Emma's First Friends!

   Last week was such an exciting time for us! "Us" is mostly referring to me and my friend, Jenn, who lives in Wisconsin and has been my pen pal for over 17 years since we got to know each other in a MySpace group. Their girls have been looking at pictures of "baby Emma" and talking about her since she was born. Jenn's second daughter (Arla) was born three months after Emma. So I was so excited when Jenn told me she was bringing the girls down to Disney and then taking them to the beach the next day- on a day I had off. I invited ourselves to meet up with her and she was thrilled! Jenn and I had only met one time before, also in Orlando in May 2019, but last time she only brought her first daughter (Nova) with her. Arla was only 1 & 1/2 at the time, so that was understandable. 

   On Thursday, May 20th last week, after I worked a four hour overtime shift, we got things packed up in the car, including the Beau Jardin wagon that Michael bought for our Hilton Head trip last month, which we will always use for beach trips now. We met Jenn and the girls at Lori Wilson park in Cocoa Beach at 2:30 and after everyone got ready (we waited until we got there to put Emma into her swimmy diaper and bathing suit) we headed to the beach! I loved that Nova and Arla who are now a couple months over 5 1/2 and 3 1/2 years old did not do the weird shy thing that kids sometimes do. They were sweet and friendly, asked lots of questions, and showed off the pride flags they picked out at Target on the way, along with their new beach toys! 

   Arla was very nice and let me borrow her little Frozen shovel when I asked for it so I could fill up the bags faster to hold down the tent. It was hard not to laugh though because I could feel her watching me, like "Are you almost done? I really want to work on my sand castle." But instead she came over and asked if I needed help! Nova spent a lot of time playing in the ocean (the whole point of her day!), so I was surprised when Arla preferred to hang out in the tent with Michael and Emma. She was in the water a good bit too, but she was also asking Michael a lot of questions, which he did a great job answering in a way she seemed to understand. Some questions were about Emma and her medical equipment, other were more random like her talking about a loose tooth she had and how one day all of her teeth will fall out at the same time. I replied, "Oh, that will be cute!" 

   Arla collected shells and then gave them to Emma. I thought it was the cutest thing ever! Every time she did it, I quickly grabbed my phone to take a picture to capture the moment of interaction between the two. Emma would take the shell from her.. and try to put it in her mouth (she just likes to rub things against her teeth). This was Emma's first time "playing" with another kid! She had been around other kids before, kind of, like when we go to doctor appointments and she sees other kids or when we go to the zoos or pumpkin patch places and there are lots of kids around. She was around Lindsey's three boys in October at Daytona Beach, but they didn't play together. 

   We took friend and family photos before packing up our things and then going to dinner. The place we decided on (Jenna's Breezeway) was temporarily closed, which I didn't see on Google when looking it up. So we went to my other suggestion: Brano's Italian Grill and that ended up working out great! The food was really good, Arla loved her "spaghetti-o's and meatballs", and Nova practiced writing her letters and names. 

Emma kept grabbing Nova's ponytail, which is why I was laughing so much!!
& note Arla's fist fulls of sand that she threw like confetti into the air later.

   After the girls were done eating they played with Emma some more and Emma was thrilled that they wanted to play her favorite game with her! The "in and out/ push and pull" game with her suction catheter. The girls did suuuch a good job listening and being careful to pull the catheter out slowly like Michael told them to when Emma handed it to them. **The suction catherer was not turned on to do any suctioning when they were playing with her.** I laughed when Arla said, "This is a fun game!" because Emma wants us to play it with her for an hour every day! Haha. Nova also asked and seemed interested about Emma's formula and G-tube. 

Emma handing the suction to Arla by tapping it on her hand to get her attention.

   The next friend plans we have include going to Alana's house at some point to see if Flint will play with Emma, and for her to see two big horses up close. Baby Wyatt and their dog Oliver will be there too. And **finally** meeting her cousins, Peyton and Helena, at the beginning of July. She was supposed to meet them in March of last year, but that trip got cancelled since it was right when Covid started shutting down businesses, and then later my brother's work schedule got switched so me and him stopped having the same days off and we couldn't do family trips on the same weekends anymore. I'm interested to see how the interaction Peyton and Helena have with "Baby Emma" compares to Arla and Nova's! :) 

Completely Compatible with Life

 Four years ago, on Thursday, May 18, 2017, I had a terrible doctor appointment alone. I think this was the first one Michael didn't come to because they were getting pretty routine and he didn't want to keep asking for the hours off from work since I was going to MFM (maternal fetal medicine) so often for my check ups, as well as still being my OB/GYN. I was on bed rest since the beginning of May while I had two to three appointments every week - too many to try to work around my Teletype schedule, so I started my FMLA weeks early. Anyway, I'm not going to explain all of the back story because I did that four year ago when we started the blog. But I'm retyping this part because it was a big, dramatic day and for some reason, back then I barely wrote anything about it! Maybe because I didn't want to think about it and write it all out?

You can read the original notes in the post here: The Power of Prayer. And here are my extended notes now, this time with more than ten sentences, because I will never forget this day:

My ultrasound took a long time this day and then after they got all the pictures, it was a full hour that I waited before the doctor came in. At this point I was 33 weeks pregnant, but Emma's last (estimated) weight according to her measurements three days prior was only 2 pounds, 7 ounces, making her the size of a 28 week old baby, or the size of a butternut squash, according to the pregnancy apps. How cute! 

He sat down and it didn't seem good and I suddenly wished Michael was there with me. Since it has now been four years since this day, my memories might not all be in order, but this is what you get: 

The doctor said the phrase, "Not compatible with life". I was confused. Before it was just all about her long limbs (humerus and femur) being short and her needing to just gain weight, but today he said that I was keeping her alive. I was supplying her oxygen, but once she was delivered, she wouldn't be able to breathe on her own and make her own oxygen to survive. This note caused me to make a joke like, "Okay, so I'll just stay pregnant forever then." Nobody laughed. 

I just pictured all the pink clothes hanging in her closet that she would never get to wear. Her room was all set up and decorated for her. I didn't picture her since all her sonograms looked so different, so I wasn't sure what she would look like. Because I was crying so much, the doctor asked if I wanted him and the nurses to step out, but I said, "No, just keep talking", and waved him to continue. I needed the medical information for Michael and didn't want to be there longer than I had to. 

Again he said "She will not be compatible with life". He said it many times throughout his explanation of what was wrong with my baby and her tiny body. At least ten times it seemed. In every sentence. He was a really nice doctor and I liked him the few weeks that I knew him before, but in that moment, I wanted to yell, "I get it! She's probably going to die! You can stop saying it." 

First a miscarriage last April, now a stillborn baby? Please, God, don't let this be true. "Please let us keep her. Please don't let her die," I continued to pray every day since I found out I was pregnant again. 

My doctor said Emma's heart didn't look strong, and he was going to try to get me in that day with the pediatric cardiologist, but he wasn't available until the next day, so we made that appointment. (Emma has never had any issues with her heart, which is so amazing, considering the several other issues she has had and does still have with other parts of her body.) 

When MFM was done telling me everything, and I was done crying for the moment, I tried to compose myself, take some deep breaths, and call Michael to tell him what was going on. However, the second he answered, the floodgates opened again and I could barely get the words out. I tried to be as clear as possible and annunciate my words so he could understand what I was saying, but he couldn't. He just told me he was leaving work and would be there soon. I went back to the lobby and probably called my mom too after that while waiting for him and sounded better with her after crying twice at that point.  

When Michael got to the hospital he called again to ask where I was and I told him I was coming outside and he picked me up at the front. He asked again what was happening because he said in the room where I called there was bad reception, plus with my crying, he said he thought I was saying Emma had to be emergency delivered right then and that's what I was crying about!! I'm sure I responded with something like, "Oh my gosh, man! They would still have to prep for that, which would take at least 30 minutes, enough time for me to call you and you to be with me for the surgery. That would be so scary!"

Then he told me that I was going to be mad at him about something, to which I replied, "After the news I just got, I don't care about anything else." I felt so numb. He said he got a ticket on the way to the hospital because he was going 50 in a 35 (nobody goes only 35 on that road) and the cop didn't believe him when he said his wife was in the hospital. Grrr. I wasn't mad at Michael at all and we paid the ticket. We came back and got my car the next day after the cardiology appointment since I had driven myself to MFM that morning. I just wanted --and needed-- us to be together those days. 

I know that my MFM doctor was just doing his job and I'm sure in the past he has unfortunately been correct in some situations and the babies did go to Heaven. But I'm soooo glad he was wrong about Emma. I mean, he was technically right: she couldn't breathe on her own, but that's what the invention of the ventilator is for. Hooray!! Here are some wonderful recent pictures that show that Emma is VERY compatible and completely enjoying the life that God (and science) and Michael and I have given her! 

Celebrating Mother's Day 2021 with Grammy!

The rest of these great, happy compatible smiles are from our recent 10 year wedding anniversary vacation to Hilton Head in South Carolina:

Emma's first time on a boat, for the sunset dinner cruise Michael booked for us!

ALSO.. if you remember, Emma had her first article published in the UK Sun in March of last year. This past October I was contacted by a super sweet woman named Bess Browning with Chat Magazine, also in the UK, and she ended up writing this other article about Emma. Due to Covid-19 (which has now extended into Covid-21), we were unfortunately never able to be mailed an actual copy of the magazine, but she was able to email me a PDF version and I saved a bunch of screen caps below this main page with close ups of the words. Hopefully you can read them!! 

  While you still have your tissues in hand, let me also just throw in this dream I had back in March 2017, prior to this sad day in May, several weeks before any medial issues had been detected and Michael and I were just like any other couple, ready to have a normal baby. I had said I didn't want to remember this dream, but I also never forgot it. And now it is even crazier and kind of makes sense with how life played out:

   In the dream, I was holding Emma. She had been born too early and was so small and kind of bloody. I had her wrapped up in my arms, and I was running up to the reception desk of a doctor's office trying to find someone to help me. Nobody was behind the desk and I was sobbing, crying out for help. And I was getting really mad at my mom because all she cared about was decorating the office and getting my attention to celebrate my birthday! 

It was interesting how, in real life, Emma was born early and small (half the size- 3 pounds, 3 ounces), but luckily I had tons of great nurses and doctors and respiratory therapists there to help us along the way. The birthday part was pretty funny now through since it turned out that Emma was delivered the day after my birthday. This year I am specifically celebrating my birthday with my mom a few days early that way I still get my special days in before Emma has her 4th birthday party. It will be 4th of July themed! 🇺🇸 :)