Jaxsons story

Because October is Down syndrome awarness month, I thought I would tell our story on how Jax came to our family.
Jaxson was my 4th baby, and he was definitely supposed to be with us. After having 3 boys, I had not planned on getting pregnant again. I wanted to adopt a girl. Because I worked at the childrens hospital with heart babies, I asked Ray if he would ever adopt a baby with heart defects, he thought I was crazy.
For some reason I decided to get pregnant again. I refused the blood test. I knew I would never have an amnio, plus I didn't care if the baby had Down syndrome so I didn't even bother. The funny thing is he was naughty before he was ever born. With my other pregnancies I felt great. I worked up until they were born. I even competed in a dance competion 7 months pregnant with Mondo.
When I was pregnant with Jax, my iron was soo low, and meds would not bring it up. So I felt tired and dizzy the whole pregnancy. I also got some kind of infection the week before he was born and ended up in the hospital recieving 5 bags of fluid. He was born 3 days later. I went into labor in the night, and my water broke shortly after arriving at the hospital. Once my water broke, my babies had a tendancy to come very quickly. He was no exception. Accept that his heartrate would decelerate to dangerously low levels. They did all the typical things, repositioned me, gave me oxygen, and finally tipped my bed so I was on my head! His heartrate would not recover. My doctor had not arrived yet. There were a ton of panicky people in my room. They unlocked my bed and started to wheel me down for a c section when one nurse just happened to check me and I was a 10, so they said lets just push this baby out now. So thats what we did. As soon as they layed him on me I remember looking at him and thinking, "Is this my baby? He looks different". They took him and started to clean him up.

They told me I could hold him for a minute but he was not oxygenating well so they needed to take him to the nursery. When I held him I made the comment that he looked downs. Of course the nurses didn't say anything. After they took him away I told Ray that I thought he had Down syndrome, he was like ok, lets do it. The nurses came back fifteen minutes later and revealed that they thought he had Down syndrome. I said, I know. Really that was it. There was no crying, no feeling that I didn't get my "normal" baby. I don't really know why we didn't have those feelings. Luckily my pediatrician was on that day so she came and talked to us. She explained the heart defect he probably had and thats why he wasn't oxygenating well. Since I worked at the hospital I already knew what AV canal was and had seen it many times. So once again I didn't freak out. The next morning he was taken to the childrens hospital to confirm he had the heart defect.

(side note, I can't believe they didn't see this major heart defect on ultrasound. Thats why we need to push for a fetal echo be done on all babies, so we can find defects that can be fatal if not found soon after birth)

The NICU was actually our easist hospital stay. He did really well, came home with no heart meds (although they were started that next month) He came home with his oxygen and his NG tube. He was in and out of the hospital for the next couple of months, his respitory status just wouldn't stay stable, other than that he was developing like any other DS baby, he smiled and was starting to roll over when he was admitted at 4 months old thus begining our 4 month hell stay.
My little angel baby.