In May of this year I had found out I was pregnant with our lucky #7 shortly after finding out that I was accepted into the RN program. I knew that this was going to take a lot of hard work. I started the program working full time hours at my job, being a wife to my loving husband, a mother to six amazing children, and pregnant with our little boy. At the end of October I thought my world was crashing down. After 2 months of doing nothing but studying outside of classes and work and making myself physically ill because it's all I thought about, stressed about, and dreamed about.... I came to the realization that there was going to be one class that I wouldn't be able to get through with a 78 (which is the grade needed to progress in the nursing program). I ended up having to drop one of my nursing classes. I was devastated. I felt like all of my hard work had gone down the drain and my dreams were shattered. It was then that one of my nursing classmates, who had once been in my shoes, came to console me. She told me that day that all things happen for a reason and that I may not understand it now...but I would eventually. She even told me that there could be something that was going to need my attention more right now.
It wasn't 2 weeks later that I was sitting in one of the nursing classes that I was still enrolled in that I started to feel like I was working to breathe. My heart rate was going crazy, I was hot and shaky. I walked out in the middle of class that day and phoned my doctor because I knew something wasn't right. That's when he told me to go to the birthing center. I knew something wasn't right...but I didn't think it was an extreme situation so I made the decision to drive myself. However, when I went back into the room to grab my stuff, my friend Kiki wouldn't allow me to drive. She packed up everything and drove me to the hospital. When I got to the hospital, the lowest my resting heart rate got was 177. It was close to 190 the whole time. Then, the baby's heart rate started doing the same. He was in distress and no one knew what was going on with either of us so the doctor called an emergency c-section. After I woke up in recovery, I found out that my little guy was in bad shape. My placenta had abrupted (torn from the uterus) and there were two units of blood inside my uterus that he was aspirating into his lungs. They got him stable enough to transport to Roanoke's NICU but I had to stay in Montgomery. My hemoglobin had dropped to about a 4 and I needed a blood transfusion. I kept hearing how sick my little guy was...one nurse told me that he was one of the three sickest babies that she's ever seen at the birthing center, my ob told me that if we had been just a minute later there would have been no hope, and when the pediatrician came to talk to us it felt like she was preparing us for the worst. I went through a couple of days of not really knowing much and hearing just that he was the same and "one sick boy". After two days in the hospital and 5 units of blood, I finally was discharged and in Roanoke with my little man. In less that 24 hours after we made it there he started to make progress and things were looking up for him. Then it was milestone after milestone for him and he was discharged almost 3 weeks later. He did give us one huge scare on his second week home and we had to call 911. His temperature dropped to 93.7 and he started to turn blue on us. It's a VERY scary thing to have your child turning blue right in your arms---I wish to never experience anything like that again. It turned out that he had the flu, but he was discharged 2 days later. He's now a healthy little guy and for that I'm SO thankful.
So,....what all have I learned from this? I've learned so many life lessons that I probably couldn't tell you them all. I will tell you that my friend from nursing was right. All things DO happen for a reason. I believe that I was in the nursing program this semester to meet my friend Kiki. If I had been somewhere else or she hadn't have driven me, who knows how things would have turned out. She has also become one of my closest friends and quite frankly I don't know how I have lived till now not knowing her because she's AWESOME. Actually it feels as if I have known her my whole life...Pretty cool. The next thing I learned is that my friend was also right in saying that there may be something else that needed my attention. Draven continued to have feeding problems once we were home and has had to have a lot of mommy's attention. I don't know why everything happened but I do believe that some of it was a wake up call for me. I tried to stretch myself too thin. I was taking on 15 credits (not just credits...but nursing credits!) while trying to be a good mommy, a good wife, and a good employee. I needed to take a step back and enjoy the most important thing----my family! Everything that happened forced me to drop ALL of my classes and do just that....ALL my focus was now directed on them. I've been shown how blessed I am to have 7 magnificent children, and an amazing husband, and they should never be taken for granted. It's taught me I'm blessed to have life myself because it could have just as easily been taken away from me that day. This has also taught me how great the people are in my life and the importance of helping one another. I have had so many people help me in so many different ways, it's been amazing and I'll be forever grateful! My family, friends, coworkers, and even people we don't know have just poured out love to me and my family. This has now become a very high priority for me---to do for others and show others the significance of family and friends.
