Happy 24th Birthday Brittany!

January 14th...

Twenty-four years ago today I was in Shallowford Hospital, which doesn’t even exist anymore.

This story actually begins a couple of days before on Saturday the 12th when I was sitting at my then mother-in-law’s kitchen table and being unable to find a comfortable position for my back. I was six months pregnant and just felt bad in general.

As the day progressed so did my overall feeling of discomfort. By evening I couldn’t do anything more energetic than sprawl on the sofa. I began to feel a bit feverish and when I went to the bathroom I realized I was spotting. I called the doctor’s office and told them my symptoms. They in turn called me in a prescription for antibiotics, as they seemed to think I had a bladder infection. I started taking the medication and went to bed, although not to sleep. It was Saturday night.

The next morning, being Sunday, meant church. But not for me. I talked to my mother, and she said she’d come to the house and stay with me while Everett went to Sunday school and church. She was going to go by the store and pick up a few things on the way, so would probably not be there by the time he left.

I lay there, watching the clock and noticed the cramps I had been having were coming in cycles, about five minutes apart. Okay, time to call the doctor again. Their advice was…leave now, we’ll meet you at the hospital. I called my sister Jeanette, she said she’d go to the church and tell Everett, then come to the house and wait on our mother to arrive.

Everett got there first, and in the car with him was Chuck Slaton, who decided to go along for the ride. So, we all three head for the hospital. At the time we lived in Forsyth County, so we headed south on Hwy. 400 toward Dunwoody and Shallowford Hospital. On the way we were stopped by the Georgia State Patrol for speeding. He came and asked if I needed an ambulance. I’m sure he thought we were a motley looking crew, them with their Sunday suits on and me with my gray sweat pants and oversized sweat shirt. I told him no, just let us go to the hospital. (When we arrived we found out that he called to make sure we were really headed there.) He actually told us to slow down.

When we arrived at the hospital, the real fun began. I was hooked up to IV’s and given medicine that was supposed to stop the contractions. They were also giving me antibiotics for the bladder infection and steroids for the baby in case the contractions didn’t stop. I wasn’t allowed to even stand up, they gave me a sponge bath, and I had to use a bedpan. This went on overnight. I wasn’t allowed to eat, and every time they gave me a steroid injection I threw up. My heart rate was very fast due to the medication, so fast that I couldn’t control my shaking, but the contractions stopped. The doctor came in and told me that I would be confined to bed until the baby was born. I would be taken off the IV’s and switch over to medication by mouth to keep the contractions from returning. He left after telling me that I would be moved to a room later in the day for a few days before being allowed to go home if everything seemed to be going okay.

I was lying there, feeling sick and sorry for myself, when I felt a gush of warmth. I called the nurse. She called the doctor back in. It appears that my water broke. There was nothing else he could do but take the baby. So in we went. They had me totally prepared for surgery before they gave me anything to make me sleep. They said as soon as you’re under, he’ll start cutting. They had to get the baby out quickly in order that none of the anesthetic reached the baby. The baby was taken from me exactly twelve minutes after they rolled me out of the room. It was Monday, January 14, 1985.

I woke up in the recovery room, they were pressing on my stomach and blood was pouring from me. The pain was intense, but they refused to give me anything. I found out later it was because I was bleeding so badly and I didn’t have a blood pressure to speak of. They put me back under general anesthesia and packed me in order to stop the bleeding. However, it didn’t work. The doctor went out to get permission to do a hysterectomy. In the meantime, the anesthesiologist was monitoring my condition and realized that my blood pressure was improving slowly. They waited and the bleeding stopped, but not before I had to have eleven units of blood.

The next time I woke up I was being turned over, and everything seemed to be underwater. I was in intensive care until Thursday. They moved me then to a regular room, and that’s when I found out the baby was alive. It was a girl, Brittany Nichole, who weighed a whole two pounds, two ounces at birth. I was one week away from being six months pregnant when they took her. I really didn’t expect her to survive. The doctor had given me little hope. I found out that she had bleeding on the brain, and was expected to die, or if she lived they said she’d be a vegetable. I went to see her and she was covered in tape, had tubes and needles everywhere, and was so very tiny.

Her doctor came in to see us. She said that Brittany was still very alert, still moving, which was unusual in her condition. She called the neurologist back in. He said that something rare had happened. The hemorrhage on the brain appeared to have reabsorbed into the brain. It was gone. She started doing better.

I got to go home on Sunday, January 20th, exactly one week from the time I was admitted. Brittany had to stay, but we were encouraged to visit as much as possible. She started having episodes of apnea. It seems that when a baby is born there is a valve that closes between the heart and lungs, but in premature infants that valve sometimes needs help closing. Normally medicine is all that’s necessary; however, it hadn’t worked with her. The valve wouldn’t remain closed. She would continually stop breathing and have to be shaken or stimulated in order to start back. When she was four weeks old the doctor decided that surgery would have to be performed in order to close the valve. She now weighed one pound, ten ounces and was very sick.

They transferred her to Scottish Rite Children’s Hospital. She had the surgery and within days was breathing on her own without oxygen. She went back to Shallowford Hospital, and in March we took her home, a month before her due date. She now weighed a little over four pounds.

Her next stay in the hospital began on March 3, 2007 when she gave birth to our little Emily Claire, who was born after an uneventful pregnancy and a natural delivery. As much a miracle as her mother? Of course :)

I love you Brittany!