So the BIG post for yesterday didn't get made. :(

I was hoping that my son would be home when I typed this up so that he could share his thoughts and feelings too, but he had a really lousy day at work, and came home in a horribly ticked off mood.  Just what you don't need on your birthday.  :(

So yeah, the big news, yesterday my son turned 20.  He is my oldest of the 4, and the one we weren't sure was gonna make it.  He was born 4 weeks prematurely.  He was a huge baby, so the doctors didn't think there would be any issues with his birth.  To this day, I owe his life to an unknown LD newborn nurse who noticed that he was having breathing issues, and ran him up 2 flights of stairs, in her arms, to the NeoNatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).  She broke protocol, didn't follow hospital rules, and single-handedly got my son to the doctors and nurses who could help him.  His NICU pediatrician told me that had she called a code in the newborn nursery, he would not have made it. He was born weighing in at 8 lbs 3 oz, 4 weeks early.  The hospital had never seen a preemie his size, and it never crossed the mind of any one in the delivery room that he would have problems. 

He was born with Hyaline Membrane Disease.  His little body didn't make enough surfactant to coat his lungs, allowing him to breathe.  Without surfactant, the alveoli (little air sacs) can stick together when there isn't enough air in the lungs to keep them inflated.  So within an hour of his birth, his lungs had collasped in on themselves and he wasn't getting any air at all.  He had to be intubated and put on a respirator.  At the time the newborn nurse noticed what was going on, most of the staff was helping an emergency delivery, and the NICU was the only placed that had staff that could help my son.  She ran up 2 flights of stairs to get him to the people who could save him.  For 10 days he was in the NICU, in a medicated coma on a respirator, hooked up to tubes thru his umbilical cord.  They had to medically put him in a coma because he kept trying to pull the respiratory out.  After 10 days, they took him off the respirator, and I got to hold him for the second time, the first being for about 2 minutes after his birth.  He was the biggest baby ever in the NICU.  The hardest thing in the world for me, was leaving that hospital without my son. 

I found myself in a ackward position as I attended the NICU support group sessions that met several times a day.  My first session almost ended up being my last session.  Everyone introduces themselves, who their baby in the NICU was, when they were born, what their weight was, and when their projected "Go Home" date was.  When it was my turn, I was hoping that most mothers, and the few fathers would be understanding, but at the mention of my sons weight, the lady at the end of the table said I didn't need to be there, my baby wasn't a "preemie", he was too big to be considered a "preemie".  The lady laughed at me.  I was dumbfounded to say the least.  I excused myself from that first session after being told I didn't belong there.  Later that night, one of the NICU nurses convinced me to try the session again, and she went with me.  Most mothers there had small babies, under 5 lbs, but they could hold their babies and interact with them.  Most of the discussion revolved how many milliliters their babies were eating.  I didn't introduce myself at that session, the nurse told my story for me.  The other mothers there knew their babies were going to go home.  I still didn't, at this point, even know what was wrong with my baby, just that he almost died, and I couldn't even hold him.  The second session was more accepting than the first, and I would go to sessions until they released him, but I sat in the back and didnt say anything.  I just tried to get some hope from the stories of others.

Maybe that is part of why I also started this little blog.  I don't care if no one else ever reads this, or if it just serves as a way to journal my life, for my kids to reflect back on later.  Just reliving his birth and challenages as I typed this out, I find myself a little more hopeful for things to come.

So, now I have a child who is no longer a teenager.  It was a long hard road to get him thru school.  He has some special learning disabilities that took him a long time to learn to deal with and to overcome.  After failing every class in his freshman year, he did graduate, and his last semester of his senior year he was an A/B student.  He doesn't know what he wants to do with his life, and thats alright with me, for now.  He just got his first job, and 2 days ago, he opened his first checking account.  He has come a long way in 20 years, and I look forward to watching him continue to grow and develop over the next 20 years.

If I survive getting his sisters thru their teens, it will be a miracle.  :)

So, happy belated 20th my first born child.  I know yesterday was a bad day for you.  I hope we get to have some fun celebrating this weekend.

It's Been Awhile

Lots of things going on in my life right now.  Most are health related.  Concentrating on getting better, enjoying our family vacation to Florida, and surviving the huge amounts of snow we have seen this winter has been about all I can deal with, and as a result, I have fell behind in my "blogging".  There were so many things I saw for my itsy bitsy piece of the web.  Now that I am beginning to feel human again, I look forward to sharing my culinary adventures, and those of my kids.  I look forward to sharing the craziness that is my everyday life, and to also use this blog as a way to "journal" my life.

Big post coming tomorrow.  It will make me feel really really old.  LOL

Until then America!  :)