Micah at Virtua

Micah was immediately taken to the Special Care Unit right after she was born because of "low tone."  If you aren't familiar with low tone it is when babies have close to no muscle tone/strength all throughout their bodies(low tone also affects the digestive system as well as eating and sucking).  The minute Micah was born she couldn't move any of her extremities and she could not swallow or suck, this resolved the mystery to why I had so much fluid (she wasn't swallowing any of it in the womb).  The nurses then began to talk about transporting her to CHOP for further testing to figure out WHAT caused this.  We stayed at Virtua through the weekend because they scheduled her transport on Monday. That actually worked out great because I wasn't cleared to leave the hospital until Monday anyway.  At the same time those two days were torture because we just wanted answers.  We were so worried about what could be wrong with our precious little girl.  It was devastating to see her laying in her incubator NOT MOVING. I hated seeing the doctors evaluate her. They would pick her up and you would just see her head and extremities just flop down towards her bed.  It was also torture not being able to hold her whenever we wanted. 

 We did see some progress after the 1st night, she was starting to grip our fingers and it was the best feeling in the world. We knew from that moment on that she was going to be a fighter and she was going to get stronger and stronger every day.  

 Here she is, adorable as ever, in her cute little knit hat.   

 Bill and I were both able to do skin to skin (kangaroo care) twice a day but that was the only time we could hold her. I will never forget the first time we did it. I was terrified to pick up her little flimsy body.

THANK YOU FAMILY AND FRIENDS!!!

We  want to thank everyone that came to visit Micah at Virtua. All of your well wishes and prayers have been greatly appreciated.  We also want to thank those who brought us clothes for Micah because we all know I had a fully organized closet filled with boy's clothes. It really meant a lot to have all of you there to support us, We <3 U!

Here are some pics of our little visitors....

Me and my 4yr old niece Anna (she can always put a smile on my face)

FAMILY MAKES EVERYTHING BETTER <3 

<3 My sister Julie and our niece Eva the diva <3

Back to Micah's Progress.....Monday came and we got the call early on that Micah would be leaving Virtua at 1130am.  We immediately went down to the special care unit to say goodbye to her and the CHOP transport team was already loading her into a travel incubator. It was so upsetting to say goodbye to her but we knew she was going to a great place. We then rushed back to our room, packed up and headed over to CHOP. We had no idea what to expect but we were excited to finally get some answers.  

I was actually sad to leave Virtua because I got so accustomed to our routine. (pumping, getting meds from my AWESOME nurses, taking a very short walk to go see Micah whenever we wanted, having family come visit me every day and just spending every second with the love of my life thinking about our new baby girl).  I was so torn about leaving because I knew it was going to be tough going to CHOP every day to be with Micah and trying to recover from a c-section at the same time.

Along with leaving Virtua here are some of my other low moments: 

 *pumping every 2 hours not knowing if Micah would ever be able to digest my milk

 *going to sleep every night feeling guilty that I couldn't be right next to her

*watching her lay there not moving and thinking is this it for her?

*not knowing if she is struggling or will struggle the rest of her life 

and worst of all...

 *feeling like it was my fault that she was born this way and wondering if there was something I did wrong during my pregnancy. 

I know you are all saying in your heads, "OMG Michelle, stop you are being silly" but I know it's normal to have those feelings and it's normal to get passed them, which I already have.  You just have to move on and focus on the positives.  Can someone please remind me of that every other day because I keep forgetting my own advice?

We Heart Micah!