Last Mother's Day Lady Karma gave birth to yet another Angel. Exactly eight months ago this Angel was born not breathing on her own and had a very low heart rate. They had to perform infant CPR on her while she was still in the delivery room. Me and my wife witnessed it all.
During the delivery, there was a massive amount of blood lost due to an abruption. The placenta detached during delivery causing my Angel to begin to drown in her own unoxygenated blood. She was whisked away to Emory Midtown Medical Center in Atlanta.
Distraught, Lady Karma sent a text to the Sunday School class. While my Angel was being whisked away to another hospital, our entire Sunday School class went to the front of the church and prayed for her. Afterwards, everyone held their breath.
She spent three weeks in the newborn intensive care unit (NICU). The first three days they had to lower her body temperature to 94 to reduce and swelling to the brain that may have occurred during the abruption. She went from not eating on her own to drinking from a nipple fed by a syringe. She improved to the point to where she was ready to meet her big Sister.
I went through hell, but it is nothing compared to the hell Lady Karma went through. As if going through labor isn't enough, she was there everyday of the three week ordeal. She read books to her every chance she could. She took naps next to her bed. She was there for it all. It all paid off though because she was there when the Doctor's announced we could take her home.
It is worth the lack of sleep. It's worth the nasty vomit-inducing diapers. It's worth the tantrums in the backseat during road trips. Her life is worth it. Her life is worth the stress that comes with parenthood. Every child's life is worth it. I feel so in debt to the people that looked out for us, thought of us and prayed for us. The lovely couple that kept my first angel under their wings while I went to work and Lady Karma went to visit my second angel.
I don't mean to sound corny, but I am very grateful. I can't loose man points by simply saying that I am grateful for everything. It was so hard staying strong and not breaking down in front of everybody. I wanted people to know that if I was OK, everything would be OK...and that was exhausting. I wanted to break down so bad seeing all of those tubes hooked up to my 3 hour old child. Now look at her:
I promise to put funny stuff on here in later posts. Right now I am just enjoying what I call "golden hours" (hours in which the wife, the toddler, and the infant are sleeping in their beds...simultaneously). Now where the hell is that XBox controller!?!?
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