Dear Cougar,
At the time of
your conception in 2009, your brother was 6 months old. Your dad, Tyger, and I lived in a rental
house.
I was 26 and your dad was 37.
Daddy was working as a detention officer and
I was a stay-at-home mom and online college student. Being pregnant with you was much more
eventful than my first pregnancy: I gained more weight and at 8 months, I began
itching severely on my belly. Also,
about a week before you were born, there was a bad snowstorm and Daddy got
stuck at work for 36 hours. That was bad
because I was worried about going into labor with no one to help me.
However, the
worst part about the pregnancy was the news we received after I underwent a
fetal echocardiogram: You, my precious, innocent baby who was yet to be born,
were diagnosed with a serious heart condition that the doctor thought was
probably AVSD (atrial ventricular septal defect). The cardiologist and the geneticist both
encouraged me to also have an amniocentesis done to check for any chromosomal
abnormalities you might have, such as Down’s Syndrome. We were very happy when your chromosomes
turned out to be normal. As for your
heart problem, the doctor assured me that it could be corrected by surgery
sometime after you were born. All I
could do was hope for the best.
I began having
contractions January 1st, 2010, but the pains stopped after a few
hours and didn’t start again until the next day. You were almost a New Year’s baby, but you
ended up being born the evening of January 2nd, 2010. I walked into the birthing center with your
dad, and within an hour you were born.
It was an emergency C-section because you were breech and your heart
rate was dropping fast. You were 9
pounds, 1 ounce and almost 21 inches long.
You were immediately rushed to a children’s hospital and checked
out. They let you come home with your
dad and me a few days later because you were stable.
The first 6
weeks of your life were as normal as they could have been under the
circumstances. Your dad took off an entire month when you were born to help take care of you and let me recover from the delivery. He mostly watched you when I needed to sleep, and one of my favorite pictures is one taken by a nurse right after your birth- you were lying on a hospital table and your dad was sitting beside you with the happiest smile I have ever seen. Anyway, I breastfed you, but you were
not gaining much weight due to your heart condition. You became weaker by the day and you were having
episodes of turning blue and not breathing.
At 6 weeks old, I took you to the children’s hospital where you stayed
for the next 2 weeks while various doctors checked you out. By then, you were too weak to take the breast
or bottle, so I was taught how to insert a feeding tube into your nose and down
to your stomach so that you could receive my breastmilk that way. When we took you home, you only lasted a week
before we had to take you back to the hospital.
Your episodes of turning blue and not breathing were becoming too
frequent for me to handle at home. This
time, you stayed a week at the hospital and came home with oxygen tanks and a
heart monitor in addition to the continuous feeding pump and feeding tube. You had tape on your face to hold the various
tubes in place, and it was a juggling act for me or your dad to hold you and take care of
you.
Unfortunately,
you landed back in the hospital after about a week at home because your blue
episodes had gotten much worse and too often.
Since I had the heart rate monitor at home always attached to you, I
knew what was happening when you stopped breathing. Your heart rate would drop to zero, and this
would happen several times a day.
Anything could set you off, even taking your temperature or clipping
your fingernails. Back in the hospital,
the cardiologists and the heart surgeon told me that you needed an open heart
surgery as soon as possible. However,
they wanted you to be 12 pounds and at least 3 months old to increase your chances
of surviving. So it was a waiting game
while we pumped you full of breastmilk and medicine and oxygen. You made it to 12 pounds, but you did not
make it to 3 months old before your situation became so dire that the surgeon
decided to bump another patient off the surgery schedule in order to get your
surgery done.
It was the last
day of March, 2010, and I do not remember much about it except that you made it
through surgery. The doctors told me
that you had Tetralogy of Fallot in addition to the AVSD, and your heart was in
worse shape than they had originally thought.
You spent 5 weeks intubated in the pediatric ICU before you had the
strength to breathe on your own. You
spent another 3 weeks in the hospital after the breathing tube was taken out,
and ended up having a fundoplication and gastrostomy tube insertion surgery. You were feeling a lot better, but you had
forgotten how to eat, so the g-tube enabled me to feed you with a feeding tube
that connected directly to your stomach.
By this time, you were 5 months old and you could not eat, talk, sit up,
or do any of the things other babies your age could do. When we brought you home, we set up a
physical therapist to help you regain your strength and catch up on your
milestones. You could not walk until you
were age 2 and a half, and you did not get the feeding tube taken out of your
stomach until you were almost 3.
Today you are 3
and a half and you are walking, talking, eating, and playing like a regular
kid. You slept through your first
birthday party. You were a skeleton for
your first Halloween, and a smurf for your second. You were Scooby Doo for your third Halloween. We went to Chuck E Cheese for your 3rd
birthday.
You like Scooby
Doo and Mickey Mouse. You dance when you
hear music. You love and look up to your
big brother, even though he picks on you all the time. You LOVE swimming, especially at Grandma’s
house. Your favorite thing to eat is
pizza. You are unbelievably sweet and
precious, and everyone loves you so much.
Cougar, your mommy, daddy, and so many others love yoi so much. Your smile is constant, your joy never ending, and you capture the hearts of all who meet you. You won my heart three years ago, and im forever grateful to your mom and dad for sharing you and your brother with my family and me. I look forward to watching you grow into a handsome, sweet, intelligent, loving young man. I love you!!!
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