Hobbies for HeARTwork

Hey Hobby Lobby! :D

My relationship with the crochet hook is getting less awkward. I find myself more than determined to learn this. It's all super confusing, "I don't see where one stitch ends and the other begins!?" All the jargon, loopy dee loop, where do I hold my hands? Umm is my pinky supposed to get a cramp? I didn't even know that was possible!

I am holding steadfast to my mission. Baby Beanies. I can't get them off my mind. One nurse changed the way I look at beanies, forever. Why you ask? Well I'll tell you but there is a bit of back story so you can see the big picture.

I was wisked into the O.R. at about 7:30am on April 11th 2009, it was an emergency situation... My baby girl was bleeding because my placenta tore away from my uterus. It only takes 2.3 ounces of blood loss for a full term baby to die. My baby was coming 7 weeks too soon. My spinal didn't take fast enough for me to stay awake for the c-section. I heard the doctor say something about beginning at blah blah blah...and then I felt the incredible burn and piercing pain beyond imagination and with one scream, I heard "Special K" and saw WHITE.

They had her out in 7 minutes flat. I was experiencing severe reactions of my own so I didn't have the capacity to worry about my baby. She was in capable hands I had to be sure. But I needed to stay alive. I didn't even know how serious the situation was until the doctor told me and my momma had to put it in perspective. I was in denial about the whole thing.


My miracle. 4 lbs 8 ounces, 17 1/2 inches long. (2 hematacrit points short of needing a blood transfusion. Praise God!)

I was wheeled by the nursery on the way to my recovery room so I was told, I don't remember that. The first time I know I "saw" my baby was the day after she was born. She couldn't be with me because she was under an "Oxy hood" and I was in a semi-comatosed state on a 24 hour magnesium drip to keep me from having seizures.

When Red wheeled me down to the nursery for the first time (still super fuzzy headed), I saw her through the glass first and waited to be buzzed into the nursery. He parked me right by her warming bed and I didn't know what to do. She was so tiny, helpless...not ready. All I could do was touch her feet and sob as I apologized over and over again for letting her down. The "bubble" over her head was all fogged up so I couldn't even see her face. I asked the nurse if she could fix it or take it off for a minute so I could see my daughters face for the first time. I needed to see something other than a bundle of wires and leads on a tiny, still body. She was beautiful. I wanted so badly so grab her up in my arms but I was too scared to even ask. I wasn't sure if I was ready to hear how fragile she was. Since they weren't equipped with nasal canulas and had No NICU, I couldn't hold her. They didn't seem to give much weight to it either...like it wasn't a big deal. The attitude was "you'll get to hold her when you get to hold her and we can't say when that'll be". Did they have any idea how traumatized I was? How guilty I felt? How empty I felt. I had no baby in my womb and no baby in my arms. They treated her as if she didn't even belong to me. How inhuman.



Over the course of the next day I was unaware of all the buzzing going on around me between my mom, Red and his mom (who was an L&D nurse for quite some time). They were discussing the welfare of the baby. When I was finally coming out of the magnesium haze I sat in the rocking chair in my room to eat. My mom came to me and knelt down in front of me, put both her hands on me and in the most loving and supportive way possible, crushed my world. I know it killed her have to tell me that everyone (except the pediatrician overseeing her care) felt Alayna needed to be transported to the nearest NICU (which was over an hour away). She knew how fragile I was. I started to have a panic attack. I can't even have her in my room or hold her and now you want me to send her an hour away? Tears came uncontrollably. My mommy held me and assured me that it was a hard decision that HAD to be made for my baby. My first hard thing as a mommy. So I of course agreed. But there was NO way I was staying in that hospital. If my baby was leaving, so was I.

An ambulance and NICU transport team was on their way from Montgomery for my baby. I had to get blood tests done and sign paperwork releasing myself against medical advice since I was supposed to stay another day. I dreaded every moment that ticked by because it was one closer until I had to send my baby away with strangers.

The time came and the head NICU nurse came in to talk to me about the baby. I learned more about what was going on with her in that 20 minutes than in the entire 2 days of her short life. Shortly after she was finished two men wheeled the transport incubator into my room so that I could see her before she left. (I'm choking back tears typing this) I sat on the couch, frozen. The machine was massive. Lights and cords and things beeping. Encapsulated inside was my tiny little girl. She was crying...I started sobbing. My momma had her arm around me and said "Jenny, honey, go to her. It's okay baby, touch her" So I hobbled up to the isolette and rubbed her little arm as she lay there crying with tiny "meows" is what it sounded like to me. Not even a baby cry. My mama to me "Talk to her honey, let her hear your voice" I just didn't know what to do, what do I say? "It's going to be okay?" Was it? I wasn't going to lie to her. I wasn't okay... How could anyone who's just been gutted like a fish and alienated from her newborn be okay with this....



The nurses and driving team reassured me that they would care for her as the precious cargo she was. And they did something for me that impacted me in a way I couldn't understand but it was oh so momentum-changing. They had placed on her tiny little head, a crocheted pink soft baby beanie hat. NOW she looked like a baby to me. This hospital kept her naked surrounded by wires and plastic and nothing else. But these nurses...humanized her. Put something soft and hand made on her little body to comfort her. I didn't realize it at the time but it was a priceless gift. They would be different to my baby.



Since it was late at night when she left, my mama told me it would be best to go home and get some good sleep in my own bed and she promised she'd take me first thing in the morning up to the NICU. There wasn't much I could do that night even though every cell in me wanted to meet or even beat her there. I went home, slept a little, cried a lot, felt numb.

The drive to the NICU seemed to take forever!!! I think that first day I had them take me up in a wheelchair. I had to wait for the nurses to change shifts before I could be let back to see her. When I arrived in her room, I had to scrub in and put on a horrible yellow gown. (I understand the purpose but it was still yet another barrier between me and the precious life that was part of me just a few days before. I beheld a totally different environment.



She was all cozied up on her tummy with a little rice pillow sock wrapped around her to make her feel secure. She had a beautiful card with her name on it. This was "her" special place. Lots of colorful receiving blankets lined her bed. She had a pacifier nearby. I could see her face. She was sleeping peacefully. I was too scared of the let down so my mom took the reigns and asked the nurse if she knew when I might be able to hold her because I hadn't yet. The nurse was flabergasted!! "She hasn't HELD that baby?!?!" My heart started pounding as I heard her say she just needed to check Alayna's body temperature and as long as it was all right, she'd wrap her up and give her to me. I said "really? I can hold her!?" She said "Oh my honey, of course, she's YOUR baby!" Wow. I wanted to bawl. "My Baby". Finally someone in charge recognized me as her mother. That she needed me, and I her. That first time I held her I could barely contain myself. I struggled to keep from shaking her from breaking down in sobs. I can't describe that feeling. I was holding my soul outside my body. She's here in my arms. Thank God for my mommy, coaching my through this because I just didn't know how to act or what to do. I felt silly talking to her and I have no idea why. In the video she was taking she tells me (again) "talk to her sweetie". Never has my mom had to coax me to talk!!!



But from Saturday to Monday she was having to remind me to talk to my baby. Maybe I just wanted to hold her and hope she had ESP and knew how I felt. Or I was afraid as soon as I opened my mouth to get a word out I'd just start sobbing again. I still felt guilty, all the cords she had to be attached to. She wasn't able to nurse because she wasn't strong enough. Not ready to be here. But she was in good hands. When my mom told me she felt peace about her now being in a NICU and where she belongs, it made me feel better. I was actually able to "mother" her there. Change her diapers, hold her, feed her, bathe her.



But the jist of all this was the small but enormous gesture shown when she was taken from me, as a baby, not a specimen. That little cap, I'm so attached to it. I'll never forget it. It was made by a woman in a church group of ladies who sit around at meetings crocheting for the babies in the NICU. Sending little prayers with each creation. So I know what I have to do. What I want to do. Humanize those tiny little lives. comfort the parents who are tortured and traumatized inside by the ordeal of seeing their baby in a NICU instead of in a bassinet at home. So this is my mission.



A small one but it may mean the world to one mom, like it did to me. If I can do that for one, it'll all be worth it!!