 |
Kami's Story — Kami's Mother |
|
Here is my story: My first pregnancy brought much delight and joy to our hearts and souls. We were elated to find out that I would be due on Valentine's Day in 1994. Little did we know, or expect to be rushing to the hospital five weeks prior to my due date. My water had broken at midnight and I immediately went to the emergency room. My doctor tested me then for GBS..........a false positive result occurred. I was not induced until eleven hours later, then, another eleven hours would have to go by until my daughter Kami was finally born. It was a very long and hard labor for me. When I first held her I knew something was wrong. Everyone in the room was rushing around and almost whispering. I think I got to hold her for about thirty seconds. Her apgar scores were only five. THANK GOD, there was a pediatrician there who was smart enough to start her on an antibiotic. I have been told by neonatal doctors that this is what saved her life. She was then taken away for more tests........one in particular was meningitis. Thankfully she did not have meningitis. The pediatrician came to me a few hours after her birth and told me that they could not take care of her there and she needed to be transferred to a hospital thirty-five miles away. The call into life flight had already been placed. My husband had gone home for some rest. I had to make the call for him to come back and be with our daughter. It turns out that the visibility that night was so bad the helicopter couldn't make it and they would have to take her via ambulance. I can remember as though it was yesterday having the nurses wheel her to my bed and me having to bid my farewell not knowing if I would ever see her alive again. It was like taking my heart out. I can't even talk about it today without tears welling up in my eyes. When they got to the hospital the doctors there told my husband that she would probably only live for an hour or so. Her blood pressure had dropped to barely nothing. Well, she was just a little fighter!! She ended up with pneumonia, sepsis and severe jaundice. Spent the next twelve days in neonatal and then home........good as new! It was a long and lonely twelve days. Although all of them were spent with her it was tough to go home at the end of the night empty handed. I wanted so badly to nurse her, it was my dream all along. I was determined to make it work. With a lot of help from the nurses and a lot of pumping I was able to do so on the tenth day of her life. Today, she is the most beautiful, loving, intelligent five year old. And most of all she is a miracle for us. I look back at those days and know that I would have never made it had I not turned my fears over to the Lord. He was there for us and He saved our little girl. I am an online support parent for the Group B Strep Association. For those of you who need someone to listen or to answer some questions feel free to email me at any time. We must fight together to end this horrible nightmare! GBS-premature, Our gift from God.
|
