Wonderboy

-Warning this may be a doozie of a post.-
Wonder Boy is 7 today. He has surpassed many a challenges in the first year of his life than most folks go through in their lifetime. This makes him a hero in my book and his story is one that needs documented for me personally.
He was the great surprise of 99. Game boy must have been 5 maybe 6 months old when surprise surprise I found out I was pregnant. The problem was I was in total denial of this surprise, for that I feel deeply responsible for all of his challenges. It was one of those things where I knew but didn't want to believe or pretend to know. I was already pretty much doing things on my own as dh was gone for so many months at a time. When I finally did buck up and go to confirm the pregnancy and fill out all the paper work and jump through hoops to get on medicaid as dh's insurance denied me, I was already a good 14 weeks along.

I took my sweet baby boy to the babysitter for the very first time for my first ob appointment. I was getting the standard pap done which is always such a thrill- a big fan of the pap, when as the doc was about to do the procedure he backed off really quick. Whoah..your dialated. Say what?! They rushed me to the ultra sound machine and scanned me every which a way to see this dialation. 3CM which is significant considering I was about 14 weeks along. Doc told me "Do we need to get you an ambulance to get to the hospital or can you drive yourself?" Considering the hospital was literally 2 blocks away I figured I'd made it this far I can make it to the hospital.
There were two major issues with this situation besides the whole dialated part.
1. My dear sweet loving husband was in Dallas and would not be reachable. I did something I hated to do. I called and left an hour long message on his bosses machine freaking out and trying my best to explain the situation to someone whom I'd never met before.
2. My dear sweet baby boy was at some strange ladys house and I had only prepared one maybe two bottles for him as I pretty much considered this to be your standard ob check up. Luckily somehow some way I was able to remember her phone number even though normally I'm not one to remember someones phone number when I think I wont need to call the person for awhile.
Some how it all worked out and I was checked into the hospital where there I lay pretty much upside down in the bed to remove all pressure from my cervix, in hopes to close it back up.
Strict bed rest for pretty much the duration of the pregnancy was called for. Which for anyone who's been on bed rest knows its not a walk in the park, ecspecially when you have a 6 month old to care for and a husband out of town for weeks straight. No family within a 500 mile radius. I had to literally leave the baby at the babysitter from 7am to 7pm and she would pretty much do everything and bring him home to me only for me to put him to bed and do it all over again. This was a low dark time for me. I probably never really stopped to think about this part until now.
I got to a point where I thought all would be well only one complaint...I had this issue with my bladder or I thought it was my bladder. I would "wet" myself so frequently that I would have to change underwear several times a day. I made mention of this to the doctor since I was seeing him pretty much weekly at this point-20-22 weeks along. He didn't want to worry about this "issue" until after the baby was born. So thinking that this was just a bladder thing I began to purposefully dehydrate myself as to not have to wet myself so much. Which is bad bad during a pregnancy.
I finally at 27 weeks on my routine check up told the nurse once again about my issue. She finally decided its time for the doctor to check me despite how afraid he maybe of infection. Me being dumb and in denial as it was never thought about the amniotic fluid. I never once thought about it and believe me I kill myself a million times over just thinking about it. I was immediatley again rushed to the hospital. Guess where hubby was..yep Dallas. The not so funny thing was the doctor asured me that the fluid replenishes itself. HA! Jerk do you realize how long Ive been telling you about this issue and how very little I was replenishing myself due to this.
Long story short...I was flown to Dallas go figure..hubby had to make two round trips to our town back to Dallas. I had dear sweet wonderboy at 28 weeks. He was 2lbs10oz. I don't know how this baby so early was able to weigh so much even for a premie due to all his circumstances.
He was on a venilator for a good month. He had several bouts of pneumonia at this time and we literally prepared for the worse. We just didn't see how he would make it through. He stayed in NICU for 3 months and came home on dependent oxygen care and 8 hours in home nursing care. We had several more scares and trips to the ER due to pneumonia the last time they had no other choice but to put him on ECMO-I don't know what it stands for but do know its pretty much a heart lung bypass machine that goes through the carotid artery and replenishes new transfused blood and oxygen to the body while the heart and lungs "rest". He was on this procedure for a week. God sends his blessings in so many ways. For one thing there would have been no way on earth my husbands insurance would have covered this and the fifty gazillion dollars of care he had already. Medicaid saved us there. I will never forget the doctor who stayed up all through the night past her shift to attend to him as he would crash every few minutes. This last resort procedure saved his life. Once he was finally stabilized on his own and his little lungs and heart were doing its own thing he literally did a 360 and has been going strong ever since.
So he is a wonder to me an awesome awesome wonder and never ceases to enlighten and entertain me daily. Happy Birthday Wonderboy!