Today is a very special day in my house, it is my son's birthday, and he will be fifteen at 11:17 am. Birthdays are always special occasions but I would like to tell you a little story about this very special young man.
It truly begins in the town of Newton, MA where two young girls met and became the best of friends. They did everything together and were never apart. They were eight years old. One, was named, Lisa, who lived in a big house right by Heartbreak Hill (hardest stretch of the Boston Marathon) and the other was my sister Debbie, who lived around the corner. As I said, they never did anything apart.
Sometimes, because I was a couple a years younger my sister would drag me (literally) with her over to Lisa's home where I met her youngest brother, Robert, her father and her mother. I never did meet the middle brother, Paul, but I had seen pictures of him and would recognize him if I saw him going down the hallway in school. As the years, swiftly went by and the girls grew older each began their own separate lives but never lost contact. Lisa had married and had three beautiful babies and Debbie followed her career. One day they cooked up a plan to introduce Debbie's younger sister, me, to Lisa's younger brother, Paul.
It was probably the greatest idea either ever had, because a year later Paul and I travelled to Aruba on vacation and became engaged. It was a wonderful and exciting trip except for the fact that I felt sick most of the week. Upon arriving home, we quickly found out that my sickness was the fact that I was pregnant. The wedding plans were moved up by many months, so that instead of the New Year's Eve wedding we had a huge lovely wedding in the middle of the August heat. It was during all this happy planning that I received a phone call from my Doctor asking me to meet him at the hospital. You see I have a blood problem and have a tendency to get blood clots. I went through two amniocenteses and it was discovered that a blood clot had already formed in the placenta blocking any and/or all nutrients from reaching the baby.
I was then put on the High Risk pregnancy list and started receiving daily shots of Heparin, which is a blood thinner, hoping to break down the clot. We were told that I would miscarriage very early. Paul and I walked down the aisle, had the huge wedding and just prayed every day that the heparin would work. At the end of September, we were once again called into the hospital to meet with the queen of ultra sounds. She took one look at our baby and immediately told us to abort the child then she left the room. At that very moment, the child inside of me kicked. I looked at Paul and said that there was no way we were aborting; the baby just told me he was going to be OK.
The Doctor said that if we did not abort, our child was going to be either stillborn or born with many, many hardships. They stated that he would be born blind, deaf, mute, degenerative bones, asthmatic, possible heart and brain problems and the list went on. He also told us that if we did proceed with the pregnancy that he would not be able to tend us anymore since this pregnancy was so high risk. I stuck to my ground that my child had just kicked and we were going forward. We were sent to the Beth Israel Hospital in Brookline, MA, where we were introduced to a female Doctor, who believed in the baby as much as we did. She arranged for appointments twice weekly and monitored the baby's' every move.
At 25 weeks, we had an appointment with Dr. Wendy and she told us that she was being urged by her team to deliver this child. She also informed us that the baby at this point was 15 ounces and most likely would not make it. She did not want to deliver this baby yet and decided it was time for me to move into the hospital where I would receive intravenous heparin, twice-daily ultrasounds, and the heart monitoring for the baby. It was also decided that I would receive an experimental steroid shot each week to try to further the growth. Everything seemed to work and at 30 weeks, my son was born by C-section weighing 1 pound 7 ounces. He was the first micro preemie to be born healthy in this country and an absolute miracle. He stayed in the hospital for two months until he gained the hefty weight of 3 pounds and then was ready for the trip home.
Today, on his 15 birthday, I would just like to thank Dr. Wendy for being patient and believing in my child. My son is very healthy, incredibly smart and an amazing person. He truly is a gift and one that we have cherished every day of his life. Happy Birthday to my favorite young man, Love Mom
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