LIFE'S HOPE: Julene's Blog

Through it all, my husband and I were proud parents of our little babies. We had so much trust in God to heal them that we didn’t see how sick they were. Instead, we saw a future with two beautiful little girls. Therefore, we were bewildered when people wanted to “wait and see how it went” before having baby showers, and that they reacted with shock and pity when they saw pictures of the girls. Especially after our second miracle, our hope and trust in God to deliver them was stronger than ever.

As I mentioned in my last post, the doctor told us on their tenth day that Rachael’s kidneys were failing and they had done all they could do for her. In addition to that, her heart ductus had reopened and she was too small for an operation to close it again. This caused her kidneys to stop functioning so they could no longer feed her protein to heal her lungs. The doctor said that if the air leaking from her lungs reached her heart, we would have to give them permission to pull the plug. He gave us so little hope that I came close to stopping my journal entries. We could not imagine ever being able to give the doctors permission to pull the plug. All I could do was go to Rachael, who was now in an open warming bed because of all the tubes and work being done on her, and hold her tiny hand. This was just about the only part of her body free from medical equipment. I spent the time telling our two pound baby how much I loved her, I prayed out loud so she could hear, and talked to her about our God who heals. Needless to say, everyone else we knew continued to pray as well.

Two days later, on Oct 30th, Rachael’s heart ductus closed, her kidneys started functioning, and they started feeding her the protein she needed so her lungs could begin the slow healing process. Although the doctors had no explanation for it, we knew it was God’s answer to prayers. On the day things turned around, Rachael’s nurse hung a sign above her warming bed that said: “For little Rachael there’s a particular reason that this is a special Halloween season. She’s been haunting and spooking and fooling us all, giving no night of sleep to that doctor on call! But little girl we’re failing to mention, you certainly deserve all that attention. Cause speaking of ghouls, goblins, tricks and treats, you’re an especially sweet treat that can’t be beat!”

It was an exciting day when the doctors took the girls off the muscle relaxant, Pavulon, and the girls were able to open their beautiful brown eyes to take a peek at mommy and daddy. Then it was a couple weeks before the big moment when we could hold Jessica in our arms and one month before we could hold Rachael. They had to be bundled up so much that the only thing we could see were their faces. And then, those had to be covered with an oxygen mask.

Jessica was also a fighter but she was in a position to express it more vocally than Rachael. I will never forget walking into the NICU nursery one morning for my daily visit and they had tiny Jessica wrapped up like a mummy in blankets and she was beat red in protest wailing at the top of her lungs. Even as a three pound baby, they could not keep her arms down and hold her still in order to draw blood from one of the veins in her head. It had gotten to a point where they had poked her foot for blood so many times that they were trying to find new places to draw blood.

After one and one-half months, the girls were transferred to the second level care nursery at Fairview Hospital. Their three month stay in the hospital consisted of constant ups and downs in oxygen pressures, as well as various drugs for blood pressure control and fluid on the lungs.

At three months of age and almost five pounds, Jessica was able to come home and we were greeted with a banner across the front of the house that said “Welcome Home Jessica.” Although it wasn’t necessary, we were so nervous that the doctors allowed us to bring Jessica home with a CPAP machine. After one night of listening to the sounds of the machine and getting up to make sure she was still breathing, we realized the machine was too nerve-wracking and the only way we could find peace was by giving our worries to God and trusting Him to take care of her. Besides, he brought us this far! The next day, we returned the noisy CPAP machine and prayed hard before going to sleep. Everything went well. Rachael came home the following week but had to return a week later for a double hernia surgery. Thankfully, she had to stay only one night for that.

Until this day, we thank God that the girls came home breathing on their own and with no shunts. Rachael was weak on the left side but with a lot of love, continued prayer and physical therapy, she learned to adapt with very few problems.

That first year was a lot of work and I felt like a nurse with all the measuring and monitoring I had to do. Even though it was full of sleeping and feeding struggles, that first year was also filled with precious baby memories and I have a great photo to share with you next time of our “cabbage patch” babies.