We are going to take it back to the beginning from the day Aubrey was born. July 22nd, 2016. She entered this world on her actual due date, something only 5% of babies do. We fully expected Aubrey to be your typical healthy baby. I had a very easy pregnancy, the doctors never found anything wrong in any of her ultrasounds. She was in the correct position way before she needed to be. Everything was looking great until my 40 week appointment. When I went in everything looked good except for high blood pressure. So they decided to keep me for observation. Little did I know I was having contractions and the start of labor.
Well it was finally time for my epidural, they give it to me. After awhile my right side still would not go numb. They kept trying to give me more and more, but I could still feel my right side. All of a sudden they notice Aubrey’s heartbeat had moved, she decided to flip in the middle of labor. So this leads to an emergency c-section. At this point I am in a fog, I just want my baby out healthy however they can get her out. It was such a whirlwind all I could hear was them telling my husband that if they can’t get me numb they would have to put me to sleep and he wouldn’t be able to be in the room with us. God was on our side because they were able to get me numb. As Aubrey entered this world all I could hear was a little squeaking, there was no sound of a baby crying just a high pitched squeak. I really had no idea what was going on but they immediately whisked her away to the nursery, I just told my husband to go with her. Faith, fear, confusion, anxiety, strength, pretty much every emotion you can imagine I was feeling at this very moment. As I was getting sewed back up and back to my room they kept reporting to me as to what they thought was wrong but they really couldn’t figure anything out. So the decision was made to transfer her to the nearest children’s hospital an hour away. Up until this point, this was the hardest and longest day of my life. When you have to let your baby go, you have to stay back and you have no idea what is wrong with her your emotions go haywire. The very first time I got to meet my sweet girl she was in an incubator on her way out the door to get in an ambulance. The only thing I could do was touch her little hand that already had an i.v. in it and tell her everything was going to be okay. She was only a few hours old and had already been poked and things stuffed down her throat. I truly believe that by the grace of God he flipped our sweet Aubrey because she wouldn’t have survived had she come into this world naturally.
32 hours after having a c-section the doctors finally agreed to let me leave to go be with Aubrey. We drove the sixty minute drive (which by the way is not very fun when you are still in quite a bit of pain and you feel like your stomach is going to fall out) to the hospital where I finally got to really meet my beautiful girl. Going days without ever getting to hold your newborn are the most excruciating days of your life. I didn’t get the bonding experience like most momma’s do. I had to hold my baby girl in front of seven other families in the NICU. I had to worry about her oxygen levels and all the wires connected to her. One of the first times I held her she was doing great then all of a sudden she started crying and turned as purple as a plum. It was one of the scariest moments of my life. The nurse scoped her out of my arms like a rag doll and began giving her a high flow of oxygen and Aubrey slowly began calming down. When your baby almost dies in your arms you definitely have a hesitation to hold her again. It took me a couple of days to gain the courage to cuddle with her again. It’s not that I didn’t want to, it was that I was afraid of that happening again. I thank God for my husband and our favorite nurse who both pushed me to be strong yet were compassionate enough to understand when I was not comfortable.
The only diagnosis that doctors could give us for Aubrey’s condition was that her vocal cords were paralyzed, resulting in the high pitched squeak I talked about earlier and very low muscle tone. Because of her vocal cord paralysis, at just three and a half weeks old, we had to make the toughest decision of our lives. We were given 24 hours to decide whether or not we were going to have Aubrey undergo surgery. And we also had to decide which of two totally different surgeries would be best for her. We had absolutely no idea what to do. We prayed and prayed, we weighed both of our options and how they would affect our lives. God put it on our hearts to go with the less risky of the surgeries, a tracheostomy. Which is a hole cut in her neck, and a plastic removable tube inserted so that she could breathe through it. We believe that this was the best decision for us and our life. We chose to totally flip our lives as someone would have to be with Aubrey 24/7. Whether she was awake or asleep, she had to be monitored. Going from being able to basically do whatever we wanted to having to make every decision based on the safety of Aubrey and how we were going to transport her equipment was a huge lifestyle change but one we were ready to take on for our girl. Just a few days after getting her trach, she was thriving as she was finally able to breathe ‘normally’. And then the most amazing news was given to us that we were finally going to be able to start the crazy adventure and take our sweet girl home.
Traveling through Grief 