Bed Rest...One Year Later

It doesn't seem like it has been a year since that day last September...

I had been on bedrest for a month for various pregnancy complications. It was a long month.

 

When I was finally given the OK to be up and around, I was so happy! It lasted all of 2.5 weeks. On this day last year, my membranes ruptured and I was flown to Denver. I was in labor at 31 weeks. Not cool. I was given meds to stop the contractions, drugs to quickly mature my baby's lungs, and I was settled into this bed at the University of Colorado Hospital for 3 weeks.

 

It seemed like such a long 3 weeks!

But at 34 weeks, our sweet miracle baby was born.

She spent 4 weeks in the NICU, learning to eat.

 

 

 

 She came home on oxygen, thanks to our high altitude.

She has only had a mild fever one day of her life - otherwise has never been sick!

The Drs said she would not survive - that it was a matter of time before I would miscarry.

But God was gracious and loving to me, and He has given us a precious gift in this sweet child.

Whenever I drive past the airport in town, I think of this day last year. How scared I was. How miserable those meds made me feel. How it felt to be bundled onto a skinny strecher by a couple medical flight team members, then staring at their knees all the way to the airpost, squished in a tiny ambulance. I remember feeling the cold rain on my bare feet as I laid on the stretcher, waiting for the flight team to untangle my wires and tubes. "Keep her head under the door" they said. As if somehow that was gonna help. "Oh she's had mag-sulfate, she's hot" said another. (I'll say how hot or cold I am, thank you very much!)
I remember lying in Denver, looking out the window at the night life, wondering what was going to happen to my kids while I was gone.
And I remember the sweet nurses who comforted me and reassured me that I would be ok, my kids would be ok, and my baby would be fine. You cannot underestimate the power of a good nurse to calm and reassure a patient. Remember that, all you sweet nurse friends of mine! :)

But God kept us all in His care through that time. I learned lessons in the Denver hospital that I could never have learnt at home. I am thnkful indeed, that God goes before us and has every detail of our lives in His control.