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Within days of posting my photo and message on Facebook, I had hundreds of people messaging me with their own similar stories. I felt like so many of us go through hard times in life, but we don't always have people to talk to. I want everyone to know that they are not alone! If you want to comment on my stories, please do, but please keep them kind.

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Monday, August 10, 2015

Miracle Micah, His Story

This is my first guest post from another mother, and it is an amazing one! Little Micah is a miracle, as you will learn from reading his story. Thank you so much for sharing it with us Danielle!

Miracle Micah, His Story
By Danielle Pickering, Mom
My son was not “viable”. It was a word we were coming to hate. It all started the day my water broke, at 21 weeks. I was treated as if I had a Urinary Tract Infection, instead of a rupture of membranes. I was sent home with no instructions to do anything outside of my normal routine. I worked 8 hours a day in a warehouse, I cooked meals for my husband and myself, and I went to yard sales like normal, all with my water broken. One week later, at exactly 22 weeks, I started having small contractions and bleeding. My husband and I rushed to the Emergency Room, where they confirmed that my water was at less than 1 CM, and that I would be ambulanced to the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics for the remainder of my pregnancy. 
When I was admitted my heart rate was high, baby’s heart rate was high, and I was running a fever. They determined that since baby was not “viable” they would like to induce labor as they feared I had a life threatening infection. We called on everyone we knew to start praying, and within two hours I was now stable. We were then told that it was our decision to induce or to hold out and see what baby does, but they couldn’t do anything at that time to stop labor. We decided to wait. We couldn’t induce when we were sure this baby was not going to make it.
For the next three days we were told horrific statistics that no parent should ever have to face. We were told that our baby would not cry upon birth. We were told that he will likely be stillborn. We were told that, if by some miracle he survived he had a 95% chance of horrible life altering disabilities that would likely include not walking, not talking, not even eating on his own.
On the morning of 22 weeks and 4 days, Micah was born.  He defied all odds and cried two times upon birth. This was music to this devastated mom’s ears. I didn’t get to see him. He was rushed away by a huge team of Doctors and Nurses dedicated to saving his life, as that was the choice we had made. You see, we were told that we didn’t have to choose to intubate him and put him on a ventilator, but we had to do all we could to save this precious life. He had trusted his Mommy from conception to care and nourish him, and though my body was failing him, I wasn’t going to! I was going to fight for him. I was going to advocate for him! I was going to be the voice of this tiny, fragile little boy who already I was so in love with, and hadn’t even seen yet and thanks to an anterior placenta I hadn’t even felt him kick or move yet. 
The second I was able to meet Micah changed my life. He was so small. I didn’t know what to expect. Would he look “normal”? Could I bond with this baby? Those questions were a mess in my head as I was wheeled into his room two hours after his birth. The sight I saw was a perfectly formed baby. Lots of tubes and monitors all set up to be an artificial womb to this baby born too soon. My husband and I stood there just staring at this beautiful little boy who we were told we couldn’t hold as the skin was so sensitive it would hurt him. We were told we could press lightly on the skin so we each put our hand near him. HE reached up, and held our fingers. This was the strongest grasp I would ever feel. I never knew how strong a baby was until that moment! He had a powerful grip on our hands, and now our hearts.
Micah was about to spend the next 4 months in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. He was going to go through heart surgery, at 2 weeks old and just over a pound. He was going to hang on to life by a thread some days. There were days I couldn’t leave his room. I slept on the floor next to his warmer bed many nights, because my heart was so grieved for this tiny baby and I couldn’t leave him alone. He was going to go through every ventilator they had available. He was going to be on Nitric Oxide to help his lungs. He would get scores of X-Rays and heel pricks. He was going to do something amazing-all because we were able to say “Yes, Please save our baby”.
Here was this little baby who was on morphine for pain.  He still had his eyes fused shut. You could see his chest vibrate from the ventilators. It was heartbreaking. Here was a boy who we would see get to take his first sneeze. His first smile. We would get to see the hiccups, from the outside. We would watch his eyes slowly unfuse. We would watch his hair grow in and we would watch his body develop. It was indescribably the most joyful time of our life.
We knew the Lord had a plan for Micah. Our prayer to God from early on was that Micah’s life, Micah’s story, and Micah’s example would help others, and could somehow save other babies born too soon. We didn’t know what the will for Micah was, but we do now. It was to be a voice for all those other babies. We didn’t understand at the time that Micah was right on time, but now we do. Until you are faced with a situation like this, you cannot grasp the intensity that will become every decision.  You can read every doctor report, you can get advice from everyone. You can be knowledgeable on every part of prematurity, but that does not change the fact that Micah was just as much full of life at 22.4 weeks as he now is at almost 3 years old. Every scary moment has been worth it. Every doctor visit, every oxygen tank we went through, every middle of the night phone call from Natologists, was worth it. We now have a very perfect almost 3 year old we get to call son, when we were preparing for empty arms. Our hearts are full because we chose to give him a chance at life.

6 comments:

  1. Beautiful story and little boy. Thanks for sharing.

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    1. Thanks for sharing ....I hope expectant moms who see this and are thinking of ending their pregnancies will think twice and keep their baby ....they are all precious gifts from God ....its a crying shame how far we have sunk as a society lower than dirt ...to destroy our unborn off spring

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  2. God's miracles are so amazing! Thank you for sharing.

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  3. Sadly we are bonded together through our sons... Rayden Jay 8-1-08

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  4. I couldn't help but cry and cry while reading your story. I have felt all those same things and it brought back so many memories. I was pregnant with twin girls and had to have an emergency c-section at 28+2 weeks due to excessive fluid in both as well as negative cord flow for baby b and reverse cord flow for a. I was so scared to see them wondering if they would look "normal". But they did, just a smaller version. We were told baby b had severe cardiomyopathy where the bottom two ventricles were so thick that hardly any blood could flow through. That night when my husband went to run a quick errand the Dr came in and said, Keira, baby b was not strong enough to survive her heart and that i should think of her and her pain. She said she would put her back on the respirator to give her heart a rest but that it would make other things worse because her kidneys and liver were failing also and she wasn't peeing. She told me i would just be prolonging the inevitable and that she was going to die no matter what. It was a catch 22. But how could i give up, shouldn't i fight till the very end, let her decide, to even have a chance to try. I had to tell my husband when he got back and we both just cried. But he said screw her, never give up. The next morning she started peeing and i just knew that she was going to live. Her heart condition resolved itself in a little over a month!! Both my girls were in the nicu for four months, 104 days. They are ten months old and perfectly healthy, i couldn't imagine life without either one. Never ever give up because miracles are real and they happen everyday, we are living proof!!

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