Continued...

I left off my last post with the Nurses taking my baby away to the NICU...
Like I said, everything becomes a blur after this point...They kept asking who they could call to come be with me, I didn't want to answer...I didn't want to see anyone, talk to anyone...Nothing felt real, I didn't feel anything, I was numb...

After being pestered for a long time for a number they could call I gave them my sister Keely's...

 Then I sat in front of the phone debating on who to call first, my Mom or Brad.

I didn't think I could tell Brad what was happening...I couldn't tell him something was wrong with our son, I was afraid too, I was afraid of how it would make Brad feel, I didn't want to break his heart the way mine was...

In the end I called my Mom first...I needed her...I was so scared and I wanted my Mom...I guess a person never really out grows that...
When I called Brad and told him, he said "Whats Down syndrome?" I cried hard, and said "just come back"

Keely was the first person to get to the Hospital...I remember her walking through the door...I broke down, sobbing...She hugged me told me everything would be ok.

I don't know who arrived first after that, Mom or Brad....And I don't remember much of the rest of this day either...

I couldn't stop crying...I was feeling so many things, I was so scared, what did all this mean, for me, for our son...What was Down syndrome??

I was so angry...I hated the very thought of God...What had I ever done to deserve this?? If this was a punishment for every wrong thing I had ever done in my life...It was too much...It was more than I could bare...Surely I didn't deserve this! I had just spent the last year taking in my Nephews, sacrificing everything to care for them, it was a selfless thing to do, I was a good person...And this is what I was given in return?? I didn't want a single person to mention God to me....EVER!

I felt a tremendous amount of guilt...What had I done wrong to make this happen...I had been sick once before I knew I was pregnant, I had taken some medican...Had I caused this?? I wasn't on prenatal supplements soon enough, this had been my fault...I was 31, maybe I was to old...This was my fault...My fault...My fault...

People tried to tell me it wasn't but how could it not be?? After all it was in MY body that something had gone wrong, terribly wrong, surely it was all my fault.

Having some people in Brads family come up to the Hospital and say "Well, we have no history of this in our family, do you in yours??" Ya, that made me feel REAL good...Lets just try to place some blame somewhere else, how about you, the grief stricken Mother, you'll do...It wasn't Brads fault, so it must be mine...

I felt detached from Russell...This wasn't the baby I had expected...I couldn't do this...I was afraid to do this...I was afraid to be his Mother...

Desperate thoughts ran through my mind..."How do I get out of this"...How do I get out of being his Mother...I hate that that thought ever crossed my mind, but it did...I was terrified.

Everyone kept telling me I should go down and see Russell...I refused...

I could not walk down that hall...Right now none of this was quite real yet, walking down that hall, seeing my son was going to make it real...I wasn't ready...

As I sat crying on my bed, unable to life my head, I heard my Mom say...

"Jen, its not his fault"

Nothing then, or since then, has ever hit me as hard as that one sentence did...

I didn't lift my head or even let on that I had heard her, but I had...I sat very, very still...Ashamed...

"Its not his fault...It is not his fault"

No this wasn't Russell's fault...How could I have not realized this before...He didn't ask for this to happen...He needed me, I was his Mom...He needed my love, my acceptance...My heart broke all over again, for hours I had refused to go see my little boy, I had selfishly being wallowing in my own grief and pain and self pity as he lay down the hall...alone...

This is something I feel terribly guilty about to this day, it is something that is very hard for me to admit...It is something I feel I may never get over or forgive myself for...It is something that makes me feel great shame...I feel like for those first few hours I had abandoned my son...I cant forgive myself for it...

Later that night I did walk down the hall with Brad to go see Russell...I remember keeping my head down...I didn't want anyone talking to me...besides that I couldn't lift it anyway even if I had wanted to...

Seeing Russell that night all hooked up to monitors, my tiny little boy, he looked so innocent, so perfect, I felt all the love I first felt when I held him moments after he was born, come back...I loved him so much...I would do anything for him. I was his Mom...He was my son...Neither of us had asked for this to happen, both of us needed each other to get through it...
I Loved Him.

That night was very difficult for me to get through. I cried the entire night, I didn't sleep...Every time I would stop crying and be calm for a moment the sadness would come rushing back and I would just shake and sob all over again...Brad would come and lay beside me and hold me...I don't think I had ever cried before that night, I mean REALLY cried...

It was a long, long, night...A terrible night...

It makes me sad to have that memory and those feelings mingled in with Russell's birthday. It almost doesn't feel fair, to either of us...But that's the way it is, the way it happened, the day Russell was born I felt my world fall apart, my heart break...Its hard to celebrate this special day and not think of those things...I kept telling myself all day yesterday, "stop thinking about, stop thinking about it...This isn't about you, its about Russell"...Every time my mind wandered back, I felt selfish...But I couldnt help it...
It was a wonderful day, but in many way a hard one too...

As I watched the clock last night I couldn't help but to think that this time last year was the worst night of my life, so much pain, and hurt...I thought I would never be happy again...I would have given anything to just go to sleep that night and never wake up...I felt life as I knew it was over...

But what difference a year can make...And how much the heart can heal given time...
As I looked around the room at all the kids smiling and laughing and little Russell just as perfect and cute as ever in the middle of us all....I was reminded that those feelings of that first night, will some day fade, that they will become a memory...That I will always remember the pain of that night, but perhaps I wont feel it as strongly or as vividly...

Happiness, Excitement, Laughter, Peace...

Looking around the room during Russell's little party I was thankful, very thankful...To have gone through all the hurt I did last year, because it brought me to this...
Because after walking through such pain and agony, the joy was just so much sweeter...

I feel I can now close the chapter on that first day...
Writing has helped, being able to release all the pain from those memories has helped...
Now I will move past it.
This week is a rough one for me. Everyday I have woken up and thought "This time last year"...
I have more days coming up that I need to work through. I have cried a few times a day for the past few days, just here and there, just remembering, reliving, acknowledging, and letting go...

I know these post must bore you readers to tears...But they are so important to me...I want to write everything down, its like therapy to me. I know other Moms may have breezed through that first year, that first birthday...But we all have our own journeys, our own experiences, and we all deal with it in our own way and our own time...I feel like I spent this first year trying very hard to be "ok" and I kept a lot of feelings bottled up waiting for this time, this first year anniversary of it all to bring it back up, feel it again, and once and for all let it go...
That's what these post help me do....Move forward...

Celebration and Reflection...

That was what yesterday was all about...Celebrating my little boys birthday, celebrating his life, celebrating the joy and love and fun he has brought to our family...

But yesterday was also a day where I did a lot of looking back, reflecting...It was a hard balancing act for me. I wanted yesterday to ONLY be about Russell and how amazing he is, after all it was HIS day...Not mine...

Yesterday morning the house was just buzzing with excitement, everyone hugging Russell, saying happy birthday to him...Pictures, Kisses, Laughter...

And then the kids left for school and the house got quiet...I had thought I wanted to be alone that day, alone with my boy...But as the bus was pulling away and I was down the hall making beds and tidying rooms, I started to cry...Out of no where I just burst into tears and sat down on a bed and cried...I felt strange...

I wasn't crying because I was sad...and yet I was crying all the same, so what was this feeling?? Why was I crying...I didn't really know what I was feeling, it was a whole lot of things all at once.

I called my sister...When she answered I started crying again...She asked me what was wrong and I felt silly cause I didn't know...I told her I just felt strange, not sad, but just really anxious and weird. I told her how much I loved her, how I couldn't help but to think that last year she was the first person to come back to the Hospital that day after I found out about Russell...She was the first person I saw walk through that door and hug me... To tell me everything was going to be ok...I thought of all the many, many, things she had done for me and for Russell this past year, I told her I couldn't have done it without her...

After hanging up from talking with her I walked into the living room to see this...

And my heart stopped beating hard, and I felt calm again.

The clock is what I struggled with yesterday...No matter how hard I tried not to look at it, I would.

I kept thinking of that morning one year ago. The night Russell was born was long, he was born just after midnight, but because he had trouble breathing, and I was bleeding very badly and they were getting me ready in case I needed a transfusion, we had to wait a long time for the bleeding to slow before being taken to my room for the night. It was about 4am when Brad finally left to drive home...I stayed awake staring at Russell, that's when I took these pictures...

I layed him down in his bassinet and tried to sleep, but couldn't. Sometime during the night Russell began to choke, I heard him and grabbed him and started patting his back, I hit the call button for the Nurse and no one came, Russell was no longer making noise and not breathing so I ripped the cord out of the wall trying to call the Nurse. Two came running in and grabbed Russell and patted him and got him breathing again, I was scared, shaking...The Nurses tried to tell me this was normal that he was clearing out the mucous in his lungs...But I knew this wasn't normal, he wasn't coughing, I had seen my other babies do that after birth...Russell was not breathing! The Nurses assured me he was fine and left...I pulled Russell's bassinet right up close to my bed, I was scared, I felt like something was coming but I didn't know what. One thing I regret that night was that I didn't hold Russell. I was exhausted, I was so, so, tired...I kept looking at him and wanting to hold him but in my head I was thinking, "Go to sleep, you are going home tomorrow and you are going to be busy with all the kids and getting up in the night with this new baby...let him sleep now and you sleep too"...

Oh, how in the days to come I regretted not holding my boy for every second of that first night...

By ten that morning I tried to feed Russell, but he wouldn't wake up...I did think this was a bit strange, but I didn't think anything was "wrong" The Nurse came in asked if he had eaten yet, told me she was sending a Doctor up to examine Russell...I thought she was overreacting, I mean he had just been born hours before, he didn't HAVE to eat just yet...

11am...

In came the Doctor...And then the exam...That slow, methodical exam...Time stood still in that moment...I was frozen to that bed just watching her, it was like everything was in slow motion...This wasn't an exam I had seen on any of my other children...She was checking weird things...She was measuring the distance between his eyes and his ears, checking his feet, flipping his hand over and checking his palm, she lifted his arm up and let go of it and it flopped down...like a rag doll...She lifted him gently by the arms and his head fell backwards, he almost looked like he wasn't alive...My heart was racing...

What was happening, what was going on, what was wrong??

When she turned to me the look on her face terrified me...It was a look of concern and deep sympathy...Her question...

"Jennifer, does he look like your other children"

Oh God, that feeling hitting me...Panic...Terror...

I cry as I write this because I can still feel it to this day...This was the most painful moment in my life...

I didn't want to answer her, I knew she was trying to get me to see something was different about Russell, she was trying to get me to realize something was "off"...I understand she was trying to break this to me gently, but to this day I despise the fact that that questions was ever asked me...

"Does he look like your other children"

The second those words were said it was like Russell was being separated from our family...That all of the sudden he was very different from us...The truth was he didn't look a whole lot like any of the other kids, he looked like himself, and he looked a lot like Brad...I didn't want to answer her question because I knew she was looking for a specific answer, and I didn't want to give it to her...

It was then that she sat down on my bed...I started crying instantly...I knew exactly what she was going to tell me...She didn't even have to say the words, I already knew.

I have written before about the dream I had when I was pregnant with Russell, the dream where I saw the profile of the baby and I knew the baby had Down syndrome...Where months later when I had a ultrasound and the pictures were printed off for me, the top one was the exact same as in my dream...And I knew.

I remember feeling sick to my stomach and turning to the technician and asking if everything had looked ok in the ultrasound, if she was sure everything looked good...She said everything was fine, but I couldn't shake that feeling...I sat on my bed later that day staring at those pictures...

The top one...The shape of the forehead...It was the same as my dream...

When the Doctor sat down on my bed she asked me what my greatest fear was...I remember turning from her and just feeling this absolutely gut wrenching agony coming up from inside of me, and thinking...

"Oh my God, this isn't happening, this isn't happening, I cant believe this is going to happen"

She sat there very still as I sobbed out the words..."No, no, no, no, no"

"Jennifer, I suspect your son may have Down syndrome"

"No, no, no, no"

I sat there rocking back and forth, back and forth...

"This isnt happening, this cant be happening, why, why, WHY"....

And then....

"I knew it"....

Through my tears I told the Doctor of my dream, I said I knew it, I knew what she was going to say...

She sat and she listened to me. To this day I have heard many, many Moms tell of how the Doctors told them in cold matter of fact manner and then left the room...How grateful I was to this Doctor who had enough compassion and kindness in her, that no matter how uncomfortable it must have been for her to give that news to me, to know she was the one breaking my heart that day, for her to care enough to sit down on that bed and talk with me...I will never forget that.

After this moment everything becomes a blur. I remember them asking me who they could call to come be with me...I would'nt answer them...It was then that I shut down, I didn't want to respond...

They had taken my baby away...

Oh God how this is making me sob right now....And I can hear Russell awake from his nap, so I will continue this post later on today when I have time...Russell's next nap maybe....

And...The Rest Of Russells Birthday!

There are no words for this post...None are needed...

Happy 1st Birthday my beautiful little boy...

We love you Russell!

Birthday Morning!!

Ok, you guys are going to be bombarded today with posts and pictures, because today is...

 Russell's 1st Birthday

and it is a HUGE deal for us!!! I am still amazed that we are here...One year later...I mean did a whole year really go by THAT fast??

On the morning of each of my children's birthdays I took a picture of them....

Raistlin, on the morning of June 15th 1998

Amy, on the morning of October 5th 2000

Neleah, on the morning of July 31st 2003

Jordyn, the morning of February 15th 2006

And Austin wasn't living with us on his first birthday so I don't have a "morning" picture...But I was there for his first birthday party and because he is one of my own now I wanted a picture of him in here too...

Austin, May 1st 1999

And last but not least...Our little Birthday Boy...

Russell, the morning of November 29th 2010!!

Brad wanted a picture of Russell standing in the crib like the other kids did...Which he CAN do, but you have to stand him up, he doesn't pull up on things yet...

And so yes, we have some pictures of Russell standing, just like his siblings did...But you know what, those pictures are not natural, they aren't "Russell" and what he is doing right now at this time...So I by far prefer these...Him sitting in his crib...Because this is him on his first Birthday, the way he really is!

This morning the house was filled with excitement...Everyone wanted their picture taken with Russell...Everyone wanted to stay home from school too to spend the day with him...But I am a mean Mom and sent them anyway, ha ha...Today I wanted to be alone with Russell...Because the time is approaching, 11am...That is when the Doctor came into my room to examine Russell...That is when my life changed forever...For the better.

But this post is about my beautiful baby boy, not Down syndrome...That can be another post, not this one.

Today we celebrate this little boy and all that he is...

And now for more pictures!!

Thank God for older siblings who are able to take photos or I wouldn't have many of me and Russell together!

Russell and Leah...

Oh, something I forgot to add in last nights post. Russell has just recently learned to give kisses...big ol sloppy open mouth kisses...Yesterday just before we left, as Russell sat on the Nurses lap, he leaned in and gave her a big kiss!!! Melted our hearts! Brad and I couldn't believe it!! Russell had only given Brad and Nana kisses before this, it was very special!

My boys...

Jordy and Russ...

Austy and Russ...

And Amy and Russell...

Brad had already left for work before Russell woke up today...But he stopped in later this morning to give his boy a hug...

And here is Nana, giving the Birthday Boy a hug...

Right now Russell and I are over at my parents house visiting for a bit. Nana just rocked Russell to sleep...And me, I am watching the clock...This time last year I still didn't know...But that's for another post...