Words From The Heart

I was only 24 weeks pregnant with her at the time I went into preterm labor and delivered. After she was born we were told it was because I have an incompetent cervix, which that means it just prematurely opens because the weight was too much for my cervix to handle.

We have been very lucky that she does not have to many issues. And the issues she has had have just sort of corrected themselves, however we know that it was because of continuous prayers by so many people and of course it was a gift from God.

She had several infections while in the NICU to include RSV and she was on a ventilator for exactly 4 months, she came off on October 2, 2002. It was certainly a roller coaster ride.

After 176 days in the NICU she came home on November 25, 2002. She went thru 3 surgeries while she was in the NICU. The first was a PDA ligation, the second was for a C-line placement and the third was an ROP laser surgery in both eyes. See my prematurity page for what all those are.

In mid December she was back in the hospital for Croup, she spent 3 days. Then on February 15, 2003 she had a Virtrectomy in her left eye.

She has had to wear glasses twice, once for far sightedness from October 2003 thru February 2004, and then it corrected itself. In October 2004 thru February 2006 she had to get glasses again for being near sighted, then it corrected itself. Right now she does not need glasses. It is truly amazing.

She has been diagnosed with low muscle tone, which makes her clumsy, mild Cerebral palsy in the coordination part of the brain, which until she is a little bit older we will not know the full extent of what that will effect. Now she is going thru testing for epilepsy as she has had a few seizures and the first EEG that was done showed some seizure activity and the things she is doing would support that, so she has to go for a 24 hour EEG.

But for the most part she is a very healthy happy little girl, whom loves her mommy and daddy. She is spoiled rotten too.