Yesterday was 1 full week till Sofia’s first birthday. She woke me up at around 7am by “sharing” her paci with me. Still groggy and half asleep, I opened my eyes to see a big old grin with those two tiny little bottom teeth. She snuggled up close and all I could think was, what a difference a year makes.

A year ago yesterday, Saturday September 23, 2011, I was still sitting in WakeMed hospital. I was probably woken up by someone around some ungodly hour of between 5:30am and 7:30am by either the OB on call to ask questions about how I was doing or by the nurse taking vitals. It’s most likely that by 7am, both had been in to interrupt my sleep. Jonathan was actually sleeping in the hospital on those very comfortable, insert extreme sarcasm here, pull out sleepers. Sofia was 24weeks and 4 days gestation.
We had entered into “viability” early that week on Tuesday. We had a neonatologist come in and speak with us the day after we were admitted and again the day we made it to 24 weeks, to talk to us about viability and resuscitation. We needed to make a decision on whether we wanted hospital officials to intervene post delivery should it happen this early. They rattled off statistics about rates of survival for weeks 24-28 and possible complications of Cerebral Palsy, they dished out even better news if we could make it past 28 weeks and even better if we made to 30 weeks or more.

The information is enough to make your head spin and makes you want to Google every key word you were able to catch. Google is your WORST enemy on bed rest. Don’t Google anything!

They finally gave me 2 doses of steroids and a magnesium treatment as we hit the 24 week mark. The steroids were administered to help her lungs, the magnesium to guard against brain bleeds and reduce the risk of cerebral palsy. Magnesium was an 8 hour treatment with, no food, no water and hours of extreme nausea, fatigue, hot and cold flashes and dizziness. This was a pretty nasty experience overall.

By Saturday, we had some what settled into the hospital experience. We were starting to get used to the routine. Our first goal of making it to the 24 week mark provided some hope, we started to try to keep the next goal of 28 weeks close in our mind. We had made it 9 days. I got to hear my little Sweet Pea’s heartbeat multiple times through the day. I could already tell we had a feisty little one on our hand, she would hide from the nurses and she’s kick at the Doppler. Little did we know how soon we would meet her and how much of that fight she’d really need.

A year is a bigger deal than we give it credit for.

Yesterday was 1 full week till Sofia’s first birthday. She woke me up at around 7am by “sharing” her paci with me. Still groggy and half asleep, I opened my eyes to see a big old grin with those two tiny little bottom teeth. She snuggled up close and all I could think was, what a difference a year makes.

A year ago yesterday, Saturday September 23, 2011, I was still sitting in WakeMed hospital. I was probably woken up by someone around some ungodly hour of between 5:30am and 7:30am by either the OB on call to ask questions about how I was doing or by the nurse taking vitals. It’s most likely that by 7am, both had been in to interrupt my sleep. Jonathan was actually sleeping in the hospital on those very comfortable, insert extreme sarcasm here, pull out sleepers. Sofia was 24weeks and 4 days gestation.
We had entered into “viability” early that week on Tuesday. We had a neonatologist come in and speak with us the day after we were admitted and again the day we made it to 24 weeks, to talk to us about viability and resuscitation. We needed to make a decision on whether we wanted hospital officials to intervene post delivery should it happen this early. They rattled off statistics about rates of survival for weeks 24-28 and possible complications of Cerebral Palsy, they dished out even better news if we could make it past 28 weeks and even better if we made to 30 weeks or more.

The information is enough to make your head spin and makes you want to Google every key word you were able to catch. Google is your WORST enemy on bed rest. Don’t Google anything!

They finally gave me 2 doses of steroids and a magnesium treatment as we hit the 24 week mark. The steroids were administered to help her lungs, the magnesium to guard against brain bleeds and reduce the risk of cerebral palsy. Magnesium was an 8 hour treatment with, no food, no water and hours of extreme nausea, fatigue, hot and cold flashes and dizziness. This was a pretty nasty experience overall.

By Saturday, we had some what settled into the hospital experience. We were starting to get used to the routine. Our first goal of making it to the 24 week mark provided some hope, we started to try to keep the next goal of 28 weeks close in our mind. We had made it 9 days. I got to hear my little Sweet Pea’s heartbeat multiple times through the day. I could already tell we had a feisty little one on our hand, she would hide from the nurses and she’s kick at the Doppler. Little did we know how soon we would meet her and how much of that fight she’d really need.

A year is a bigger deal than we give it credit for.

Yesterday was 1 full week till Sofia’s first birthday. She woke me up at around 7am by “sharing” her paci with me. Still groggy and half asleep, I opened my eyes to see a big old grin with those two tiny little bottom teeth. She snuggled up close and all I could think was, what a difference a year makes.

A year ago yesterday, Saturday September 23, 2011, I was still sitting in WakeMed hospital. I was probably woken up by someone around some ungodly hour of between 5:30am and 7:30am by either the OB on call to ask questions about how I was doing or by the nurse taking vitals. It’s most likely that by 7am, both had been in to interrupt my sleep. Jonathan was actually sleeping in the hospital on those very comfortable, insert extreme sarcasm here, pull out sleepers. Sofia was 24weeks and 4 days gestation.
We had entered into “viability” early that week on Tuesday. We had a neonatologist come in and speak with us the day after we were admitted and again the day we made it to 24 weeks, to talk to us about viability and resuscitation. We needed to make a decision on whether we wanted hospital officials to intervene post delivery should it happen this early. They rattled off statistics about rates of survival for weeks 24-28 and possible complications of Cerebral Palsy, they dished out even better news if we could make it past 28 weeks and even better if we made to 30 weeks or more.

The information is enough to make your head spin and makes you want to Google every key word you were able to catch. Google is your WORST enemy on bed rest. Don’t Google anything!

They finally gave me 2 doses of steroids and a magnesium treatment as we hit the 24 week mark. The steroids were administered to help her lungs, the magnesium to guard against brain bleeds and reduce the risk of cerebral palsy. Magnesium was an 8 hour treatment with, no food, no water and hours of extreme nausea, fatigue, hot and cold flashes and dizziness. This was a pretty nasty experience overall.

By Saturday, we had some what settled into the hospital experience. We were starting to get used to the routine. Our first goal of making it to the 24 week mark provided some hope, we started to try to keep the next goal of 28 weeks close in our mind. We had made it 9 days. I got to hear my little Sweet Pea’s heartbeat multiple times through the day. I could already tell we had a feisty little one on our hand, she would hide from the nurses and she’s kick at the Doppler. Little did we know how soon we would meet her and how much of that fight she’d really need.

A year is a bigger deal than we give it credit for.