A look back in time...

Today we were visited by Kathy and Sarah Irish. We had a wonderful visit with them and they even brought some bows, hats, and headbands for Karter's Bow of Faith! It was so good to talk to people out in the "real world"! Upon talking to them I discovered that I have never written about Karter's birth or the events leading up to her birth; so with this I believe it is now time to share her birthing story.

P.S. She is doing wonderful tonight. We were moved back to the eighth floor today but there is still no word on anything. We have no idea what they have planned for the next few days, hopefully we will get to see the doctor tomorrow morning and figure a few things out. She did let her stats start to drop this evening but they were able to adjust her oxygen and bring her back up to the 70's. You know how she is...She likes to test the nurses out and make sure that they are on their toes! :)

Karter's Birth Story

So the start of Karter's debut started at Jordan's ball game. We had gone to the zoo earlier that Saturday afternoon and walked the entire thing! I thought for sure that this would send me into quick labor....I was wrong! Later that evening we went to Jordan's game. While there I started to feel some really good contractions but they were still quite a bit apart. I also felt as if I was leaking some fluid. I had just been to the doctor on Thursday so I thought I had nothing to worry about! On our way home from the game the contractions became worse and I began to feel quite nauseated by them so we decided to:

A. Get home

B. Pick up the house a little

C. Clean the floors

D. Call the Parent Patrol

E. Put Addison to bed

F. Pack the bags

G. Go to the hospital

I thought for sure that if we would do all of these things then when we got to the hospital I would be good to go....WRONG! Our parents came over faster than lightening and we left to go to the hospital. There they checked by cervix and I was fully defaced but only at a 2!!! So they sent us on a walk for two hours around the hospital. Jeremy and I walked and walked and walked! I even did the stopped escalators! Terri joined us and took some pictures. We were on cloud nine and beyond excited to have her here!

After two hours had passed they put me on the contraction monitors and decided to check my cervix again...I was only at a three! Two hours of intense walking for this fat pregnant lady and only at a three. They called the doctor and were about to send me home when they noticed a small drop in her heart beat on the screen. It would only last a few seconds then go right back up. With this they (being the nurse and the doctor) decided to keep me for a little observation. It was about three o'clock in the morning and we were exhausted from our walk! So we tried to sleep. Jeremy was able to sleep but all I could do was watch the fetal monitor. About every 20-30 minutes it would happen again but it always happened with a contraction. I thought it was strange but just figured the baby was trying to show them that she was ready to enter the world. At 6 that morning they decided to do a sonogram to determine what was going on. The sonographer told us that it was just a typical sonogram and that she would be giving the baby points for everything that she checked. She could get a total of 8 points but only 4 points were necessary to pass. She only received 2 points...again we thought this was strange but just figured that she could be in a little distress. They also discovered in the sonogram that she was lacking fluids in the womb. We thought that the lack of fluids was the cause of her distress and continued on not worrying. Looking back on it now I think that they probably saw something in the Sono with her heart and just did not want to tell us till they could confirm it.

We were then released to go to the delivery room to start some pottosin and get this show on the road. They also gave me two bags on fluid through the birthing canal to replace the fluid in the womb. It had turned out that my water had broken and we had not even noticed it! The pottosin was put in at 10 that morning, at about 10:30 they gave me my epidural and by the time they were done with the epidural I was at a 5! She was getting close to being here! By noon I started to feel the need to push so they called the doctor in and began to get ready. I did not even notice that the neonatal team had entered the room till much later. Karter made her first appearance at 12:19 on April 11, 2010. She was beautiful but very tiny! I remember commenting to Jeremy about how tiny she was and I believe at that moment deep down I knew....I knew something was wrong.

The neonatal team who I thought were just the babies nurses began to check her right away. They came and told us that she had probably swallowed some fluid when she was coming out due to being born so fast, so they would need to take her to their unit to check her out a little more and give her a little oxygen. Jeremy was allowed to go and they would bring her back in a few minutes. When they all left Terri came back to the room. We were all so thrilled she was here! I made the few phone calls I needed to make while Jeremy appeared back in the room to show me some pictures of our newest addition. About ten minutes later a neonatal doctor came into the room and asked everyone to leave except for the parents....my heart DROPPED!

At this moment I knew, a mama always knows when something is wrong and I just knew it was bad! She then came to the bed, got level with me, grabbed my hand and proceed to tell me that she suspected that Karter had Down Syndrome. Now here is where you might think of me a little less because a trillion things ran through my head in that moment that I am not proud of for even thinking. My perfect family I had envisioned was gone...Addison was robbed of having a best friend that she could call late at night just to talk...Karter was not "normal"....I had failed as a mother to give her everything she needed...I was blank. Upon that sinking in the doctor then went on to tell us that she believed Karter had a heart defect that could be life threatening, at this moment I knew that the Downs did not matter. I NEEDED her to live. I NEEDED my baby to be okay. Her being Down Syndrome was not a problem it was a TRUE BLESSING! I could take the downs but the heart condition....I kept myself together until she left the room. I was numb. You know how your arm feels after falling asleep? Like a million little pins poking at it? Well this is how my whole body felt. I held it together for a few minutes until we had to tell our immediately family. It was at that moment I lost it. The tears flowed and flowed. Every time there after when the Doctor came in the room my heart stopped I just knew she was going to tell me that Karter Bear had not made it.

As the hours passed on we learned bits and pieces of information. We learned that while they thought she had downs that they would have to confirm it with a test that took a few weeks. We learned that her echo came back from Dallas confirming a heart defect. We learned that we would be going to Dallas to Children's that evening. We learned what true friends were. We learned about FAITH.

Karter's journey at birth was filled with fear and joy and it something that I will always remember... the good and the bad.

Love,

Tara McHam