What if the hardest day of your life was your first?
I am completely honored to be able to introduce you to my hero and tell you a little about our journey so far. More than likely, my hero will never score the game winning touchdown in a football game and possibly never be on the deans honor roll list. In fact, my hero didn't learn to sit up by himself until the age of 16 months, started crawling a month after his second birthday, still isn't walking at his time and I couldn't be more proud!
Chance was taken after only 28 weeks gestation and his doctor's estimate he stopped developing at 26 weeks. He weighed 1 pound, 15 ounces and was only 13 inches long! When he was born he wasn't given to me to hold, cuddle or even see, he was taken immediately and handed to a team of specialists with the primary goal was to get him to breathe. The team manually breathed for him for 9 minutes before getting his breathing tube in place, I was later told that they will only try for 10 minutes before they have to let the baby go. Chance had one minute to spare.
I wasn't able to see him for what felt like and eternity. Finally, after about 10 hours of waiting they took me by wheel chair to see my new baby. Chance looked so tiny and helpless. He was connected to heart, temperature, oxygen, blood pressure and respiration monitors. He had IV's coming from his wrists, feet, belly button and later his head. He was unable to breathe for himself and connected to a breathing machine. His skin was transparent, he had fuzzy chick like hair covering his whole body and his ears we the thickness of a single rose pedal. And to me he was simply beautiful! The doctor's warned that he had a 50/50 chance to make it through the night and about the same odds to make it for the first couple of months.
During his 3 months stay in the NICU, I was told he very likely would be mentally retarded, physically deformed, be blind and deaf, that he would have no use of his arms, have brain bleeds, Chronic lung disease, blood transfusions, high blood pressure, kidney issues, and heart defects. I learned very quickly just to get through that particular day and couldn't allow myself to worry about anything beyond that. The stress was crippling and if you thought too far ahead.
Today Chance is a happy and a pretty healthy 2 year old little boy. He has over come many of his early medical problems and proven over and over again that having a HUGE will to live, the strength of a little tiny super hero and lots of love can do wonders. He has been diagnosed with Static Encephalopathy and PVL which are both fancy terms for brain damage due to lack of blood and oxygen to his brain at birth. We are now mainly dealing with developmental delays at this point in our journey. He receives speech, occupational,physical, hydro- therapy and hippo-therapy weekly for a total of 7 therapy appointments per week.
Many people go their entire lifetime without ever meeting one of their heroes, I am truly blessed and honored that my hero calls me mama!