Dylan's Journey

“You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it”. (Psalms 139:13-14 NLT)

The Bible says you were prescribed before birth. God knew what you would be like. He chose you, and he chose your characteristics. This means you are unique. There is only one you. There is nobody else who could be you. If you don't be you, who is going to be you? You are irreplaceable. I read recently that there are 25,000 varieties of orchids in the world. If I had been God, I would have made a yellow orchid, a blue orchid, and a red orchid. Not God. The creator loves variety — 25,000 different varieties of orchids.

What's even more amazing is there are 4 billion varieties of people. And God made them all. You're unique. Nobody can be you. David says be grateful: “Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it” (Psalm 139:14 NLT).Be glad you're you. God didn’t make you by accident. Can you imagine an artist whose paintings all look the same? How about a guy who paints 12 pictures and puts them up in his living room, then the pictures come to life and vote to all become like one. The artist would be disappointed. God doesn't want you to be like anybody else. He wants you to be you.

I cannot believe our son is 3 weeks old? As I sit here to try and find the words to write to this post I start to cry, but as I look over at my beautiful son I somehow find a way to start writing. I have thought about it long and hard and I have decided to make our family blog public. I have had it just for family and friends, but ever since the birth of our beautiful son my heart has been so heavy to share the story of Dylan’s birth... with whoever I can. I hope my blog will bring hope and faith to whoever read’s it. I will be keeping our blog updated to keep everyone posted on Dylan’s conditions as well as our family. It has been a long road but will only get better. We will have many challenges ahead but with God’s love and strength we will get through it. God has truly blessed us with the most amazing gift anyone could ask for and that is a beautiful baby boy. This is “Our Story, Our Love, Our Strength, Our Family and the Bond That Will Never Break Us”

 I feel like I have waited and longed for this day my whole life. When I turned 30 last year my clock was ticking and new it was time to start trying to have a baby. When Greg and I got married we told each other that we would wait one year to enjoy our marriage and each other, but of course the impatient me was just too excited and wanted to start earlier! I just did not know how long it would take us and if we would have complications. You never know what will happen until you really start trying. We started trying for a baby in September 2011 and on November 6, 2011 I took a pregnancy test and it was positive! I could not believe it so I took 4 pregnancy tests just to be sure. We found out we were pregnant on the DAY of our 1 year anniversary. I could have not of asked for a more amazing anniversary gift. We were having a baby!!!!

As I went through my pregnancy, everything was great! We went through every routine testing and all of it was perfect. I exercised; I ate great and just felt amazing. I loved being pregnant! I had only gained about 37 pounds. Towards the end my feet started to swell and just felt really big. I decided to take my full 4 weeks of disability to get ready and prepare for the arrival of our beautiful son. When we went for my 36 week checkup I was having some contractions and was dilated to 1, but that did not mean a thing. You could be dilated to 1 for weeks. I would joke with Greg and tell him “that I am so ready and uncomfortable, and if he came early I would be ok.” Deep down in my heart I wanted him to go full term. I wanted a full and healthy baby and I really wanted to enjoy the last 3 weeks of not working and enjoying some me time.

It was Tuesday morning June 26, at about 3:00am when I woke up to what I thought I peed my pants..Ha! I went to the bathroom because I was unsure of what it was. I actually went back to bed for about an hour and then woke up to me peeing my pants again. This time I woke Greg up and said "I think my water broke" he was like...what??? I decided to call my doctor because the weekend before Greg and I had took our child birth class and they said, if your water brakes to come into the hospital no more than one hour after. When your water breaks it can cause an infection to the baby if you don't get there in a timely manner. So I told my doctor what had happened and he said to go to the hospital. I did not know what to think; I was only 37 weeks pregnant and thought to myself, this can't be happening?? So I took a shower since I was not having contractions, yes can you believe it I took a shower, I wanted to be clean! We packed up and headed to the hospital. When we checked in they had me go into a room and monitor me and check to see if my water did break and sure enough it did. The nurse looked at me and said “you are not going anywhere". I could not believe that we were having a baby, it came so fast and even though I was ready I was not ready!

At about 5:00am Greg and I started to send text to our family to let them know we were having a baby. The nurses came in to start me on Pitocin and to get my epidural. Once I had my epidural it was go time! I started to get a little reaction from the epidural where my body would shake, but the doctor's said it was normal. They could really not give me anything because Dylan was still inside of me. We had my mom and Greg's mom in the room with us waiting. It was a very long day. Throughout the day the nurses would come into check me and I was dilating very well but Dylan was still up really high and not coming down. We tried everything to get him to move but the little guy just wanted to stay. By about 5:30pm my doctor came into the room to check me because I was fully dilated to 10. When she checked me again he was still up really high. His face was also sunny side up so the poor little guy was just getting so much pressure on his face. My doctor had me push a few times to see what would happen and she was not happy. When I would push Dylan's heart rate was dropping. So after almost 12 hours of labor she decided the best thing was to do a C-section. I got a little scared when they told me that we were changing to a C-section but I did not care because I wanted to meet my beautiful son. We headed to the surgery room and they started my C-Section. With Greg by my side I did awesome and at 6:46pm our son finally made his way into the world. When I first saw him and held him in my arms, it was the greatest day of my life. All the labor and waiting for him was well worth the wait!!!!

After the surgery was over they brought me into the recovery room for them to monitor me and to hold my son. We did our skin to skin and they gave him a bath. I was in just awe of him and had this amazing over whelming love that just came over me, like nothing else in this world even matters. I was really out of it in recovery because the doctors had to give me Demerol for my shakes. After recovery we finally got settled into our room and just held our new son and of course tried to get some rest. I don't know what I would do without the nurses after a C-section. They were so helpful and just amazing!!!

The next day since we had Dylan a little later on Tuesday we knew we would be getting a lot of visitors. The first visitor was actually Dylan's pediatrician, she came to check on him and give him his circumcision. When Greg and the doctor walked into the room to do the procedure she noticed that his lips and face were blue. They checked his temperature and it was very low. She just felt like something was wrong and did not go through with his circumcision. When they came back to the room with him Greg had a look on his face that I will never ever forget. I asked what is wrong. Our doctor said she wanted to order an echo for his heart because something did not look right, she also mentioned that some of his features looked like signs of Down syndrome and she wanted to order a chromosome test also. My heart dropped! What do you mean?? She could not give me an answer. As Greg and I waited for the results to come back, we sat there in agony wondering what the heck, what did we do, did I do something wrong in my pregnancy, did we do something wrong? All of these things went through our head. This beautiful baby boy we just had and something is wrong with him, this can’t be right? I was so sad and could not stop crying. I thought for a moment in time that I was in a dream and I would wake up and I would still be pregnant with Dylan and waiting for his arrival, but it was not a dream it was all real.

Later that day another doctor had come into our room. This doctor was a Cardiologist who had looked into detail on Dylan’s echo results. I don’t know how some doctors do their job, because it has to be the hardest one when you have to tell new parents that something is wrong with their child. The results came back that Dylan has 2 holes in his heart (AVSD) and will need open heart surgery when he is 5 months old. Again I could not believe the doctor was telling us this. All we could do was cry more! The thought of our 5 month old son having open heart surgery makes me sick. So now that we got these results we were still waiting for the chromosome test to come back. These results we had to wait a couple days, and let me tell you they were the longest 2 days of our lives. As I would stare and hold my new son and look at him, I would really try to convince myself that there was no way he looked Down syndrome. He was beautiful, he was sweet and everything about him he looked like his daddy, dark hair, dark brown eyes, beautiful lips and the most beautiful olive skin. He was perfect!!

Through the next few days we had visitors and lots of them. Our family new of what was going on and the test we were waiting for. One afternoon we had about 8 people in our room. It was my mom, Greg’s mom, my grandma, my aunt’s we were all visiting and enjoying beautiful Dylan when the phone rang. I was up and out of bed to answer the call. It was our pediatrician to let us know the results of the chromosome test.  I knew in her voice from the first time she said hello that this was not a good phone call. She called to let us know that are son was positive for Trysomine 21. My heart dropped so far into my stomach I felt I was going to be sick. At that moment the room got quite and everyone filled up with tears and could not believe this was actually happening. In that moment for me something so amazing came over me, almost like I knew God had his hands over me, because I felt peace, I felt love. All I could do was pick my son up to kiss him and just tell him how much I love him. I did not want to cry, I felt if I cried he would know something was wrong. I felt he was looking at me and asking “What is wrong with me mommy”?  I NEVER want him to think something is wrong, I never want him to think something is wrong with him. He is a child of God and he is perfect!!! He is our son, we created him and God gave us this divine gift, he is a gift that god saw both of us worthy of having and wanted us to be his parents. We are proud to be Dylan’s mommy and daddy!!

The next few days were up and down, but mostly up. We could not get enough of our son but honestly just wanted to get home and get settled in. It was a long week and if I had to talk to one more doctor I was going to lose my mind! On Saturday we finally got released from the hospital and were so excited to get home so we could all sleep in our own beds and enjoy being a family!

I will admit that this journey was not an easy start. I had a very hard time when we first found out about our son. I mean you go into have a beautiful child and have an amazing pregnancy and then the next thing you know, all of these things are wrong with him. How would you take it? Greg and I cried hard and that is ok. I questioned myself every day, did I do something wrong in my pregnancy? There was nothing we did, this happened at conception and it just proves that God wanted us to have this beautiful baby boy and has given us the biggest blessing I could ever ask for!!

I have realized that life is too short, why dwell about the small things. Who cares how big your house is, how much money you have, what car you drive, what designer clothes you have. None of this will matter when you pass one day. Love is all we need, blessings are all we need, friends and family are all we need. Life is amazing; to wake up every day is truly a gift. Dylan has has opened Greg and I heart so much and we both now know our purpose in life. We were meant to be Dylan's mommy and daddy. We are here to love and teach him amazing things throughout his life. As he is here to teach us about love and kindness. I am so proud to be his mom and cannot wait to watch him grow old and love on him every day of my life. Greg and I cannot wait to give him brothers and sister's to play with!

Thank you to our family and friends for being here through every step of the way. You are our light and strength and don't know what we would do without each and every one of you. I know Dylan is only a few weeks old but he has already touched many people's hearts in many ways. Thank you to the nurses and doctors throughout my delivery and week of recovery. Everyone was truly amazing and so supportive I could of not of asked to be in a better place with such amazing people. I hope my story and Dylan's story will touch the hearts of many and open eyes to see that life is so precious and we really don't know what life will bring us, but if we believe in God and that he will never give you more than you can handle and will always be right by your side to show you the way. I hope you will follow our family and Dylan's progress through the many challenges and the beautiful life ahead of us. We love each and every one of you.