14 Weeks

So there I was sleeping sound as could be. Waiting for another day to pass. I had a big day planned to spend with some of my friends. Then at 2 a.m. I get a call from my surprisingly calm wife. She says, “Dale, they are taking me into O.R. right now, we’re going to have the baby. You need to get here!” So, I ran around the house getting dressed, getting the dog in her kennel, and getting out the door so I could be with my wife as she had our 2nd child. Unfortunately, the 15 minutes that it took me to get from a very sound sleep and into the hospital wasn’t fast enough. When I got there, I was greeted at the door and we made it back to the O.R. as fast as possible! I think I’ve told the story already about how I thought I was going in with Suzanne so I started to get undressed so I could be ready to put on scrubs. Since they didn’t have time to give her an epidural, they had to put her out and intubate her. That meant that this child’s very scared and very anxious daddy couldn’t be there for her birth. Since I wasn’t going in there, I was told very nicely to put my clothes back on. You all know what happened next. We became the proud parents of this beautiful little girl. She has become our ‘pride and joy’ to say the least. Our days, nights, and weekends were filled with making trips back and forth from home, NICU, and work. It has now been 14 weeks and we’re still here. McKenna has made progress by leaps and bounds. She is nearly 3½ times the size of what she was 14 weeks ago. The only tubes and wires still being used are her NG tube which is what they pump her milk down into her stomach, there are 3 wires on her chest that monitor her heart rate and her respiratory. Last but not least, there is a monitor around her foot that measures her blood oxidation and heart rate. She is in an open crib instead of the isolette. She is breathing 100% room air with no help. Needless to say, like my Grandma Felton used to say, “she’s growing like a weed”. She had another eye appointment yesterday. The doctor says that they aren’t any worse and they aren’t any better. They will continue to ‘keep an eye on her’ to make sure that she won’t need some sort of corrective surgery. Our current answer to the big question of “when is she coming home?” is, next week. That way if she doesn’t come home next week, we can say, next week. Sometime we’ll actually be right. Have a great week.