One minute you're waiting for the sky to fall.
Then you're dazzled by the beauty of it all.
Maddex arrived 2 months premature on August 10th, 2010. Bit of a shock when I woke up in need of an ambulance then two ambulance rides later I found myself in the Winnipeg Women's Hospital. I'll spare you the gory details and just say 60 hours of active labour later...Maddex made his appearance.
We were told to prepare for the worst and hope for the best.
Maddex showed everyone in the delivery room he was a fighter and came out crying then proceeded to pee on all the doctors and nurses! Loved him immediately!!!
He needed some help breathing once he was out so he looks rather scary in these pictures but all those little gadgets kept our boy alive!
For 32 weeks, he was a healthy 4lbs 14oz! Everyone was shocked when he came out such a healthy size. I on the other hand shuttered at the thought of what he would have weighed if he went full term....
yeow!
This is only minutes after he was born, I got the chance to touch him before he was whisked away to the neonatal intensive care unit. Kelly accompanied
Maddex there as per my wishes and I stayed behind educating myself on what we were to expect for the upcoming days.
Maddex made his home in this incubator pretty much until we were able to take him home. Looks a lot bigger than it actually is and wow, those things cost like $75,000 each!
I was able to be pushed by wheelchair from the
women's hospital to where they were caring for
Maddex. Worst feeling in the world to not be able to be along side your child when he needs you most all the time. I was released a day after his birth so that's when I pretty much camped out at his bedside from then on!
Pretty tiny little dude!
Proud Daddy!
Here is our little world, "Bed #10", the nurses in the neonatal intensive care were awesome...miracle workers
in fact.
You can see all the monitors etc in the background...we were quick to learn what they all meant and man was it hard not to concentrate on the readings they were producing. More than once we were lectured by the staff to "
never mind what was going on on the screens"...easy for them to say!!!
Day two, no more assisted breathing
whoohoo! Huge step for the little man!
Lost lots of the probes etc that day! He's so perfect..and freaking tiny!
So beautiful.
I was so excited when my kids were able to come for a visit. They met their little brother and finally got to see that their Mom was going to be alright. Quite a scare for little people to see their mother carted out of their home and not to see her again for a few days. They were amazing through this whole process, my children are incredible little people and I am so thankful that I have them, all three of them!
After some serious hand washing lessons given by the staff, the kids were able to touch
Maddex. I thought perhaps they would shy away from him as its really a scary thing to take in but nope, they were in there like a dirty shirt. So proud of them!
The kids brought gifts for
Maddex, made me cry actually. They told him they couldn't stay with him but when he looked at his giraffe and
guinea pig, that meant they were with him. How amazing is that, for a four and five year old to grasp such an intense concept.
Nana and Papa (my folks) were in Edmonton at the time of all of this. Kelly called them right away, believe that was around 9am...minutes later they were on their way home. They drove straight through. My kids were staying with my brother Gary and his wife Pam whom met Kelly on the side of the highway to take the kids from Kelly as he was trying to follow the ambulance to Winnipeg. Fortunate for us my folks were able to pick the kids up and take them home to their own house to keep some order and comfort in their lives. Gary and Pam were due to leave for Italy only days later so we really threw a wrench into their plans. In fact, things happened so fast that we didn't even have a camera for
Maddex's birth. So Gary met with Kelly and we borrowed theirs. Pretty risky lending your camera when you need it for a once in a lifetime trip to Italy right away! (got it back to them in time though!)
Course his friends were now living with Maddex...the kids were so excited when they came in and saw the toys actually in the incubator with their little brother!
Lots of encouragement for cuddle time in this unit...um, ya...I kinda liked it...a lot!
Big sister gets a turn!
Big brother gets his turn too!
My wonderful family!
I had to share...guess Dad should be allowed to hold his boy too...I guess.
I love this shot...
Um, I'm thinking Dad was eating this snuggle time up just as much as me!
Maddex, growing and changing every day!
One of my favorite pictures of Maddex, eyes open and sucking on a bottle!
Ya, the nurses said not to expect him to take any of the bottle. Not my boy, he did so amazing. He still had to be gavage fed but with each feed, he took the bottle for a bit. He's a bit of a show off hee hee!
Getting his first burping...wow, that was scary as he was so small!
