Advent 2017 Challenge - Miracle

Write about something miraculous.

The first thing that always pops to mind when I think of miracles is this beautiful face.

I’m not sure how I got to be so blessed to call this miracle ‘mine’ but he is such a blessing and he truly is a miracle.  It’s likely not news to many of you as to why but it’s a good ‘story’ to share right now because in this season of memories of a difficult time in my life, remembering things that went so very good are important.  Reminding myself that it wasn’t all heartbreak that came out of it is so very important to getting through this month.  

And so here’s the story of a miraculous journey….

When I was diagnosed with TTTS on December 11th 2008 this little boy was VERY little, a mere 405 grams and he had no amniotic fluid around him.  Despite it being pretty apparent from the amount of fluid Cole had, 8cm (the lowest possible amount a recipient can have to be diagnosed), that the TTTS had only been happening for days at best, Cameron no longer had fluid because he was no longer producing it, he was no longer producing urine and had no visible bladder.  

When my OB sent me off to Toronto for a complete assessment and diagnosis, he gave me a package of information.  I had to know what was in it and it was this, this no visible bladder thing, that brought me to my knees in fear.  I didn’t understand the medical jargon about Cole’s condition but no visible bladder had to mean something was terribly wrong.

Upon diagnosis we learned that Cameron was actually the healthier twin.  Other than having no visible bladder or measurable fluid, his heart and brain function looked perfect.  There were no signs of any other complications….no blood flow issues in his cord or brain, no anemia.  This was very reassuring and this good news continued right through until surgery the next afternoon despite the health of his twin rapidly declining.  
The next day, as you know, our hearts were shattered and life changed forever when we learned Cole had passed.  While we tried to wrap our heads around this completely unexpected news, the cardiologist who was called in to do a fetal echo on our son’s hearts, was all business, and assured us that Cameron looked good, that his heart was fine.  
We returned to our room at Mt. Sinai feeling defeated and our only glimmer of hope was that Cameron was alive, kicking and, we were assuming, doing fine.  And then that hope was stolen from us too when Dr. Ryan assessed him a few hours later and it was determined that he was severely anemic.  It was a very confusing time as the various doctors working on our team seemed to be debating a lot about what was going on and what to do.  They talked about doing a blood transfusion to each other but they weren’t saying much to us and this made it even more confusing.  I finally asked the resident doing the scanning what the big concern was in regards to just doing the transfusion.  He looked up from ultrasound testing he was doing and said, completely matter of fact, ‘we just want to make sure we aren’t saving a very sick baby’.

WHAT????  My world was just shattered hours before and my only hope is this twin and you aren’t sure he should be saved!!!!

Thankfully Dr. Ryan was much more optimistic and eventually he determined that it was worth every effort to try to save this very sick baby and later that evening an intrauterine blood transfusion was performed.  To this day we aren’t totally sure how much blood he was given but the numbers we have on how bad his anemia was prior to the procedure are absolutely scary… life threatening scary, severe brain damage type scary.  

And miraculously the next day there was improvement and an MRI later that week showed no apparent damage to his brain.  We left that follow up appointment and drove home from Toronto for the third time in a week feeling like we might just make it out of this with a healthy baby.  For the first time in a week or so we felt joy!

Three weeks later this little miracle

showed us once again how miraculous he was.  In the wee hours of the morning on January 3 I rolled over in bed and felt a pop.  Through a confusing process over the next 8 hours or so it was determined that my water had broken and they believed that Cameron and Cole were about to make their very early appearance.  I say they believed this because, for whatever reason, I didn’t feel like this was the case.  I just knew in my heart that Cameron had no intention of having a January birthday.

Over the next 7.5 weeks Cameron remained quite content to be laid back and chill inside me.  We had a few blurps along the way but all in all he never caused me to be sent to labour and delivery triage for further monitoring and passed his daily daily testing almost every day.  Other than never having any measurable fluid, he really had no issues.
At 34 weeks exactly Cameron made his loud and screaming entrance.  He had an apgar of 8 or 9 and needed nothing more than a bit of free flow oxygen to stabilize.  After weeks of no fluid to help with lung development that was truly a miracle.

The only interesting thing that completely baffled the doctors was that he was born with an ‘open laceration’ under his right arm.  It started at the front near his shoulder and went all the way around to the back...essentially ¾ of the way around his arm.  The doctors had no idea where it came from and chose simply to treat it with salve and keep it clean until it healed.  It would take about 18 months before we would have it confirmed that Cameron had experienced one more strike against in and miraculously escape unharmed.  This open laceration was from an amniotic band that had begun to wrap itself around his arm.  Google it for information but suffice to say we were lucky Cameron’s arm was intact and essentially unaffected  

At this same appointment the miraculous journey of Cameron, perhaps I should say the miraculous outcome of the journey of Cameron, was revealed to us by Dr. Ryan.  It was the first time we’d really seen him since the boys were born and the entire time we talked to him he kept looking at Cameron as he crawled, walked, babbled and interacted with his brothers.  He finally turned to us and said ‘I have to be honest with you, this isn’t the outcome I thought you were going to have when you were my patient.  It wasn’t that I didn’t think he’d survive but I never dreamed he would be in perfect health and development at this age’.

Though I’d never thought Cameron was anything but a miracle, having a medical professional, a leading doctor in his field who had cared for you and your unborn babies, tell you that your child is a miracle was a very surreal feeling.  
I feel blessed to have witnessed such a miraculous journey and even more blessed to call this miracle mine!