A step back in time

I found my picture box yesterday, before the digital camera age. I found baby pics of Jax, and I thought since I had so many new friends I would tell my story of having a DS baby.

We didn't know Jax had DS before he was born, they didn't even see his heart defect on ultrasound. But I will tell you he was a stinker before he was ever born. My first 3 pregnancies I never stopped working, I even danced up until I had them, but with Jax, my pregnancy was horrible. My iron was so low the entire pregnancy so I was always light headed and dizzy. At 35 weeks I went into the hospital in labor, but it went away so I went home. Then at 37 weeks, I got so sick, it wasn't the flu or anything, just a high fever that made it impossible for me to eat or drink. I think it was an infection, anyway, they gave me 6 bags a fluid and sent me home. The next day I went into labor. Needless to say, it was horrible. Besides the fact that I hadn't eaten or drank in a week, now I had to try and have a baby, huh. Then his heart rate would drop soo low, and I wasn't dilated all the way yet. So they tipped my bed so my head was way down, and started prepping me for C section. They were actually pulling my bed away from the wall when they checked me one last time and I was a 10, so we hurry and got him out (thankfully avoiding a c section) As soon as they put him on me I could tell he had DS. They took him and cleaned him up and then let me hold him just for a minute because he wasn't breathing great. While I was holding him I said, he looks downs. Of course the nurses didn't say anything, but after they took him away I told Ray I thought he had DS. That was Nov. 20, 2005

The nurse came back in and said that they usually like to have my doctor here to tell me this, but he had left, they said they thought he had down syndrome, and I said I know, I could already tell. That was it, no crying, nothing. I didn't care at all that he has DS.

I was very lucky because it was Sunday and my pediatrician just happened to be on that day. She said that he probably had heart defects because he wasn't able to hold his sats up. The funny thing was, I worked at the childrens hospital, with heart kids, so when she told me the defect I already knew what it was. I think I was very lucky that way. I didn't hit me as hard and didn't scare me as much because I see it every day. The next morning the life flight team took him to the childrens hospital NICU.

He did really well, he stayed for eight days. Had the billi lights for jaundice, and we tried to bottle feed him, but we knew he would be coming home with all the bells and whistles. I already knew how to place an NG tube, so Ray had to learn, and let me tell you, he was a pro, and he was so proud and bragged a lot that he could do it.

We brought him home Nov. 29, 2005, and he did really well at home for a month. He was home all of Dec. and we had a great Christmas. In January he went in for 10 days with RSV, and in Feb. he went in for 2 weeks with respitory distress and went back and forth to PICU. He was home all of March and we got in a Disneyland trip, little did we know that only 1 day after we got home our world would be turned upside down.

Are you in suspense? I will finish the story tomorrow, I don't want to take up to much space with one blog, but thats how we had Jax, our little angel here on earth.