Things can change in a moment...

I know it's taken six days to get this out...but I am sure you will be understanding...right??

It was last Thursday, the 18th of March.  I had my 36 week appt.  I was feeling so uncomfortable...just swollen, and just felt so OFF!!  Of course, I am pregnant, so what could I expect?  Anyway, the doctor asked me how I was feeling, and out of nowhere, I start crying and tell her how painful the last week has been.  She reassured me that I only had a few short weeks left, and that I wouldn't be pregnant "forever", and then thought that she should check me for dialation to see what kind of progress we had made. 

skip forward about 10 minutes...I HAD made progress.  She could feel the baby's head, and I was more dialated than the week before.  SIGH...maybe the end WAS in sight.  She then got the doppler to measure the baby's heartbeat.  As she put it on my stomach, I wasn't sure at first what we were hearing.  It was SO FAST.  That couldn't be the baby's heartbeat...could it??  I looked up at the doctor, and saw the concerned look on her face.  She just kept listening.

"I don't like that...I don't like that at all...I am gonna send you over to the hospital to have you monitored."

I then asked her if I should be concerned, and she said it was pretty concerning...and I asked..."concerning like I should call my husband concerned?"

She then said that I would probably want to call him, but that she didn't think that I would be delivered today.  She wanted me to be monitored, and then possibly get medication to the baby to slow her heart rate down.

I texted Brian who was in school and said..."Going to the hospital!!! Call me!!"

I then took the LONGEST ROUTE imaginabe to the hospital, got to L & D, and checked in.  Before I knew it there was a high risk OB doctor and a cardiologist discussing a c-section.  The baby's heart rate was reaching the 280's.  On the ultrasound that they brought into the room, you could see that her heart wasn't really beating, it was more like "quivering."  They decided that at 36 weeks along, the best and safest route for her would be to deliver her so that they could treat her heart directly, instead of trying to give me medicine, and then have it go to the placenta, and then finally to the baby, which could take a whole day. 

We didn't have a day.

Once the decision was made, I was rushed back to the OR.  Brian LUCKILY got my text, and made it to the hospital in time to be briefed and get scrubs to go back for the delivery.

My doctor's appt was at 2:40, and Romy Lin was born by 4:20...!!  She was 5lbs 14 oz, and 18inches long.

It was all so surreal.  I was scared for sure...but I think my biggest feeling was numbness.  I was in total shock!!  So many questions going through my mind...and so many fears. 

They took her to the NICU and Brian went with her.  He came back with a report that they had to treat her twice for her rapid heart rate, but that they were able to stabalize it.  She was in need of oxygen though, so they kept her in NICU to get the extra help.  I got to go see her once I was stable.  They wheeled me in, and she was in a bed that had a dome over her face that was just giving her some extra oxygen.  I layed there and held her hand...at which point her saturation levels dropped to 38%.  They immediately wheeled me out so that they could stabalize her once again.  They ended up intibating her for the night. 

(in the dome)

(crashing)

The next day she was doing much better, so they took her off the ventilator.  I got to go down and see her in a wheelchair, and they even let me hold her.  It wasn't 5 minutes, and she was crashing again!!  This time it was her heart rate soaring into the 250's.  It was so scary!!  We sat back as doctors rushed around getting her the meds she needed.  When they give her the heart medication, Adenosine, it is almost as if they are using paddles.  It stops her heart temporarily, her whole little body shudders, and then it resumes beating.  It would resume at the proper rate...and then go balistic again.  They did this three times before I couldn't stand it and asked to be taken out.  I requested that the NICU call me when she was stabalized again.  Luckily I didn't have to wait TOO long.

By Saturday morning, her lungs were beginning to fail her.  One of them collapsed, and both of them were full of fluid.  She was completely intibated again.  This time, she was on and oscillator, a machine that holds her lungs open so that she doesn't have to breathe.   It completely shakes her whole little body.  She also started antibiotics, and surfactant treatments for her lungs.  This little girl is so sick!!  It was excruciatingly painful to see her for the first time.  How could I have complained about being so uncomfortable while pregnant, when I had to see needles and tubes sticking out from every limb of my daughter.  I would have gladly taken 4 more weeks of pain, than to have seen her for one minute like this...

Saturday night she began having problems keeping her blood pressures up.  They tried different ways of getting it up that were less invasive, but finally had to give her dopamine.  The problem with this drug is that the side effect is that it can speed up the heart rate...which we have finally gotten under control.  Luckily the meds didn't affect her, and her blood pressures were stable once again.

Romy's has a heart condition called SVT.  They don't know why she got it, but the good news is that her heart has no abnormalities.  For some reason it just triggers wrong.  The medicine she has been put on has been working great, and the cardiologists say that she will be on it for a year, maybe two.  We are just thankful that it is something that can be controlled, and that there is a high possibility that she will just grow out of it.  If not there is surgery to fix the condition.

Each day now is a waiting game.  She is healing, and we are waiting for her to heal....we are looking forward to seeing her little eyes open for the first time...to hear her little cry...to hold her...and of course...to take her home so that we can be a family. 

It is day 6, and I haven't seen any of my other kiddos.  It is rough, but I know I need to be here for little Romy now, and that my kids are strong and know that I love them. 

Thanks to everyone who has been praying for little Romy Lin.  She is such a trooper, and I know she will get through this...but it is through everyones prayers and hope that she is!!