Hi Christie (36) I also live in Texas. I live in Fort Worth. My 19.5 month old
son Joseph was violently shaken and then thrown by his father (my husband of 15
years) on may 28, 2004 he died the next day. I cried as I read your story.
Sorry for your lost and pain.

Gina

xxogirlieoxx <no_reply@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
My name is Christie(27). I live in Texas. My husband is Rick, we've
been together for 12 years this December (married almost 5 years in
Feb)
We have 3 children together.
Dylan who will be 7 at the end of this month.
Christofer who would've been 5 in November
and Jessyka who was 3 1/2 when she passed away this June.

All of my kids were preemies. Dylan was 35wks weighing only 3lbs
14oz and I was induced with him because I had pre-eclampsia and he
wasn't growing. He only stayed in the NICU for 9 days. He is as
smart as can be and is enjoying 1st grade. He's my world and the
reason I live everyday

Christofer was born at 27wks weighing 1lb 4oz. Everything was going
great, I even had an ultrasound 4wks prior and he looked great. But
something in those 4wks happened, I didn't feel him moving and I
went in to see what was wrong and they ended up having to deliver
him early because he looked sick and had no amnio fluid, plus he was
behind in growth. He lived for 6 days. His kidney's didn't function
so we had to shut the machines off. That was very hard to do.

Jessyka was born at 26wks weighing 10.9 ounces (yes you read that
right..lol). The same thing happened with her that happened with
Christofer. She stopped growing at 18wks and we tried to keep it
going to a viable stage, fortunately we were able to make it to
26wks. She was in the NICU for 6 months and 2 days. Came home and
everything was going great. She was off her oxygen, off all her
meds, only problems were an oral aversion. Then in April of this
year she came down with pneumonia. During her ICU stay they found
out that she had pulmonary hypertension and right heart failure. She
was in the ICU for 6 days and came home on heart meds, diuretics and
oxygen. We thought she was getting better and was scheduled to have
a heart cath done in July to find out what meds will help her
pulmonary hypertension. But in June she was acting funny, so I took
her to the doctor and they said the gallop of her heart was worse
and sent us for some blood work. It showed that her digoxin level
(heart meds) was pretty high 3.2 when normal is between 8.- 2.0 and
it also showed she was dehydrated. They said to stop the medicines
and bring her in the following morning (June 7th) to see how she
looked. She was puffy and had gained a pound over night so she was
retaining fluid. They sent us to the children's hospital to be
admitted to the ICU. All day Tuesday she was OK, she was moving the
extra fluid and peeing it out and by Wednesday morning she was back
to her normal weight and was in great spirits. About 10am Wednesday
morning she started breathing very fast, and it progressively got
worse. She was breathing about 80-90bpm. They tried some drugs to
see if they can help her lungs and decided to put a arterial line in
because anytime they tried to get blood she would clot off. They
had to sedate her alittle bit for that. Well when they sedated her,
her sats dropped into the low 80's and we waited and waited and
waited for them to come back up. She was on 8liters of oxygen
through a machine called Vaportherm and also had the oxygen mask on
with 10 liters blowing in it and she wasn't able to bring her sats
back up. They decided they were going to put her on the ventilator.
We kissed her bye and told her everything was going to be OK, said
we would see her in alittle bit. When they put the tube in to
intubate her, her heart went crazy and went into an abnormal
rhythm. They worked on her for 45 minutes doing chest compressions
and shocking her heart, administering code drugs and nothing was
working. The PICU doctor came in and explained to us what was going
on and he didn't think she was going to make it. We told him to
stop all heroic measures and just let her go. She died at 1:52am on
June 9th. I never thought I would have to do this again. We had an
autopsy done and had her cremated.
The autopsy showed she had a heart condition we were unaware of. She
had hyper-trophic cardiomyopathy. So it wasn't her lungs that
caused the pulmonary hypertension and heart failure it was the heart
problem she had. It really answered a lot of questions we had. She
had NEVER had a heart problem, even in the NICU so we weren't
followed by a cardiologist. (except in April when she got sick)
In a way I'm glad we didn't find out about the heart problem because
we had 3 wonderful years to enjoy her and give her a full life.
Whereas if we were to have known we would've been wondering if this
day would be her last.
There is a 40% chance that its genetic so my son, husband and I
had appointments to be evaluated by a cardiologist. Everything
turned out A'OK
Here is a tribute that a friend of mine made for her
http://www.tartjewels.com/jessykaf.avi

I'm sorry I've rambled on. It feels good to talk (well type) about
it sometimes.

I have been tested for everything under the sun (twice) and
everything has come back negative, so we have no clue what happens
with my pregnancies. The placentas don't grow and nurture the baby
like they should. It was advised that I didn't have anymore
children.

Dylan is hanging in there and we go every other Monday to the
Children's Bereavement Center where he goes into a group with kids
his own age that have lost siblings. He really enjoys and and looks
forward to it every other week. For awhile he shut down and didn't
speak Jessyka's name (he did Christofer, but I think its because he
didn't really KNOW him since he was so young when he died, plus
Christofer was only with us for 6 days). Anyway, after going to
these groups he has opened up and talks about her a lot. There's a
lot of "If Jessyka was still alive..." talk. He doesn't seem to
cry as much anymore and isn't acting out as bad as he was right
after she died.
The holiday's were extremely hard on him. He is really starting to
realize that Jessyka will never be back. It breaks my heart. We
haven't been to a bereavement meeting since the 5th (they were
closed for the holiday's) and I can tell he really needs one. We go
back on the 9th.

Well if you have hang on for this long Thank You.

Christie
http://www.geocities.com/xxogirlieoxx/Welcome.html
http://www.babiesonline.com/babies/j/jessyka/






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