put me to sleep. Except for two wonderful miracles: First of all Sydney didn’t cry immediately, but by the time they were rushing her past me over to the NICU nurses she was crying! I can’t even tell you how amazing that sound was. I instantly started bawling. Then as they were whisking her back past me to the NICU they stopped quickly so I could see her. She reached that little tiny fist up and grabbed my finger so hard I just knew we would both be all right. It was like she was telling me we were strong and she was a fighter. We were going to get through this together.
To sum things up, Sydney Esther Sommers was born on Friday August 19, 2005 at 11:00 pm weighing in at a whopping 3 pounds even and 15 inches long. She was in the NICU for 3 weeks and 1 day and came home on Saturday September 10, 2005 (Mike’s dad’s 60th birthday!) weighing just 3 pounds 8 ounces. She has been a miracle and a fighter ever since.
So I spent the whole day on the couch. I had to go back in the next day, Friday August 19 for another blood pressure check. I woke up the next morning and had literally shrunk. I lost so much water weight it was almost scary. I kind of knew then that something was probably wrong. Mike almost didn’t even go to the appointment with me because we were so unbelieving that something would go wrong. Thankfully he did. We went while Mom watched Corban. Luckily again, she had the day off. This was actually supposed to be the first day we let Corban spend the night at Grandma and Grandpa's. We wanted him to be ready when I had to go to the hospital to have Sydney. My mom was going to have him that night and Mike and I were actually going to go on a date. Well, at the dr.’s office my blood pressure was even higher than the day before. I had also lost about 3 lbs bringing my grand total of 16 lbs gained down to 13. The nurse and dr. tried and tried but couldn’t get my blood pressure to even slightly go down. They sent me straight to the hospital. We figured they’d monitor me for a bit and then put me on bed rest.
As the day went on it was becoming obvious that my blood pressure was not going to come down. By around 11:00 am they gave me a shot of steroids to help Sydney’s lungs mature quicker. You are allowed to have 2 shots, and each shot takes 24 hours to “mature”. The plan at first was to give me the 1st shot Friday morning, the second shot on Saturday morning and then get me to 34 weeks, the following Thursday. By the afternoon the plan was to get me the shots and then induce labor on Sunday. They also put me on magnesium sulfate to help lower my blood pressure and try to prevent any seizures or strokes. The problem was even with that my blood pressure wasn’t going down. If anything it was going up. They had a dr. that was a specialist with toxemia who was checking on me. He had an ultrasound done to check on Sydney. She was supposed to be 33 weeks but was only measuring around 26-28 weeks. Her head measured right on, so we knew the due date was right. The dr. said that toxemia attacks women in different ways. In some it attacks their hearts and in some their livers and in some their placentas. This is what was happening to me. Sydney was not getting enough nutrients from me through my placenta. This is why she was measuring so small. They estimated her weight to be about 2 lbs 14 oz.—the same weight I was when I was born! As you can imagine my parents are flipping out each time we call them with an update. My mom was trying to be strong for me, but I know she was crying and my dad was a mess.
At 10:00 pm on Friday August 19 the dr. that was a specialist with toxemia came in and said it was just too bad, they had to deliver Sydney right away. So, they prepped me for a C-section and away we went. I do remember that for about 2 minutes in the middle of all of this Mike and I were in the room alone and we had a chance to pray. I know how much God was looking out for Sydney and I that day. Only God can make such a wonderful thing come out of such a scary situation. I was very nervous about having a girl and having that “mother-daughter” relationship. Well, now Sydney and I have a huge thing in common, not only are our birth stories so similar but also we went through this together.
The NICU nurse practitioner came in to tell us what we might expect from a premature baby. We were told she would be put on oxygen right away and taken to NICU. We were also told that we probably wouldn’t be able to hear her cry because she’d be too little and need oxygen.
I was taken to the OR and prepped for the surgery. I have to say right now that a c-section is so, so much harder to go through than a normal delivery. I was able to be awake for it, and I often wish they had just put me to sleep. Except for two wonderful miracles: First of all Sydney didn’t cry immediately, but by the time they were rushing her past me over to the NICU nurses she was crying! I can’t even tell you how amazing that sound was. I instantly started bawling. Then as they were whisking her back past me to the NICU they stopped quickly so I could see her. She reached that little tiny fist up and grabbed my finger so hard I just knew we would both be all right. It was like she was telling me we were strong and she was a fighter. We were going to get through this together.
To sum things up, Sydney Esther Sommers was born on Friday August 19, 2005 at 11:00 pm weighing in at a whopping 3 pounds even and 15 inches long. She was in the NICU for 3 weeks and 1 day and came home on Saturday September 10, 2005 (Mike’s dad’s 60th birthday!) weighing just 3 pounds 8 ounces. She has been a miracle and a fighter ever since.
Going home! We were stunned when they called us on Saturday and said to make sure we brought her car seat when we came to visit. She hadn't yet been on 24 hours of bottle feedings yet (we had to do the final feeding before she could come home) and she was just so tiny! The day she came home she was upped to 30 cc's (1 ounce) of milk every 3 hours. (And if you know her, you know she hasn't upped her intake all that much! LOL) They only moved her to an open air crib the day before. I can't even begin to share the fear and excitement, relief and apprehension we felt that day. She almost didn't fit into her car seat. We had the straps as tight as they would go and we still had to put receiving blankets on either side of her and under her legs to get her to fit.
This is probably one of my all-time favorite pictures.
Cheryl, I am in tears reading this. It reminds me so much of what Jennette went thru with Marshall. We have an amazing God that can and does work miracles!
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