Dear Alex..... (LONG)

5 years ago today was the best and most terrifying day of my life. I had been told two days before that I had horrible Toxemia and that in two days time, they were going to take you by C-section. I looked over at your Da who had turned pale, and I asked if you would survive. The answer I got from my Doctor was " I hope so.."


She also told me due to my history of difficult hypertension issues that I had with both your sister and brother, combined with the state of emergency I was in at that time, that if I got pregnant again, the chances are I would not survive it. If I had waited much longer this time, I might not have made it, as my kidneys had started to shut down. She told me that the best thing for me to do was have my tubes tied. I looked over at your Da and asked him what did he want to do, I had two other children, but this was his first baby, and they could not tell us if you would make it or not...and now any chances of future children with me were gone. I was scared for a lot of reasons. He looked at my Doc and said, " I don't care what you have to do, if she is not here (meaning me) then none if it will matter anyway for me...you worry about her health...". He looked at me and said " If it will keep you here with me, alive and well, sign the papers."

So I did.

Then she told me that I would be given steroids to try to speed up your lung development, and that on Friday, October 15th, 2004, that you would be brought into this world, come what may.

I was 28 weeks pregnant.

A lot of that week in the hospital is hazy. They had me pumped full of Magnesium to keep me from going into a seizure because my blood pressure was so high...and I had to lay on my left side 98 percent of the time, which I hated, as I am a right side sleeper lol. The steroid shots...I swear my nurse was a pro dart player, and my ass was her practice board lol. All the nurses I had were amazing. My day nurse was supposed to be off from Thursday night until Monday morning, but she came up there on Friday and hung around while they did the section on me...and that meant the world to me.

Your Da says he was there the night before, he spent the night, which the nurses said was true, but I do not remember it. He says I kept trying to give him my pillow all night because I was worried he was uncomfortable. He was the one who held me for my epidural at 5 am the next morning, which I do not remember either. In fact, the last thing I REALLY remember is the last steroid shot they gave me the morning before you got here. The next thing I remember is over 12 hours later, I suddenly became aware I was looking up into a person's face who was covered with a surgical mask and a paper shower cap...and then I saw your Da's eyes looking down at me, trying to reassure me...but I saw the fear there....

I felt you kicking me when they were cutting me open...they tell me there was no way I felt that, but you were up high in my ribs...I felt it. Then I said I hurt ( so I am told ) and the anesthesiologist ( who your Da said was very liberal with the pain meds ) shot a syringe into my IV and I fell asleep....and my heart stopped. Chaos erupted of course, and your Da said he called every ancestor, deity, power, God, or anything else that would listen and help to let us both get through this. Before they could even get a machine to me..my heart started again. The next thing I remember  was your Da saying you were out, and I was crying, saying that I did not hear you cry, why were you not crying? Your Da said  that is when you opened your little eyes and bellowed for everyone to hear and that all the nurses in the room  has tears in their eyes and two of them clapped. I remember that cry, and it was the first time I felt real hope that you would be ok.

They wrapped you up and brought you over for me to kiss and then whisked you away to the NICU. Your Da stayed with me, because they would not let him go with you, so he stuck around for the tying of my tubes. He said it was a unique experience to see your wife's pieces parts..from the inside lol.

I do not remember much of that, the next thing I remember was waking up in recovery, and the nurse, the one who cried when you cried, was sitting there reading a book...and she looked at me, smiled, and said "Welcome Back"...and it seemed to echo in my head. Like I had just gone on a journey of the spirit, and she was the one to help keep me tethered to my body...very surreal...

After I woke up enough to be moved, they put me in a wheel chair an wheeled me in to the NICU to see you. You were so tiny....your sister was 7 pounds, your brother TEN, and you...little bitty you, laying there at 3 pounds and 6 ounces. They still had you in an open warming bed, so I could touch you for just a minute, I laid my hand on your chest, which covered 90% of your body, and you  put one arm across my hand...and then they took you away to put you in the incubator. I have never told anyone this, not even your Da, but the entire time you were in that thing, I mentally called you my Little Baby Chick...because they are raised in incubators of a type on farms lol.

They wheeled me to my room to get cleaned up and switched from the L&D room to my regular room..which I hated. I did not want to leave my nurses lol. The room they put me in had eggplant purple walls, and it was right around the corner from the NICU...so I did not have far to walk when I could. I stayed put for the rest of the day time, recovering..but by this time I was sore and hurting, and could not get comfortable...and your Da stepped out that afternoon for a bit, so I decided to scoot down on the bed because my bed would not lay flat enough to suit me ( because the smarter than me nurse had locked my bed in place since she knew my stomach muscles would not work correctly as they had just been sliced open lol )

I slid down to the very end, and had my knees raised with my feet flat on the bed and it felt so good, I did not hurt for a minute....until I tried to move. I then realized I was stuck. I did not have the abdominal strength to pull myself up, or even roll over...or reach the call button, and at the time my room mate was not in the room. So I laid there for 30 minutes until your Da came back and helped me up after he got finished laughing at me lol.

After that we went to go see you in the NICU...and it was so hard to see your tiny little self there, in that bubble, and we could not hold you. You were amazingly healthy however, just tiny. You were only on oxygen  for a couple of hours, your lungs were great, and you were only on the feeding tube for 5 days. I hated that thing. I did not like looking at it go up your nose and down your throat. It looked so painful...

I spent every second I could with you, just watching you sleep...twice the nurse had to escort me back to my room, I was so wiped out over the next couple of days. Then I got to start pumping with their Hoover type pumps...THAT was fun...I think I am still sore lol. 5 days pass and I was still in the hospital. As much as I did not want to leave you, I wanted to go home so bad. I wanted a full nights sleep just once, without a nurse waking me up to check my vitals every 3 hours. My Doc refused to let me go home for two more days...and I was still on that awful magnesium the whole time I was there, but my blood pressure did not want to stay down. Finally a week later they let me go, with blood pressure pills.

I cried and cried and cried when we left...because while I was happy to be going home, it was torture to leave you there. We went back up every single night you were there. I was not allowed to drive for 6 weeks per doctors orders, so every night after we ate dinner we headed to the hospital to see you and drop off the milk I produced daily. It was 13 days after you were born that we FINALLY got to hold you for the first time. A week later you got moved to the NCU ( No more intensive care lol ) and that is where you stayed for the next three weeks until we finally got to bring you home on November 16th, one month and one day after your birth.

Since then you have not slowed down. You did not have that "Delayed Development" everyone kept warning me about. In fact you started walking even before your brother did lol. You are still a tiny thing..and you have always been slender...but looking at you then, and looking at you now, on your 5th birthday...you have changed and grown so very much.

You are so smart, and wise beyond your years. You are the most loving and affectionate child I have ever seen, and every day you cover me with kisses and hugs and " I love you's".

You are my last chance for so many things, in so many ways, and I love you so much. You have taught me so much about myself, because raising you has been a very different experience than raising your siblings has been. I have had to deal with being that over protective mom that most first time moms are, even though you are the third, because I was so terrified that something was going to happen to you, that because you were so little that you were somehow more fragile...and you showed me how wrong I was lol. You are fearless and adventurous, and so very loving and trusting, and I can not imagine my life without you in it.

Thank you for giving me one last chance to get it right. Thank you for giving your Da and I the chance to raise such a special and beautiful soul, and watch you blossom and grow. Thank you for being the pure ray of light, whose smile can illuminate even the darkest of moods, who changes the energy of a room just by being in it. Thank you for being the glue that binds this family together. Thank you for being so strong, for being such a fighter, from the very day you were born. Thank you for being my sweet baby girl.

Thank you for being....you......


Happy 5th Birthday Alexandra Storm.

I love you with all my heart.....

Love,

Mama