may 2. 2012
our sweet little madison. after being born, she was blue, and took not one breath. they had to breathe for her, and whisked her away. 6 1/2 hours later, doctors came and told us she would have to have open heart surgery in a week. she was born with a micro-deletion in her 22 chromosome, also called, DiGeorge Syndrome. not only was seeing our newborn in a hospital bed painful enough, not being able to hold her, comfort her, cradle her, or even feed her was heart wrenching.
after heart surgery, they hit a nerve to her diaphragm, causing rapid breathing. she needed another surgery to fix that. then healing from that, her heart rate kept skyrocketing. she had extreme acid reflux causing immense pain. and since the doctors felt tube feeding through her nose to her stomach was the best way to control feedings between surgeries, she now didn’t know how to eat through her mouth. so the third surgery was to fix the reflux, and put in a g-tube-where you hook up a bag with a tube, and plug it into her stomach.
we finally brought little madison home after 10 weeks. the next 2 years would prove to be trying, as we had to administer meds, feedings, and breathing treatments constantly throughout the day. we also didn’t have much of any help. jarom’s parents took alex while we were in the hospital for three weeks, which also broke my heart, but there wasn’t a place for alex to be when madison was in the ICU. besides that, we were on our own. in a way, i can say, that we did it and had to work together and pull through, but somewhere inside of me, i would have loved to have family there helping and comforting us during this very difficult time.
madison is now an absolutely bright, loving, tenderhearted sweet girl. i love spending my days with her, and seeing her growing physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. the Lord knew he was sending us a fighter, and she has fought to be here on this earth. we are very blessed to be her parents, and grateful to have her with us on this journey called life.
