I found this picture of Connor, he was about three months old in it and we caught him making the funniest face!! He is so cute, but of course all mom's say that about their kids. When he was born he spent 5 weeks in the NICU and he was for sure the cutest baby there, even the nurses said so. Those five weeks were the hardest of my entire life. Everyday we went to see him and we would cross our fingers hoping that he was making some progress so that we could take him home.
The nurses and the doctors all kept saying that he wouldn't get to go home until his due date which was Feb. 18th, 2008, he was born Dec. 23rd, 2008. Two whole months!! There was a possibility that he could go home sooner and that was if he could eat all of his meals by himself for a day. He got eight bottles a day (only two ounces) and he would struggle to eat it everyday. If he couldn't, they had to feed him through a tube. He was so tiny and he had an IV in his head and foot, a tube down his throat, and all sorts of wires connected to him to make sure he was breathing and that his heart rate was at the appropriate level. It was so horrible. When I would try to sleep at night I would wake up in the middle of the night thinking I heard him cry. Then I would cry because I missed him so much. Luckily, I have the best husband in the world because he was there for me through it all.
On Dec. 20th, my water broke when we were about to go Christmas shopping and I thought I had wet my pants but the water just wouldn't stop. I called my mom and asked her if she knew what was going on and she told me to go to the doctor because it was better to be safe than sorry. So, we went to EIRMC and told them that I thought my water broke, they wheeled me into a room. A nurse came in and told me that my water did break and that they were checking me into the hospital. we were so scared because we didn't know how to deal with a premature baby. The doctor's had some nurses from the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) to talk to us about a premie baby. My doctor thought that my "leak" could seal itself off and I could carry my baby to term if I didn't move. So, I spent three days in one of those uncomfortable hospital beds and my husband slept in a chair. I couldn't even get up to go to the bathroom, and my husband helped me with that too. I hemorrhaged the entire time and so the nurses had to keep changing my bedding, but eventually Trevor started doing that for me too.
On the morning of Dec. 23rd, my doctor came in and told me that my baby's heart rate was dropping and I had to be induced immediately. They wheeled me into a different room and I called my parents and they came. They gave me my epidural and it didn't take, so they had to stick me again. (I was terrified of getting the epidural so it just figures that I would have to be stuck twice.) Then, we waited. At around 5 o'clock, the nurse was checking me and Trevor noticed that I was bleeding a lot. He asked the nurse if that was normal and she said no. They got the doctor and he checked to see if I was dilated enough and I was, my dad and brother gave me a blessing on the way to the delivery room. Once in, I started pushing. It didn't take very long at all, Connor Micheal Hall was born December 23rd, 2007 at 5:15 pm, he was 17 inches long and the most beautiful thing I ever saw. The nurses took him to the NICU so I didn't get to hold him.
Then, something else went wrong, my placenta wouldn't deliver so the doctor had to get it out. Let's just say that that experience was worse than giving birth. They wheeled me back into my room to my parents and informed my husband that I had lost too much blood and if I didn't get a blood transfusion I could die. I had lost two quarts of blood and we agreed to the transfusion. They did it while I slept that night and I started to lose conciseness and my oxygen saturation was really low so they stuck one of the nose plug things in my nose to give me oxygen. In the morning it was all done. The next day was Christmas Eve, and I still had to stay in the hospital and to top it all off, it was snowing so hard that my family couldn't come see me cuz they live in Rigby, too much snow. So Trev and I just hung out in the room and would occasionally go see Connor when the nurses would let us. We couldn't hold him, that was the worst, all we could do was look at him, I couldn't even touch him yet.
The hospital does those Stork dinners after your baby is born, they brought us a picture of Connor, (he had a huge IV stuck in his head) and a dinner. We just sat there looking at the picture and I cried the whole time. We didn't know how we were going to get through this. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that maybe my baby would come two months early. On Christmas day we got to go home, we had to leave Connor, another horrible experience. We went home and my family was able to come over and see us. My husband put our bed downstairs so that I wouldn't have to walk up the stairs to get to it. That was kind of fun because it was right in front of our large TV and while Trevor was at work I could just lay there. Everyday my parents would come get me in the afternoon and take me to Connor. After we saw them they would take me to lunch and we would see other families with their babies and I would cry. Once Trevor got off work at 7 he would get me and we would go see Connor again. We did this until January 28Th when they said he could go home because his oxygen sat. was good and he was eating all his meals.
That was one of the best days of my life. We took him home and all he did was sleep, this was because babies grow when they sleep and he still had a lot of catching up to do. We had to wake him up every three hours to feed him and it would take forever for him to finish his bottle. We had this really cute bassinet that me and my brothers all slept in when we were first born and Connor would sleep in that next to our bed. We had to feed him every three hours until he was about three months old. Then he started sleeping in his big boy crib.
Now he is healthy, happy, and growing just like a normal baby. We are so blessed to have him in our lives!!!! We love him so much and all the pain and heartache we went through was totally worth it. Well, that is our story, we struggled and cried, but in the end we are stronger for it.
