I became pregnant with Homer February 2001. My pregnancy was great in the beginning. When I was about 6 months pregnant, I got severely high blood pressure and preeclampsia.
Although I was very uncomfortable, I loved every minute! Daniel aka Homer, was the most active baby ever is what the ultrasound techs told me.
I never had a time where I was worried about him; he always let me know he was in there! When I was 39 weeks, I weighed in at 210 lbs! My doctor decided it was time to induce me because of all the water I was keeping and my BP kept rising.
On October 24th 2001, I went into the hospital. On October 25th at 6am, they started the process of inducing me. I did really well for 9 hours, then at 3pm, I needed something for pain, instead of an epidural, I got a med called Talwin, after giving this in my IV, and Daniel’s heart rate went from 160 bpm, down to 30 bpm. Within 10 min. it went back up to normal.
They told me that Daniel was just reacting to the med, and he was fine. (I did not understand, but this was a sign that Daniel was already in distress). Around 5pm, I got my epidural, and I was sleeping through my contractions after that.
At 8:50pm, Daniels heartbeat stopped, and the machines went off. During this time, the nurse kept telling me it was normal, and he was ready to come out.
At 9:10pm my doctor came in and asked what was going on (The nurse called no one into the room about the missing heart rate). My doctor, after finding out what was going…Ed making me practice pushing.
I did not know this, but Daniels cord was wrapped around his neck a few times, and I was cutting off even more oxygen. About 5 min. later, another doctor walked in and saw what was going on, he then kicked everyone out of my room except my husband.
They said they had no OR open for a c- section, so they used forceps to get him out. He had been without oxygen for 35 minutes, and he was born dead. They resuscitated him on a table next to me, while I laid there crying, not knowing what was going on, and why all this was happening?
There is so much more that went wrong from there, no crash cart in the room, so we had to wait for that, etc. The nurse told me Daniel would be fine she sees this stuff all the time! I believed her!
They then knocked me out for the night because my BP went up to 218/110. I woke up the next day, and I had not seen Daniel yet, they had me shower, and get cleaned up. At 10 am I could meet my baby.
I walked into the room where all the babies were with problems. As the doctor came over and talked about all of Daniels problems, I zoned out looking for my baby, wondering which one he was, I never heard a word she said.
They then brought me over to him and he was this tiny baby, with wires and tubes in and out of him. I couldn’t believe how he looked. He wasn’t moving; he wasn’t breathing on his own, and he never made a sound. I sat down and the nurse handed him to me, and all I could do was cry.
I had no words to say to him, I cried. When I got back to my room, I thought by the end of the day, he would be fine and we would go home and things would be normal, I did not understand how serious the situation was.
Hours later, a doctor came into the room and told me that Daniels organs were shutting down and he would not make it through the night he is being rushed by ambulance to children’s hospital!
What! I ran into the bathroom, fell to my knees, and just cried. Everything was supposed to go to normal, what happened??? We went to children’s that night; I left with him, there was no way I was staying at that place another night!
We were at children’s for 6 weeks until we could bring him home. While there, Daniel came off of oxygen, he learned to open his eyes, and even do a little movement.
The doctors kept telling us he would not live, but I ignored them, who do they think they are? God? No, only God knows when we go home! Brian and I stayed there by his side every day and night and never left until he came with us!
Today Daniel is almost 6 years old. He has had over 12 surgeries and has overcome all the obstacles that have come his way. He is learning to blink one eye, but his eyes still are not where they should be, he never learned to blink them.
He has a tract, a feeding tube, tubes in his ears, 2 eye surgeries to close the eyes (He ripped the stitches out with his own eye muscles, so now we put saran wrap on them to protect them), he gets a bronchi scope done once or twice a year for his tract.
He used to have a very severe seizure disorder (24 a day), and now he has been seizure free for 4 months! He is an amazing boy and he will touch your heart even though he has never spoken a word.
He has never learned to walk, hold his head up, or even move much. God is slowly working on him though; I can see and feel it every day! I thank him for putting this angel in my life, and he has given me strength I never thought I had.
I know God has him here for many purposes, even though the beginning was so hard for all of us, we have overcome it and I don’t think of it as being horrible;
I think of it as Daniel showing how strong he is the second he was born. He was born a fighter, and still shows us day by day, just how much of a warrior he is! I named him Daniel as in the book of Daniel in the bible.
He was in the lions den, but God was watching over him the entire time. Homer came from the Simpsons it was the first cartoon he ever reacted to and the nickname has stuck ever since! DOH!
Who ever is reading this please, please remember this…Even though we go through horrible, hard times in life, always find the good in them?
If you let it bother you, and you feel you can never get over it, you will never see what it was meant to do in your life.