Miracle Baby

"Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." Isaiah 41:10

Fear is a normal response to various situations and it is an unpleasant feeling. Fear can overtake you and lead to anxiety, depression, and panic attacks. There are many ways to fight fears you may have. You can face them head on, talk about them, think of a place or thing that makes you happy, take time to think (but distract yourself from the fear), and don't try to be perfect. Allow yourself the grace you need and deserve.

I left you hanging with my last blog post. But, those of you who know us well, know the ending. When I left off, I had just woke up in the recovery room. A nurse asked me about my pain and how I was feeling in general. I asked her about my baby. She had a polaroid picture that she handed me. It's a girl 1 lb. 14.5 oz. Once I was stable, they wheeled my bed into the NICU. Mark was by the baby. He greeted me with a hug and kiss and asked me if we still were going to stick with the name Bailee Nicole. I told him yes. Bailee Nicole joined our little family that day 14 weeks premature. I looked over at her and she was on an open table with warming lights and was on a ventilator and several IV's. She was tiny. She had no body fat and her legs were the size of Mark's fingers. Mark looked at me and the tears started to roll. He told me to touch her. He told me that the doctor said her chest x-ray was very cloudy and didn't look good. He told me that the doctor told him the next 24 hours were critical and that at this point she had less than a 40% chance of survival.

Bailee Nicole December 1998

The nurse wheeled my bed back to my room and Mark came with. He sat beside me and held my hand. Before we knew it, my mom and dad and Mark's mom came, and they had brought Justine. Keep in mind, Justine was only 8 1/2 months old and now she was already the big sister. I looked at all of them and sobbed. Justine reached out to me, but I was unable to hold her as I was in too much pain. Mark grabbed her and held her beside me so I could touch her. Mark told our parents what the doctor had said about Bailee. We talked and decided it was in the best interest to have Bailee baptized that day. My dad called a local pastor he knew and said he would be able to come up that early evening. Mark called his sisters, and they all came to the hospital so they could see Bailee as the future held so many unknowns.

That evening the NICU made an exception and they allowed unlimited family members to gather around Bailee for the baptism. I was unable to attend because I was so sick and weak from the blood loss and c-section and the doctor would not allow me out of bed. God was present that day and always. Here is a testimony of faith. Mark told the story to me like this. He said the family and pastor all gathered around Bailee as she lay on an open warming table. She had what looked like a clear cake top over her (it was to help keep her temperature up). As they gathered, Mark explained to the pastor and to the rest of the family that the doctor did not feel the outcome would be good and that Bailee's chances of dying were greater than 60%. As the pastor began the baptism, all eyes were on Bailee. Bailee kicked her little leg so hard that she kicked the clear cake top covering her off the warmer and onto the floor. She was tiny and mighty. She was making it well known that she had almost a 40% chance of living, not a 60% chance of dying. She made it known that she was a fighter and God was with her and she was going to thrive. She was going to be fine.

When Mark got back to my room and told me what happened, we both had tears streaming down our faces. We both knew God had big plans for Bailee Nicole. The doctor had another chest x-ray taken of Bailee that night. Mark was in with Bailee and the doctor came over to Mark and told him to come look at the x-rays. He showed Mark the x-ray from the morning and the one taken that night. He held them side by side and the doctor said to him, "It's a miracle. Her lungs were completely full of fluid this morning and now they are almost completely clear." He said he had been a neonatologist for almost 40 years and has never seen this. He said there was no medical explanation for her lungs improving that drastically and that fast. God performed a miracle that day. God let us know that he was present and that He was with Bailee, and He was not going to leave her.

Two days after Bailee was born, she had a surgery on her heart to close the hole that usually naturally closes in an infant at term (PDA Ligation). She came through the surgery like a champ, but she did need a chest tube for a few days. She continued on the ventilator until she reached 2000 grams or around 2 pounds. Once she hit that weight, she never looked back and only improved. The neonatologist said that if he could write a book on how a micro preemie "should" develop outside of the womb, he would write it based on Bailee Nicole. She never had one set-back and she gained weight as she should, started sucking on a pacifier and then drinking from a bottle, just as one would at the appropriate gestational age. She never had trouble with her oxygen levels dropping and once she was off the ventilator, she was breathing room air within days.

Finch Family January 1999

After we knew that Bailee was going to make it, the neonatologist and her primary nurse came and talked to us one day. They both had tears in their eyes as they asked us if they realized how miraculous it was that Bailee and I both survived. We asked them to explain. They both had been in the delivery room to work on Bailee when she was born. Both had been in their profession for over 30 years. They both said that it was the bloodiest c-section either of them had ever witnessed. They did not feel that Bailee would come out alive and they were sure that I had lost so much blood that I would go into shock. They said it was a very tense delivery and no one was optimistic. When they pulled Bailee from my uterus, she was barely breathing, and they immediately intubated her. As I said before, her lungs were full of fluid and her odds were not good. When the doctor looked at my placenta, I had expelled over 60% of my placenta. I had placental abruption and that is why I was bleeding profusely. The doctors said it was a miracle that Bailee's umbilical cord happened to be attached to the placenta that had not been abrupted. Had it been attached anywhere else; she would have died. I had a blood transfusion in the operating room. The obstetrician and the neonatologist both said Bailee and I are both miracles. Also, if I would have listened to the ER doctor and ”let nature take its course,” both Bailee and I probably would have died. God was with the both of us that day. We all felt his presence that cold, wet December morning, and the neonatologist and nurse confirmed it with their story.

Bailee & Mark celebrating Bailee getting to 3 lb