that she had all of her fingers and toes. She looked
perfectly normal-7lbs. 6 ozs.-a nice size little girl. I couldn't wait to hold her but they didn't let me
because she needed to go to the nursery. That seemed right-she was new you know, and this was
my first baby and that is probably what they do.... She was born at 10:00 a.m. and I finally got to
hold her at 4:00 p.m.
A nurse stayed in the room with me but that seemed right- she was new you
know, and this was my first baby and that is probably what they do.... Eight thirty was the next
time I should get to see her but the time came and went and my baby didn't. The nurse explained
it to me though. A baby in the nursery was having some problems so they were late getting the
other babies out.
That seemed right-they were new you know, and this was my first baby and that
is probably what they do....only she forgot to tell me it was my baby and that they were making
arrangements to send her to another hospital for surgery for a bowel obstruction. They brought
her to me at midnight to say goodbye and then they handed her to her Daddy to take to Egleston
Hospital. Oh yeah-they gave him directions to the hospital and a bulb syringe in case she choked
on the way over there.
A team of surgeons was waiting for her and he would let me know how
she was when the surgery was over. At six o'clock the next morning, when he came back he
didn't have to say anything. I could tell by the look on his face that it was serious. When he told
me that they had removed a third of her intestines and were putting in a hyper alimentation tube
that morning, I had no clue what we were in for. The words Cystic Fibrosis had not been
mentioned yet-even though that particular surgery is an 85% sure diagnosis for the disease.
It took
four days before they started telling us what "might" be going on. Neither one of us had heard of
"it" before so we weren't smart enough to be as scared as we should have been. We had youth
on our side and youth working against us. The doctors didn't think we could understand the
enormity of the diagnosis so they didn't explain it to us and we were young enough to think that
we could handle anything, so we didn't ask.
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