Our little turkey!

Well as most of you know, Caroline Leigh Robertson was born on Thanksgiving day! She was born at 5:09 P.M. weighing 5 lbs 15 oz! I woke up that morning not feeling so great and even said to Jeremy that if it wasn't Thanksgiving, I would go to the hospital and have everything checked out just to make sure. Little did I know that as my family was arriving at my parents house for Thanksgiving lunch, my water broke! This all happened around 1:30 and luckily my parents live right by the Baptist Hospital so we went there first and then I was transported by ambulance to UVA.  As soon as we got there, it was probably 20 minutes before I was in the OR prepping for the c-section. The c-section seemed to take forever. It was about an hour to prepare once in the OR and then they allowed Jeremy to come and in about 5 minutes, Caroline made her appearance into this world! Then it took about an hour to finish sewing me back together.  I did get to see Caroline for a brief second before she was taken to the NICU, where she has been since she was born.

We have been in Charlottesville with Caroline since last week. It has been a very long and emotional week and we are looking to spend at least another week here. As most of you know, Caroline does in fact have Spina Bifida. (Technical term is myelomeningocele, myelo for short....in which all the doctors here refer to it as). She had a large opening on her lower back, about the size of a half dollar. Most babies born with SB have a sac protruding from the back but hers had ruptured at some point (not sure while she was still in utero or if it ruptured during delivery). The doctors bandaged her up right away and kept it covered until her surgery. Her head was slightly enlarged due to the fluid on her brain. All of these things we knew (well, we had an idea about) which made the process a bit easier in the fact that we were aware of all of this before she made her appearance. She was scheduled to have her surgery the next morning. Dr. Jane Jr., the Neurosurgeon, did the shunt surgery and closed the opening on her back. He is an absolutely phenomenal doctor and has done several SB surgeries. He told us the morning of the surgery that he was there all day and was in no hurry. He was not going to rush anything so to not worry if it was taking longer than expected. That really helped ease my mind because waiting around is the hardest part. She went into surgery about 10:30 that morning and was finally done about 6:30 that evening. It was a very long day, for her and us both. Her shunt was done first, put in on her right side of her head and has a long tube that goes behind her ear, down her neck, and into her stomach to drain. Then the back was closed. This took the longest as Dr. Jane Jr. had to basically recreate the part of the back that didn't close so he had to tuck in the spinal cord and cover it back with nerves and skin. Finally, the plastic surgery team took over and somehow was able to get enough skin to cover the lesion. The scar is pretty intense and is quite large but Dr. Jane Jr. said it was the best looking scar for SB that he has seen. That is reassuring and it truly is amazing how they can repair it all!

Caroline spent 4 days in the intense part of the NICU, basically just one large room with tons of nurses and doctors always around. It was loud and bright the majority of the time but she had specialized one on one care with extremely trained nurses. I have to say, I have so much respect for the nurses. I could never in a million years do the job they do! They deserve so much respect and praise for their jobs! After about 4 days, Caroline was moved to a different "pod" in the NICU that isn't as one-on-one as where she was. It was a good thing that she moved because that meant she was making progress and no longer needed it but I had a hard time letting go of the individualized care. Where she is now, she has a nurse in which is shared with two other babies. We have had some good nurses there but then we have had a couple in which I don't think NICU is the best fit for them. But, that is just a worrying mothers opinion- I know they are trained for it!

We have had our good and bad days since. She made a lot of progress right out of the gate and was doing wonderful! Then, a couple nights ago, we had a slight setback with her back. We noticed the incision site had gotten extremely red and was draining. The nurse paged the doctors who brought in the plastic surgeons to look. The plastic surgeon removed the dressing (extremely sticky dressing that was pretty much suctioned to her back- pretty painful to rip off!) and then she squeezed all around the incision site to drain it. It looked so painful to watch her squeeze on it and Caroline was just screaming! It broke my heart! They decided to start her on another antibiotic in case it was infected, did a skin culture, and then gave her some tylenol. She was so fussy and upset all night. Her blood pressure was up, her temp was up, and so was her heart rate. It truly broke my heart to see her so upset and in pain and I couldn't pick her up and hold her. We ended up staying until 1:30 in the morning until she finally settled down after two rounds of pain meds. Jeremy had to pull me away from her that night so I would get some sleep. I tell you, it was extremely hard to leave that night but honestly, it is hard to leave every night. I just want to be there when she cries and I just hate thinking that she does it during the night and I am not there. I have been trying to not be so hard on myself because I know she is in good hands but it is just the mother nature to want to be there with her.  Since that night, she has been doing much better. She is still only allowed to lay on her stomach which is frustrating because she gets so restless not being able to change positions but we know it is for the best to help her back heal. We are praying that she can at least be able to lay on her left side soon! We are working on getting her to feed as that is a big deal before going home. She is also on her antibiotics until Friday. We just keep praying every day that she makes progress and that we are one day closer to bringing her home!

Sidenote but I have to tell you, I couldn't do any of this without Jeremy. He has been my rock through all of this and I know I have mentioned that before but it is very true. He has lifted me from some dark moments during all of this and has been there to let me have my emotional times. He has made me laugh at times when I wanted to cry and has tried to keep balance in our lives. He has stepped in and become such a great father to her and an even more loving and supporting husband. Caroline and I are so lucky to have him in our lives!

I have to say as well, the love and support we have gotten from so many people via texts/emails/messages etc has been so wonderful. I apologize for not responding to all of them but I want everyone to know that we read them and we just love to hear how much support our little Caroline has!! She is one loved little girl by so many! We can't say thank you enough for all the nice words that have been shared and how so many people are willing to help in any way they can! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

We will continue to keep everyone updated, mostly by facebook, but will update the blog as we continue on this journey with our sweet girl. We have a lot of unanswered questions at this point of what Caroline will be able to do. Most of it will depend on time. Dr. Jane Jr. did say something that has stuck with me...he said "Don't ever let anyone set limitations on her."  He said he has seen so many kids overcome obstacles that people told them they couldn't. We have to believe that Caroline can do anything she wants! We are nervous/anxious/excited to see where our journey with her will lead but we know we are so very lucky to have her in our lives!  Please keep the prayers coming that our sweet girl with be home soon!