Answered Prayers

Looking back at many of Mackenzie's pictures, it's hard for me to see Trisomy 18. But it wasn't hard at first. I remember long halls leading from the NICU to the elevator. Michelle would lean on me, crying like Niagra Falls every time we'd have to leave. Mackenzie was 3 pounds and 7 ounces at birth, but her esophagus ended in a blind pouch instead of connecting to her stomach, and there was a hole between her trachea and the ascending esophagus, so she couldn't eat.
She had lost down to 2 pounds and 14 ounces before her first surgery. Michelle and I are nurses, but we were still unprepared for everything that was going on. This "tracheo-espohageal atresia" had to be repaired before she could eat.
The surgery involved a thoracotomy, basically, the surgeon deflated her lung, then after the lung was out of the way, he removed the pouch at the end of her descending esophagus, disconnected the ascending esophagus from the trachea, repaired the resulting hole in the trachea, and then anastamosed the descending esophagus to the ascending esophagus. Then he placed a tube in her chest wall next to the incision and reinflated her lung. Then the chest wall incision was closed.
She had 5 wire leads on her trunk monitoring her heart, and respirations, a wire lead to her toe monitoring her oxygenation, a tube in her chest wall keeping her lung expanded, a tube in her mouth, going to her stomach, for feeding. An IV to one arm, and another IV to her scalp. Staff came around every 4 to 6 hours to take blood for testing, and she was being given caffiene to keep her heart beating at an acceptable rate.
Michelle and I would walk down the hall and she would pray, "God, just let me know that she knows she's loved, let me see her smile. Please, let me see her smile. And don't let her die before she knows what home is." They let us take her home from the hospital in the middle of her 4th week there. Because of our nursing backgrounds her doctor felt comfortable releasing her to us, but explained that her prognosis was poor. She weighed a mere 3 pound and 14 ounces. She would not reach 4 pounds until her 4th month, at 5 months she reached 5 pounds, and continued at a pound per month until her gastrostomy tube was placed.
After getting her gastrostomy tube, at around 7 months she started sprouting. She was intubated for the procedure, and develpoed pneumonia. When she came home from the hospital, she required IV antibiotcs. and Feedings that used to take from an hour and a half to two hours, through a nasogastric tube, now could go via pump.