I didn’t mention in the previous update that my family came to visit around the middle of February. We enjoyed some family time in our apartment, my brother Peter’s house and at a local restaurant.
Although Julie’s still couldn’t crawl or walk, she had much more energy for this visit than for the visits over the summer.
We got together for several hours at a time over the course of a few days.
In order to keep Julie entertained while feeding, she spent a LOT of time in front of the TV. This kept her happy, still and safe, more or less…
Sarah decided to write this update for a change. She wanted to review Julie’s birth from her point of view and summarize the past year…
Today is Julie’s first birthday and Andy and I are so grateful for all the miracles God has performed in our precious little girl’s life. As I reflect on all the events in the past year, it almost seems surreal that here we are today enjoying a quiet and delightful day with our baby girl.
I remember Monday, March 7th of 2011 as if it were yesterday. We were trying to enjoy a relaxing weekend at home, but I had been awake all night feeling miserable and asked God at 5am why he had abandoned me. Although I was only 7 months pregnant, I was measuring at 10 months pregnant as a result of the mass in Julie’s chest that had been discovered on February 15th (just three weeks prior). As a result of the fluid build-up in my abdomen, I had no idea I was going into labor. In fact, I had been having contractions all weekend long but thought I was just suffering from something as simple as constipation!
At about 8:00am on March 7th, I started hollering, but couldn’t understand why since I didn’t feel any pain. My next hollering bout happened about 45 minutes later. Before we knew it, it was 11am and my hollering was happening every 10 minutes. I was too miserable to think clearly and, therefore, was unable to connect the dots that I was in labor and there was no stopping it. All I could think of was how annoyed I was that I was going to have to cancel a doctor’s appointment that I had scheduled for the day! Ha!
Andy called the OGBYN’s nurse and she asked if that was me yelling in the background. I heard him say, “Yes, ma’m. It sure is.” In response, she quickly ordered him to get me into the car and drive me to Medical City of Dallas ASAP. The hospital was 30 minutes away and it was now 11:30am. As Andy was frantically throwing things into my overnight bag, I remember asking him in between hollering bouts if he had remembered to pack my hair brush. He reminded me that I needed to keep a little perspective as he grabbed my arms and gently ushered me to the car.
By the time we hit the highway, my contractions were 2 minutes apart. I saw a blur here and a blur there as Andy sped like lightning in between cars. I even remember one car chasing Andy back and forth because the driver thought Andy was trying to race him. If the driver had bothered to look inside our car, he would have seen a woman holding onto the door handle for dear life, screaming her lungs out.
My thoughts were scattered and I was a bit confused at what was happening. All I could think was, “Lord, I hope they give me some good laxatives to get rid of this annoying constipation.”
Before I knew it, we came to an abrupt stop in front of the emergency room and Andy opened my door before he ran inside to yell at someone to get a wheelchair. It only took a couple of minutes for someone to come out with a wheelchair, but it seemed like an eternity. I remember worrying that I was going to make a fool of myself by hollering as people walked by the car. And, sure enough, just as a mother and son were walking by my opened door, I hollered at the top of my lungs and, to my amazement, they didn’t look at me. They just kept walking. I thought, “Darn this constipation! It’s so humiliating!”
Finally, the all-too-calm gentleman helped Andy lift me from the car into the wheelchair. He calmly wheeled me down a series of hallways while, the entire time, I kept hollering at people as they walked by. Before we reached the elevator, the kind gentleman asked me, “So, do you think you’re going into labor?”
I was insulted that he would suggest such an absurd idea. I yelled back at him, “No! I think I’m just really constipated!”
He remained silent the rest of the way to the delivery room. After he and the nurse lifted me from the wheelchair onto the delivery table, I mentioned I felt something wet but I couldn’t figure out what it was (I had no clue that my water had just broken). I couldn’t understand why the man exchanged such an odd expression with the nurse. He looked at her as if to say, “This woman is out of her mind.” Then he quietly turned around and left the room. The nurse checked me out and said, “Oh my goodness! The baby’s crowning! Don’t push!” I was finally convinced that perhaps the gentleman had been right after all.
I was on the delivery table at 11:51am. At 11:53am, two nurses and an OBGYN whom I had never met were helping me through the delivery process. The doctor was frustrated because I wasn’t breathing and pushing properly. I remember screaming at him, “I never took the class!”
The nurses told me to calm down and to listen to them very carefully. When they said breathe, I breathed. When they said push, I pushed. I thought, “Wow, this is pretty easy. Who needs the class when the nurses tell you how to do everything?”
At 11:56am, my own OBGYN finally rushed into the room (she had run from a completely different building in 5 minutes). The first OBGYN gladly let her take over. At 12:01pm, Julie was out. On the bright side, it was a ten-minute delivery. On the downside, she wasn’t breathing and she was so swollen from all the fluid build-up, that the neonatologist had to massage her face in order to get a breathing tube down her throat.
She only had a 30% chance of surviving birth, but all I could feel was great relief. I thought, “Wow! That was the best laxative ever!” And then I quickly started snoring. In between naps, one of the nurses tried asking me a bunch of meaningless questions so she could enter my identification into their computer system. That explains why the computer system to this day has that Andy’s last name is Roberts instead of Horn. That’s what the nurse gets for questioning an exhausted woman who was enjoying the benefits of the best laxative ever!
An hour after Julie was taken down to the NICU, Andy walked proudly in the delivery room and told me that Julie was stable and she was going to be just fine. Fortunately, I had been so tired that the thought of her possibly dying never even occurred to me!
Fast-forwarding, Julie had her first heart surgery 10 days after she was born. They were originally going to wait 13 days to do the surgery, but the surgeon said she wouldn’t survive the night if they delayed any longer. He successfully removed the mass; discovered it was a tumor three times the size of her heart; and, later, learned that it was benign. Before and during Julie’s first surgery was when I experienced more anxiety than I had ever felt in my entire life.
I didn’t get to hold Julie for the first time until she was four weeks old. And that day was when the neonatologist walked into her nursery and announced they were going to have to operate on her again the next day to close the pda in her heart. He quickly found himself being kicked out of the nursery and being replaced by a nurse who was able to comfort me.
About a month after the pda surgery, Julie had yet a third surgery in which the surgeon pulled down her right lung, which had been crushing her diaphragm. He successfully stapled her lung into place and, to this day, it’s even longer than her left lung!
On June 7th, Julie received her fourth surgery, which was her g-tube and nissen.
On Saturday, June 18th, she was able to come home with her mommy and daddy for the first time in three and half months.
Today, she is a year old and weighs 20 lbs and 1 oz.
I want to personally thank each and every one of you for your prayers. For those of you who spent time on your knees, thank you. For those of you who shed tears of concern and joy with us, thank you. And may God bless you abundantly.
Sarah, Andy, and Julie Horn
I included some pictures from Julie’s first year.
And what a year!