standing with hope

by jenny smith

My water broke with Corbin when I was 19 weeks and 6 days pregnant. We hadn’t even decided his name yet. We went from “oh wow we are pregnant with another boy, yay!” to “please, please, please let my baby live” in a matter of weeks. My water broke on a Wednesday morning. I was bent down at work and when I got up I thought I was peeing my pants. Within an hour, I was at my doctor’s office and they were testing to make sure my water had indeed broke. They knew the results within a few minutes and I called my husband, Aaron, to come to the office. When he got there we cried together. We were so scared.

My doctor asked us one of the hardest questions we’ve ever heard. “I can give you something to take care of the baby…do you want that?”

The chances of his survival were around 7% and the likelihood he would be disabled were very high. What came to us was something I clung to the entire journey, “He still has a heartbeat. Why would we take that away?”.

Later I would find a Facebook group with women from all over the world going through the same thing I was. There was a common saying, “Where there’s a heartbeat, there is hope.” I loved this.

We made the decision that was best for our family. We would not be the ones to end his life. If God wanted to take him home then He would.

I had to ask my doctor to put me on bed rest because Corbin was not viable until 24 weeks. They would not do anything to save him until I got to the 24th week. This was our first goal. I prayed so hard everyday that we would make it to that day and longer. Corbin has an older brother who is almost 3 years older than him. His name is Bennett. It was very hard being on bedrest with a toddler. My Mom helped us so much that I could never thank her for all she did for us. She helped take care of Bennett during this time and helped me with housework I was not able to do.

I was drinking a minimum of 110 ounces of water a day to keep the amniotic fluid up. Sometimes when I moved and lost some my heart would sink, thinking that I was failing my baby boy. My body was failing him. I was beating myself up daily wondering what I did to make my water break. Did I drink enough water? Too much caffeine? I was lifting a lot at work. To this day, we still don’t know why it happened. It’s still a hard subject for me. I’m his Mom. I’m supposed to protect him, but I was failing him.

When we made it to the 24 week mark we were a bit relieved but still so scared. I was admitted to the hospital to be on bedrest there so I could be monitored 24/7. They gave me steroid shots and a week of antibiotics so Corbin wouldn’t get an infection. That was a very difficult time. Not seeing Bennett and Aaron everyday was awful. I struggle with anxiety and depression and after a week in the hospital I begged my doctor to go home. I was supposed to stay until Corbin was born, but after a long talk with Dr V. we decided it was for the best for me to come home. I was very scared to come home but relieved to be with my family. I went the next 4 weeks going once a week to get an ultrasound (to measure amniotic fluid) and blood taken to make sure there wasn’t any infection.

…And then he arrived

On November 14, 2015 Corbin Lewis Smith was born at 3lbs. I woke up in the middle of the night with what I thought was a stomach ache. Corbin was born less than 45 minutes after getting to the hospital at 28 weeks and 2 days gestation. He had survived 8 weeks in my belly with my water broken. My Dad met us in the NICU panicked and concerned with what he thought was a white, little stuffed bear in his hands. As it turns out, it was a little white cat. My Dad didn’t have his glasses on while picking it out. He was the most scared I’d ever seen him when he looked at Corbin.

Aaron and I were so relieved to hear Corbin cry when he was born. We wouldn’t hear him cry for another few weeks because they immediately intubated him. They said he had “very sick lungs”. After running so many tests and scans they found that Corbin had a stroke while in my belly. He had a grade 1 brain bleed on one side of his brain and a grade 4 on the other. It was at this point the doctors told us he would probably have cerebral palsy. I cried in my Mom’s arms after being told this at the hospital and not being able to call Aaron because my phone wouldn’t charge. I came to my Mom’s to pick up Bennett and collapsed in her arms and sobbed. We would love Corbin no matter what, but I cried for the hurdles that were to come for him. I cried for patience for us (his parents). I cried for understanding and acceptance from other people.

The brain bleeds cleared on their own which was amazing and have had no lasting effects on Corbin’s
development.

I remember being told by a NP that the divorce rate doubles for couples who have a child (or children) in the NICU. Aaron and I clung to each other, but to be honest, we were zombies most of the time. Just going through the motions but clinging to hope. Corbin was intubated for a week. He also was on an experimental gas that made his lungs expand. His lungs were so stiff from lack of fluid that when the gas was used it blew a hole in one of his lungs. They had to cut a small hole in his side to put a tube in until the lung healed. It is the only scar he has from his NICU journey.

I believe all NICU journeys are hard no matter how much time a child is in. Ours seemed overwhelmingly hard some days. Two weeks into Corbin’s journey his grandma, Ann (Aaron’s Mom), suddenly passed away. I’ll never forget the first time she saw Corbin in his incubator with so many wires hooked to him. All I saw in her face was love. So much love. That same week my Dad, John (Corbin’s grandpa), was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer. He would only get to know Corbin for 6 months before he passed away.

Corbin spent nearly 60 days on oxygen. We had a few scares. One being the week he was born. His oxygen dropped into the 30s and the nurses had an oxygen bag brought out. It happened one other time when he was learning to feed. He also had some Bradys, around 8-10 of them. A Brady is where a baby forgets to breathe and the heart rate slows. I was taught to stroke his foot to help get his attention and that would help. The alarms were awful when it happened. I would hear the alarms every few minutes in the room next to us and knowing what they were, it made me want to go in and hold that baby too. Years later the ding of an elevator would nearly bring me to my knees. Even at work, the ding of an oven reminded me so much of the monitor that I would start sobbing.

After Corbin was off of oxygen he was transferred to the other side of the NICU. It was the side with less critical babies. It was the first time it felt like Aaron and I could breathe knowing he was going to be ok. We got special permission in January to allow Bennett to come and meet his baby brother for the first time. It was a beautiful day. I definitely felt God working because they don’t usually allow children under the age of 18 in the NICU. God was working the whole time, really. We had so many supportive people and so many prayer warriors. It was amazing.

There were so many amazing NICU nurses, but a few stand out in my mind. Katie, who was Corbin’s first nurse the morning he was born, I would find out later, had lost her own baby less than 8 months prior. Yet, here she was saving mine. Leigh, who was a night nurse, was constantly moving Corbin’s stuffed animals to make it fun and different. She was making little signs in his room to make it more like “home”. She made a sign that said “LOVE” but the v was Corbin’s foot prints. She drew sunglasses on his eye protector that he had for a week while he was under the lights for jaundice. She said he was “catching rays”. Susie was one of Corbin’s last nurses and when she looked at him it was with so much love. You can tell she poured her heart into her job. I will never forget these amazing nurses.

Corbin would spend the next 30 days learning how to feed. It was a difficult time for me because I had to go back to work and was seeing him less. They had initially predicted his NICU stay would be one year, but on February 17, 2016, after 94 long days, Corbin came home. He came home with no oxygen and with no feeding tube. He had 7 doctors and a lot of appointments after leaving. Amazingly, Corbin has no medical issues and 2 days ago he turned 8yrs old. I feel like I’ve witnessed God work a miracle right in front of my eyes.