~Chrislyn Rae~
November 29, 1994:
On this day, I had my second daughter. Let me start by saying that I
had a very uneventful pregnancy. Everything progressed normally, the
ultrasound showed a baby girl who was active and growing just the way
she should, and her heartbeat was strong and perfect.... or so I thought.
I was induced on the morning of November 29, 1994 and within hours, my
second baby girl was born. She was a healthy weight -- 8 lbs. 3 oz. and
20 inches long. Her name was decided long before she was born:
Chrislyn Rae. After she was born, she gave the regular newborn cry and
I held her for a very brief moment. Looking back, I wish I would have
held her longer but I had the shakes so bad that her little head was
just bobbing back and forth. The nurse took her to the waiting room so
my parents and her big sister Briclyn could see her, then off to the
nursery she went!
She wasn't in the nursery five minutes before the nurses noticed
something wasn't right. I did not know this.. I only learned about it
an hour later. I kept wondering why everyone was so quiet and kept ignoring my questions. My then-husband came in the room after an
hour or so to let me know that something was dreadfully wrong with my
little girl.
The cardiologist explained it as best as she could. All I got out of it
was that she had a heart defect and my first thought was that I would
never bring Chrislyn home. She was transferred to Tulane University
Medical Center in New Orleans that evening. We followed her there a few
hours later after I was released. After arriving there, the
cardiologist explained that she had Transposition of the Great Vessels
and VSD, along with a bi-cuspid valve.
She made the trip rather well. She was stable until December 1, when
she began having a lot of problems. The doctors let us know that she
might not make it through the night. They wanted to hook her up to an
ECMO machine (heart-lung bypass) and we signed the consent. This kept
her stable for five days. It also gave the doctors more time to figure
out how to fix her little heart.
December 7 is the day I will never forget. It was the first day I got
to pick Chrislyn up and let her feel the comfort of her mommy's arms.
Oh how I cherished that moment.
Her surgery was scheduled a few days later so that they could fix her
defects and perhaps get her on the road to recovery and home. Her
surgery was later rescheduled because another baby had an emergency, and
as the surgeon told us, he just didn't know what to do to fix it. He
said he had not seen such a complicated heart before.
On December 20, she ended up having a really horrible day. The doctor
decided to take her in for emergency surgery in the hopes of buying her
some time. She came through the surgery rather well.. but I really
hated seeing the tubes... the bandages... the machines...
On December 22, we were woken up by a phone call telling us to get to
the hospital immediately. I knew what that meant. We arrived there at
around 8 a.m. and went straight into the PICU to see Chrislyn. Her
blood pressure was a little low... her little body was so swollen... her
kidneys were failing... I watched them put medicine into her IV to raise
her blood pressure... it worked at first.. but the numbers would soon
drop... and before long, the numbers didn't even change.. they just kept
dropping lower and lower.
The cardiologist took us into a room and said that there was really
nothing more that could be done. We could choose to take the machines
off or just allow the day to go by and she would die before the day
ended. I decided at that moment to have the machines taken off and to
let her go peacefully. I also told the doctor that the only condition I
had was that they bring her to me immediately so that she could feel
comforted in my arms as she made this last journey.
Chrislyn was brought to me.. wrapped in a blanket with her little hat on
her head... I snuggled her close since she had never had the chance to
feel what it was like to be that close to her mommy. I whispered many
things to her.. all the things I had wanted to say but didn't say out
loud... She held on until I was finished speaking. I had about 10-12
minutes of just holding my little girl before she passed away.
December 22, 1994 marked the day that my life forever changed.
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