Grab your kleenex

I wrote the following a couple of days after Dylan was born. My mom gave it to me the other day. I didn't want to loose the piece of paper so I have chosen to share it here. Sadly the story doesn't end well. The day I got out of the hospital Dylan lost his fight and went to be with Jesus.


We were ecstatic that we were pregnant and June 11 2002 was our due date! Here we were barely 2/3 through my pregnancy. I had been monitoring my blood pressure and felt concern and had been in communication with the dr all week.

I went to the Dr Friday March 1 with high blood pressure. Dr. M said take it easy this weekend and if you have problems (headache, nausea etc) call me, otherwise I'll see you Monday. So during Saturday, I laid around and did nothing. I felt a little headache and by 5pm I ate half of a turkey sandwich but then I threw up. I asked Jim to call the Dr. ASAP.

We went to the hospital in ice and snow straight away. While we did not realize the urgency we were ushered into a room to start vitals, blood work, iv, etc. Completely unbeknownst to us my blood work was very bad. (I was pu on magnesium sulfate.) We were taken to St. Louis by ambulance to another hospital. Nurse Kasey and Dr. M, who was not on call rode with us. Apparently it was serious, although I still didn't know it.

When we got to the hospital we went to the room and were prepared for surgery. Our son was going to be born that night. While I was prepped Dr. S (peritanologist) told Jim that my life was in danger and the baby at 25 weeks had a 10% chance to live.

Surgery happened at 11:45. Dylan James was born at 12:46 am March 3, 2002. Apparently when Dylan was pulled from my body, he was kicking and swinging. The people doing the surgery said stopped and watched him for a second.

Jim saw me after surgery and I was on a ventilator. This was a very hard time for Jim. Jim said it was critical in appearance but Dr. S was reassuring to Jim that everything was ok.

When I woke up the next morning, I couldn't talk because of the ventilator. I was in SICU. Most of their patients are severely impaired. I was quite the listening, talking patient, once I got off the vent. At one point I heard the nurses say "someone from Tulsa, Indiana call and say someone was in here. Well they might have got to come before visiting hours if they were from overseas or something." That was my parents and my first revelation that they had flown in early Sunday morning to be at the hospital. (My parents are ministers so it was super special that came on a Sunday!)

Visiting hours started at 11am and I had heard that Jim was there at 10:30am so I fully expected to see him. After 11am when my parents and Jim had not shown up, I was moved back to the room that I had prior to the surgery.

When I woke up in the SICU, the nurses asked about blood tests I had during pregnancy because my baby was alive. This is the first time I knew that. (I remember the nurse saying "You're a mommy! Congratulations!")

Jim and mom and dad were late coming to see because they had to see my son, Dylan James. He was very, very small but he was very, very alive. What a miracle.