Evie & Kelsi
Today Kelsi turned 16 years old! She took her drivers test yesterday and passed, but because her actual birthday is today which is on a Sunday, she has to wait until Tuesday to actually go in and get her license...they are also closed on Mondays!
I clearly remember each moment 16 years ago today, as though it has just happened. It was a Monday morning and I had been on bed rest, in and out of the hospital, for over a month, with toxemia. Our baby wasn't due for another 5 weeks. My adventures off of bed rest always led me to the doctor's office. I was going in to the doctors office for my checkup and after a few minutes taking my blood pressure and reading my platelet level results from the day before...the doctor said "go immediately to the hospital...do not go home and get anything....you go directly there...we have to get this baby out as soon as possible". Once we checked into the hospital they quickly whisked us away to get me prepped for my c-section surgery. In the meantime, Kevin was trying to call everyone to let them know they needed to get to the hospital if they wanted to be there when the baby arrived. The doctor eventually came in to tell me that he was going to put me "all the way out" instead of just having a spinal for the c-section....since it was too dangerous to risk me having a stroke. In the middle of having a bunch of nurses frantically running around my room trying to get me ready for surgery, I was watching the Branch Davidian's compound burn in Waco, Texas. Once I was all prepped, they told my husband that he could not come into surgery with me because they were going to put me out and most men can not handle seeing their wives in that condition. Of course Kevin said "absolutely not"! He was going in the room and there was nothing they could do about it. My wonderful OB was known to wear a hat on during his deliveries....one side was blue and the other side pink. We had already known we were having a little girl, but he kept his hat on in the middle until she was born...just in case. :-)
They went to put me under and I remember the last thing the doctor said was "it must be a girl because girls are the ones that tend to cause the most problems to their pregnant mothers". I laughed and the next thing I knew, I was in recovery trying to wake up and my husband said..."we have a beautiful daughter....and she's perfectly healthy"! There she was...5 pounds 2 ounces and 19 inches long. I immediately cried with happiness while trying to stay awake.
You see, we did not know until that moment that we were going to have a healthy baby. I had to be on fertility pills to get pregnant and we had already had one miscarriage (which is another story in itself). I was always getting poked and prodded by needles and so I didn't know months before they were actually doing some routine testing that can detect if you are carrying a baby with downs syndrome.
I received a phone call the day before Thanksgiving from a nurse at the doctors office. She told me that normally a woman of my age has a 1 in a 1,500 chance of carrying a baby with downs and my test results say that I had a 1 in 150 chance...so they would like to offer me a amniocenteses test. She also advised me that I could risk losing the baby too if I did have the test performed. To say the least, I was stunned. First, because I didn't expect a phone call from the doctors office the day before Thanksgiving when we were going to fly to Reno the very next day on a vacation...but with that kind of news? She did tell me that I could call my doctor the next day if I had any questions because he was on call. That evening Kevin and I talked about what to do. We didn't give it a second thought that we could not risk losing the baby by having a amino done, but most of all, we agreed that God gives you only what you can handle and if He felt we would make wonderful parents to a child with a disability....then we would love that child no matter what! The love we would have for our child is unconditional and we never doubted that.
There were so many "strange" things that happened leading up to her delivery...for example, there was a house that burned down right across from the hospital that my room was overlooking when I was on bed rest; there was a bomb threat in the hospital; once she was born they had to move me to a room that was for quarantined patients that had two doors you had to pass through. But all through that...we were so blessed with the most amazing nurses and Dr. Kesling was absolutely the best! The nurses kept telling us we had the most beautiful baby...in fact a couple of the nurses took their own pictures of Kelsi and put them up in their locker! There was one nurse that had made only one hat in her life and was waiting for that "perfect" little girl to give it to....well.....she gave it to Kelsi! After she was born, my hospital room was pink from one end to the other with bouquets of flowers, balloons, clothes, gifts, etc. We had so many visitors too!
Due to my blood pressure not going down, they kept me in the hospital for five days. Kelsi was ready to go home way before I was - but we stayed there until the following Saturday and on that morning when we left the hospital she weighed in at a whopping 4 pounds 12 ounces. Just a little peanut...a beautiful little girl that we were blessed to chosen by God to be her parents.
Kelsi May...happy birthday sweetheart. We are so proud of you! You are an amazing young woman and so beautiful - no just on the outside, but the inside too. We love you with all our hearts!!! No matter what...you'll always be our little girl.
