Labor Day
Fair warning some of this may be TMI so if you want to skip ahead feel free. I'm not an overly reserved person when it comes to talking about this stuff so I'm going to lay it all out there. As much as I use this blog to inform others of our story, I also use it as my own form of therapy.
Sunday July 7
We checked in at the hospital about 5 pm. Once I was all settled, a Dr came in and put a balloon in my cervix that would hopefully get dialation started. At my previous Dr.'s appointment I was already 2cm. In some women, this process may bring on contractions though that is not the intention. I was one of the lucky ones that started contractions. The contractions really picked up that night and I was in quite a bit of pain. Sleeping was not going to be an option. The nurse gave me a couple of rounds of pain meds, but Brody was not tolerating them well, so we decided to go ahead and get my epidural. This was a major cause of my anxiety. My back is very sensitive to touch. If you touch my back it sends a shiver up my spine that causes me to jump. I was terrified this was going to happen during my epidural and I was going to end up paralyzed. Maybe I was being a bit dramatic, but it was more of a fear of the unknown. So, about 1:30 am they came in and got things started. They made Trey leave the room and had me sit on the side of the bed squeezing a pillow. The first thing they did was give me a shot to numb the area. It really was not that bad, but I was fighting contractions the entire time I'm trying to stay still. My nurse was in front of me holding a monitor on my belly to monitor the heartbeat. She had me squeeze her arm as needed which I did a few times. I started to feel bad though, so I switched to massaging her arm. Episdural process went well. I was feeling good and contractions seemed to calm down a little at that point. The goal was to try and get some sleep, but it was clear that was not going to happen.
Monday, July 8
In the morning, my Dr. came to check on me. He took out the balloon and checked me and I was 3 almost 4 cm. dilated. I was bummed, but he seemed to think it was a good start. We started the Pitocin to bring on the contractions and thus the waiting game had begun. We would be monitoring his heart rate very closely. If there was any sign of distress we were off for a C-section. In the late morning, we started taking bets on what time he would arrive and his size. I noticed an interesting expression on the nurses face when we were guessing afternoon. I asked her what she thought and all she said was "some time tonight." I didn't like that answer so much. I was already tired from not sleeping and was ready to get this show on the road. Also, I was always used to my sister's labor experiences which never lasted very long. So the wait continued. Brody's heart rate maintained and we were very hopeful things were headed in the right direction. Periodically throughout the afternoon they checked me and I was progressing. Slow and steady. I was exhausted and wasn't able to get much rest, not to mention the fact that I was starving. I hadn't had anything, but ice chips since arriving at the hospital. As the evening progressed my contractions started getting more intense. I was actually needing to push the button for the extra kick of my epidural rather than the automatic doses it would give me. Finally, about 9:30pm it was show time and we were ready to push. I got out a couple of pushes and we stopped for a while. I was having a cramp like pain, so we hit the button for my kick of epidural and I laid on my side for about 30 minutes to try and get Brody to drop more, so I wouldn't exhaust myself by pushing for hours and hours. That seemed to do the trick because after about 30 minutes I was feeling a lot of pressure. During this time we were looking ok. Brody had a couple of dips in his heart rate and my blood pressure was falling occasionally. They had me on oxygen and we were back to pushing. For a while they had me lay on my side and push and then there were times they had me push every other contraction to give Brody a break. After I went a couple of rounds of both of us looking good we were back to pushing every contraction. I pushed and pushed for what seemed like forever and I will admit I got a little cranky with people in the room. I didn't yell at anyone I just got a bit snippy. For instance:
Trey: You're doing great Babe! Keep Going!
Amber: Oh, What do you know? You've never done this before!
Amber: It hurts. It hurts really bad.
Mom: I know
Amber: You don't know! You had C-sections!
(At which time Mom totally throws Stacy under the bus and tries to say she said it.)
Stacy: You're doing great! Is there anything I can get you? Wet rag? Ice chips?
Amber: Yes, you can get this head out of my vagina!
I pushed for what seemed like forever. His head seemed to be right there the whole time. By this time most of the epidural was gone and I was feeling quite a bit. If someone said "you're so close, he's right there" one more time I was going to explode. Finally, they brought in the on call Dr. to deliver and at this point I knew I was close. They NICU Dr's also started to arrive to get ready for Brody, but I didn't pay much attention. The only people I was concerned with at that time were the two people at the edge of the bed that were going to get this child out of me. I pushed about 4 or 5 more times and there he was. My baby boy was born at 11:26 p.m. weighing 5lbs 15 oz and measuring 19.8 in. They immediately took him to the baby bed and started cleaning him off and assessing him. I was calm, cool and collected and I remember telling my mom, "I just need to hear him cry." When he came out I know I heard him make whimpering sounds, but I was waiting for the real deal. Not long after that, I heard my baby cry and instantly began sobbing. I was so grateful that he was here and was doing ok. I couldn't see much of what was going on, but I knew he was in good hands. There was a rather large team of Dr's taking care of him. I started drinking some water because my mouth was so incredibly dry. I may have drank it too fast because it wasn't too long after that that I ended up throwing up. After about 20 minutes or so I heard one of the Dr's say, "Now let's get you wrapped up, so Mom can hold you before we leave." This was one of the greatest unexpected gifts every. I was told that there would be a chance they would take him without me getting to hold him, but because he was doing so well, I was going to get 5 minutes with my baby. He opened his eyes and looked at me and it was truly love at first sight. He was perfect!
It was time for him to make his way to NICU. One of the hardest things was watching them take my baby. I wanted nothing more than to see him and love on him, but our time together was so short. I handled it a lot better than I thought I would. It really helped knowing he was in good hands and so many people were dedicated to him. Trey and my sister made the journey with him and they immediately started running labs and scans to assess his heart. They got me cleaned and settled in a room at about 3:00 am and Trey came and joined me about 3:15. There wasn't going to be any where for Trey to stay with him and we were both exhausted. We knew we wanted to try and get some sleep so that we could join him first thing in the morning and try and get some insight about his heart. Again, there wasn't much sleep that was going to happen that night.
Tuesday, July 9
My nurse came and woke me up about 6:30 am to make me go to the bathroom. I was feeling really sore and swollen, so I opted for some pain meds. I didn't go back to sleep because I was anxious to get up so we could head over to the hospital to see Brody, so I was going to get through the day on no sleep. I ordered me some breakfast ate and quickly got ready. Trey wheeled me across to the hospital to the Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit (CVICU) to get a good look at our baby. He was beautiful. We spent the morning with him and we had a few visitors. In the CVICU, you can only have 2 people by the bed side at a time, one of which being a parent, so that means Trey or I are there taking people to see him one at a time. That afternoon we headed back to my room to again try and get some sleep and head back to see him in the evening. Trey took a nice little nap, but I still was unable to sleep. We went back and saw him that night and things were looking good. They really couldn't tell us much about the heart because they were still running their tests and images and wanted to have the whole picture before talking with us.
Wednesday, July 10 & Thursday, July 11
These days consisted of more imaging. Apparently all the different Dr.'s wanted their own pictures and were seeing things a little bit differently. They were constantly having discussions about what they saw and what they thought would be the best course of action. During the day, we were finally able to hold him. They had told us that because of the line they had going directly into an artery in his umbilical chord that we couldn't hold him because if that got damaged some how that it wouldn't be good. Our nurse carefully allowed each of us to hold him and it was awesome. It has been so hard to just stand and stare at our baby. We want so bad to hold him and love on him especially when he gets fussy.
By this time, you could tell that he was having to work really hard to breath and it broke my heart to see him struggle like that. He was still doing well enough to not need a breathing tube, but it broke my heart to see him like that. He was doing a lot of sleeping mainly because breathing was so exhausting. All along he had been being fed through fluids in his IV. We were working on teaching him about a bottle, so that after he recovered from surgery he would be a little familiar with what to do with it in when the time came, but again it took all his energy to breathe, so he really wanted nothing to do with the bottle. Finally, Thursday evening a surgical plan was developed and we got to meet and speak with the surgeon. It looked like his heart condition was a little better than they had thought it to be when I was pregnant. He has a small aortic arch which would prevent blood from going to the rest of the body. The plan was going to be to repair that by using tissue from the sac around the heart to replace the narrow section. He had a hole in the bottom chamber of his heart which would be patched up. His aortic valve seemed very small and would need to be replaced with a donor valve and his tricuspid valve was very leaky and would need to be assessed further before figuring out what to do. The plan for surgery would be to repair the aortic arch and the hole for sure and then examine and the aortic and tricuspid valve and if they could be repaired easily that would take place as well. I had been released that morning, so we had put our name on the list to stay in the Ronald McDonald House inside the hospital. We were on the waiting list for a room and didn't find out until 10:00 pm that we had a room. We finally got settled into bed about 11:30 pm and tried our best to get some sleep since they wanted us to be at Brody's bedside by 6 am.
Friday, July 12: Surgery Day
We woke up early after a restless night sleep. We were by Brody's bedside at 5:45 am and were waiting for the events of the day to begin. We got to spend some time with him and talked to a few of the Dr.'s. About 8:00am the anesthesiologist came and explained what they were going to do and we signed all the consent paperwork. A little while later it was time to go. We walked with him to the doors of the operating room tears streaming down my face. They allowed me one last moment before they wheeled him through the double doors. They assured me they would take good care of him. Another very difficult moment in my short time span as a parent, watching your 4 day old baby go off for open heart surgery. I was a mess. Trey and I both were. I can't even put it into words. We stopped outside the elevators and hugged each other and stared out the window to try and relax ourselves before joining the rest of our family in the waiting room. We got to the waiting room and again I lost it. I was so scared for my baby. I hated that he was having to go through all this. I felt so helpless. When we checked in at the front desk they gave us a pager, a lot like the ones you get at a restaurant when you are waiting for a table. The pager would go off every hour and a half or so when someone was ready to give us an update. Our first update basically said he was under anesthesia and was stable. At our second update, they told us the incision had been made and the surgeon was taking more images of the heart from the inside and discussing his surgical plan again with other Dr.'s. Our third update said he had repaired the aortic arch and was looking at the aortic valve. The next update said he had opened the aortic valve (not replaced it) and he was closing the hole in the bottom chamber. The next update we were told he was assessing the tricuspid valve. Finally, at about 5:45p.m. we spoke with the surgeon. He confirmed everything he had done and was pleased with the way things had gone. He more so had temporary fixes for the aortic and tricuspid valves and wants to wait on surgically repairing those until he is bigger. The hope is that he will tolerate those fixes until he is about two or so (the longer the better). We still had about another hour and a half before we would be able to see him. Finally, we made our way up to see him and though they tried to prepare us for how he would look, nothing can really prepare you to see your baby like that. Brody was laying flat on his back with his mouth wide open. He had a breathing tube in his mouth and a million different wires all over. I couldn't do anything but cry. He was sedated and would be staying like that for days until he was better recovered. We only stayed about 10 minutes or so before we left. The nurse was really busy getting him settled in and set up and my heart was breaking the longer I stood there. We had a room at the Ronald McDonald House again and we were going to try and get some more sleep. When we got back to the room I sat on the edge of the bed and just cried. I hated seeing my baby like that. I hated how helpless I felt and how badly I just wanted to hold and comfort him.
These last few days on our road to recovery have been slow. Overall he seems to be doing well. He really isn't experiencing anything that wouldn't be expected. His heart seems to be functioning well and our problem has been fluid retention. After a major surgery like that the kidneys kind of shut down and take a break. They placed a catheter inside his belly to drain the fluid. He is being pumped with fluids to keep him hydrated and medicated, but the catheter isn't draining any of it. They replaced the catheter once with no change. They talked with the surgeon on Sunday and he wanted to come in and change it himself, so he did. The catheter seems to be in the right place now, but we are still having difficulty getting the fluid to drain. The biggest side effect with the fluid retention is that he is really puffy and swollen. His x-rays shows he has quite a bit of fluid around his lugs, but the good thing is he seems to be tolerating it well and they haven't had to adjust his breathing system. It has been a very slow process, but the Dr.s say he is headed in the right direction. Today, his kidneys have started coming around and he is producing urine. This is helping get rid of some of the fluid, but he still has a ways to go.
These last few days have been filled with so many different emotions. We have started coming home to sleep and getting up early to go to the hospital for the day. It is so hard to leave him at the hospital and come home. Every day I am filled with so much guilt. I know he has the best baby sitters there are and he is in good hands, but you can't begin to imagine how it feels to leave your sick baby half way across town. We have a number that we are able to call and talk to his nurse about how he is doing whenever we want. We call before going to bed and then we even set an alarm to call in the middle of the night to talk to his night nurse before the shift ends so we can hear directly how the night was going. Once he recovers from surgery, we will be able to move out of CVICU and into an actual room on the Heart Center floor. Here we will have a pull out bed and one of us will stay with him 24 hours a day. Once he has recovered from surgery the rest of his time in the hospital will be spent learning how to eat and such. They told us this can be one of the most long and stressful parts of the recovery process.
My emotions have been on over drive lately. I already mentioned the guilt I feel when I am not right by his side. When I am by his bed side I just feel completely helpless. There is nothing that I can do to make him feel better or anything. I have tried to throw all my energy into breast pumping because I feel like that is the one thing I can actually do for him. I am having a really hard time seeing him in the condition that he is in. I hate seeing him all puffy and with so many wires. I was telling Trey today my fear that he doesn't know who we are and that he won't feel connected to us. I don't feel like I have had a real chance to bond with him and it breaks my heart. I also told Trey that I don't feel like a mom. I am trying hard to stay strong for Brody, but the emotions, stress and sleepiness is a lot to handle. One thing that has helped us stay strong is all the love, support and prayers we have gotten from family, friends and strangers. We have received so many encouraging messages and they really have helped us through all this. Please continue to keep my new little family in your prayers. We are praying for strength and healing for our Brody.
In the morning, my Dr. came to check on me. He took out the balloon and checked me and I was 3 almost 4 cm. dilated. I was bummed, but he seemed to think it was a good start. We started the Pitocin to bring on the contractions and thus the waiting game had begun. We would be monitoring his heart rate very closely. If there was any sign of distress we were off for a C-section. In the late morning, we started taking bets on what time he would arrive and his size. I noticed an interesting expression on the nurses face when we were guessing afternoon. I asked her what she thought and all she said was "some time tonight." I didn't like that answer so much. I was already tired from not sleeping and was ready to get this show on the road. Also, I was always used to my sister's labor experiences which never lasted very long. So the wait continued. Brody's heart rate maintained and we were very hopeful things were headed in the right direction. Periodically throughout the afternoon they checked me and I was progressing. Slow and steady. I was exhausted and wasn't able to get much rest, not to mention the fact that I was starving. I hadn't had anything, but ice chips since arriving at the hospital. As the evening progressed my contractions started getting more intense. I was actually needing to push the button for the extra kick of my epidural rather than the automatic doses it would give me. Finally, about 9:30pm it was show time and we were ready to push. I got out a couple of pushes and we stopped for a while. I was having a cramp like pain, so we hit the button for my kick of epidural and I laid on my side for about 30 minutes to try and get Brody to drop more, so I wouldn't exhaust myself by pushing for hours and hours. That seemed to do the trick because after about 30 minutes I was feeling a lot of pressure. During this time we were looking ok. Brody had a couple of dips in his heart rate and my blood pressure was falling occasionally. They had me on oxygen and we were back to pushing. For a while they had me lay on my side and push and then there were times they had me push every other contraction to give Brody a break. After I went a couple of rounds of both of us looking good we were back to pushing every contraction. I pushed and pushed for what seemed like forever and I will admit I got a little cranky with people in the room. I didn't yell at anyone I just got a bit snippy. For instance:
Trey: You're doing great Babe! Keep Going!
Amber: Oh, What do you know? You've never done this before!
Amber: It hurts. It hurts really bad.
Mom: I know
Amber: You don't know! You had C-sections!
(At which time Mom totally throws Stacy under the bus and tries to say she said it.)
Stacy: You're doing great! Is there anything I can get you? Wet rag? Ice chips?
Amber: Yes, you can get this head out of my vagina!
I pushed for what seemed like forever. His head seemed to be right there the whole time. By this time most of the epidural was gone and I was feeling quite a bit. If someone said "you're so close, he's right there" one more time I was going to explode. Finally, they brought in the on call Dr. to deliver and at this point I knew I was close. They NICU Dr's also started to arrive to get ready for Brody, but I didn't pay much attention. The only people I was concerned with at that time were the two people at the edge of the bed that were going to get this child out of me. I pushed about 4 or 5 more times and there he was. My baby boy was born at 11:26 p.m. weighing 5lbs 15 oz and measuring 19.8 in. They immediately took him to the baby bed and started cleaning him off and assessing him. I was calm, cool and collected and I remember telling my mom, "I just need to hear him cry." When he came out I know I heard him make whimpering sounds, but I was waiting for the real deal. Not long after that, I heard my baby cry and instantly began sobbing. I was so grateful that he was here and was doing ok. I couldn't see much of what was going on, but I knew he was in good hands. There was a rather large team of Dr's taking care of him. I started drinking some water because my mouth was so incredibly dry. I may have drank it too fast because it wasn't too long after that that I ended up throwing up. After about 20 minutes or so I heard one of the Dr's say, "Now let's get you wrapped up, so Mom can hold you before we leave." This was one of the greatest unexpected gifts every. I was told that there would be a chance they would take him without me getting to hold him, but because he was doing so well, I was going to get 5 minutes with my baby. He opened his eyes and looked at me and it was truly love at first sight. He was perfect!
Tuesday, July 9
My nurse came and woke me up about 6:30 am to make me go to the bathroom. I was feeling really sore and swollen, so I opted for some pain meds. I didn't go back to sleep because I was anxious to get up so we could head over to the hospital to see Brody, so I was going to get through the day on no sleep. I ordered me some breakfast ate and quickly got ready. Trey wheeled me across to the hospital to the Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit (CVICU) to get a good look at our baby. He was beautiful. We spent the morning with him and we had a few visitors. In the CVICU, you can only have 2 people by the bed side at a time, one of which being a parent, so that means Trey or I are there taking people to see him one at a time. That afternoon we headed back to my room to again try and get some sleep and head back to see him in the evening. Trey took a nice little nap, but I still was unable to sleep. We went back and saw him that night and things were looking good. They really couldn't tell us much about the heart because they were still running their tests and images and wanted to have the whole picture before talking with us.
Wednesday, July 10 & Thursday, July 11
These days consisted of more imaging. Apparently all the different Dr.'s wanted their own pictures and were seeing things a little bit differently. They were constantly having discussions about what they saw and what they thought would be the best course of action. During the day, we were finally able to hold him. They had told us that because of the line they had going directly into an artery in his umbilical chord that we couldn't hold him because if that got damaged some how that it wouldn't be good. Our nurse carefully allowed each of us to hold him and it was awesome. It has been so hard to just stand and stare at our baby. We want so bad to hold him and love on him especially when he gets fussy.
By this time, you could tell that he was having to work really hard to breath and it broke my heart to see him struggle like that. He was still doing well enough to not need a breathing tube, but it broke my heart to see him like that. He was doing a lot of sleeping mainly because breathing was so exhausting. All along he had been being fed through fluids in his IV. We were working on teaching him about a bottle, so that after he recovered from surgery he would be a little familiar with what to do with it in when the time came, but again it took all his energy to breathe, so he really wanted nothing to do with the bottle. Finally, Thursday evening a surgical plan was developed and we got to meet and speak with the surgeon. It looked like his heart condition was a little better than they had thought it to be when I was pregnant. He has a small aortic arch which would prevent blood from going to the rest of the body. The plan was going to be to repair that by using tissue from the sac around the heart to replace the narrow section. He had a hole in the bottom chamber of his heart which would be patched up. His aortic valve seemed very small and would need to be replaced with a donor valve and his tricuspid valve was very leaky and would need to be assessed further before figuring out what to do. The plan for surgery would be to repair the aortic arch and the hole for sure and then examine and the aortic and tricuspid valve and if they could be repaired easily that would take place as well. I had been released that morning, so we had put our name on the list to stay in the Ronald McDonald House inside the hospital. We were on the waiting list for a room and didn't find out until 10:00 pm that we had a room. We finally got settled into bed about 11:30 pm and tried our best to get some sleep since they wanted us to be at Brody's bedside by 6 am.
Friday, July 12: Surgery Day
We woke up early after a restless night sleep. We were by Brody's bedside at 5:45 am and were waiting for the events of the day to begin. We got to spend some time with him and talked to a few of the Dr.'s. About 8:00am the anesthesiologist came and explained what they were going to do and we signed all the consent paperwork. A little while later it was time to go. We walked with him to the doors of the operating room tears streaming down my face. They allowed me one last moment before they wheeled him through the double doors. They assured me they would take good care of him. Another very difficult moment in my short time span as a parent, watching your 4 day old baby go off for open heart surgery. I was a mess. Trey and I both were. I can't even put it into words. We stopped outside the elevators and hugged each other and stared out the window to try and relax ourselves before joining the rest of our family in the waiting room. We got to the waiting room and again I lost it. I was so scared for my baby. I hated that he was having to go through all this. I felt so helpless. When we checked in at the front desk they gave us a pager, a lot like the ones you get at a restaurant when you are waiting for a table. The pager would go off every hour and a half or so when someone was ready to give us an update. Our first update basically said he was under anesthesia and was stable. At our second update, they told us the incision had been made and the surgeon was taking more images of the heart from the inside and discussing his surgical plan again with other Dr.'s. Our third update said he had repaired the aortic arch and was looking at the aortic valve. The next update said he had opened the aortic valve (not replaced it) and he was closing the hole in the bottom chamber. The next update we were told he was assessing the tricuspid valve. Finally, at about 5:45p.m. we spoke with the surgeon. He confirmed everything he had done and was pleased with the way things had gone. He more so had temporary fixes for the aortic and tricuspid valves and wants to wait on surgically repairing those until he is bigger. The hope is that he will tolerate those fixes until he is about two or so (the longer the better). We still had about another hour and a half before we would be able to see him. Finally, we made our way up to see him and though they tried to prepare us for how he would look, nothing can really prepare you to see your baby like that. Brody was laying flat on his back with his mouth wide open. He had a breathing tube in his mouth and a million different wires all over. I couldn't do anything but cry. He was sedated and would be staying like that for days until he was better recovered. We only stayed about 10 minutes or so before we left. The nurse was really busy getting him settled in and set up and my heart was breaking the longer I stood there. We had a room at the Ronald McDonald House again and we were going to try and get some more sleep. When we got back to the room I sat on the edge of the bed and just cried. I hated seeing my baby like that. I hated how helpless I felt and how badly I just wanted to hold and comfort him.
These last few days on our road to recovery have been slow. Overall he seems to be doing well. He really isn't experiencing anything that wouldn't be expected. His heart seems to be functioning well and our problem has been fluid retention. After a major surgery like that the kidneys kind of shut down and take a break. They placed a catheter inside his belly to drain the fluid. He is being pumped with fluids to keep him hydrated and medicated, but the catheter isn't draining any of it. They replaced the catheter once with no change. They talked with the surgeon on Sunday and he wanted to come in and change it himself, so he did. The catheter seems to be in the right place now, but we are still having difficulty getting the fluid to drain. The biggest side effect with the fluid retention is that he is really puffy and swollen. His x-rays shows he has quite a bit of fluid around his lugs, but the good thing is he seems to be tolerating it well and they haven't had to adjust his breathing system. It has been a very slow process, but the Dr.s say he is headed in the right direction. Today, his kidneys have started coming around and he is producing urine. This is helping get rid of some of the fluid, but he still has a ways to go.
These last few days have been filled with so many different emotions. We have started coming home to sleep and getting up early to go to the hospital for the day. It is so hard to leave him at the hospital and come home. Every day I am filled with so much guilt. I know he has the best baby sitters there are and he is in good hands, but you can't begin to imagine how it feels to leave your sick baby half way across town. We have a number that we are able to call and talk to his nurse about how he is doing whenever we want. We call before going to bed and then we even set an alarm to call in the middle of the night to talk to his night nurse before the shift ends so we can hear directly how the night was going. Once he recovers from surgery, we will be able to move out of CVICU and into an actual room on the Heart Center floor. Here we will have a pull out bed and one of us will stay with him 24 hours a day. Once he has recovered from surgery the rest of his time in the hospital will be spent learning how to eat and such. They told us this can be one of the most long and stressful parts of the recovery process.
My emotions have been on over drive lately. I already mentioned the guilt I feel when I am not right by his side. When I am by his bed side I just feel completely helpless. There is nothing that I can do to make him feel better or anything. I have tried to throw all my energy into breast pumping because I feel like that is the one thing I can actually do for him. I am having a really hard time seeing him in the condition that he is in. I hate seeing him all puffy and with so many wires. I was telling Trey today my fear that he doesn't know who we are and that he won't feel connected to us. I don't feel like I have had a real chance to bond with him and it breaks my heart. I also told Trey that I don't feel like a mom. I am trying hard to stay strong for Brody, but the emotions, stress and sleepiness is a lot to handle. One thing that has helped us stay strong is all the love, support and prayers we have gotten from family, friends and strangers. We have received so many encouraging messages and they really have helped us through all this. Please continue to keep my new little family in your prayers. We are praying for strength and healing for our Brody.
Keeping you all in my prayers Amber! Sweet little Brody is a fighter!!
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