Journey to and Through the NICU

HeidiTurner - 02:56am Feb 6, 2012 EST

My name is Heidi, I'm 27 years old. The chances of my fiance being able to have children were one in a million. June 19th, 2011 I found out I was pregnant with my first child. I was so excited and started shopping for all the baby essentials immediately minus the gender specifics. I was running out of things to buy and I was ready to meet my little angel. The months passed by so slowly I could hardly wait until Feb 25th. November 5th I started having horrible pains but I was unsure of what was happening and assumed it was just another glorious part of pregnancy. November 7th I was admitted to the hospital to find out I was in labor and 4cm dilated. November 12th, 2011 my son was born, three and a half months early, just barely 25 weeks. Hadyn Wynter Turner. One pound eleven ounces, a tiny piece of Heaven. The first week was the scariest. I knew all the statistics and I knew they weren't good. I spent as much time with him as I could, not sure if I'd be blessed with another tomorrow. The nurses assured me he was a fiesty little one, a real fighter but I couldn't help but be skeptical every time I heard his alarms. It seemed so crazy that in my belly his survival was so effortless and now he needed to be hooked up to so many machines and have a team of doctors and nurses just to keep him alive. Day by day I learned to hold on to the good news and stay positive even through the bad. At three weeks the doctors were preparing me for "the conference." The one no parent ever wants to have. That same day he had a total turn around. He wanted everyone to know not to give up, because he wasn't going to. He's had so many blood transfusions I lost count. He struggled for weeks with the oscillator and ventilator and is finally on a nasal cannula. He had to have surgery for his PDA, laser and cryo twice... unsuccessfully. We just had the Avastin injections as a last resort to save his vision.He was so excited to meet the world I can hardly bare the thought of him not being able to see it but we've come a long way from those trageic statisics, and if all we lose is his vision I'll be the happiest mom around. Today (feb. 5th) he is 85 days old, 37 weeks gestational age. They tell you it's a roller coaster and it is. It's the worst roller coaster that seems to have more twists and turns and ups and downs than you ever could've imagined and it justs seems to never end.There are a lot of "downs", but the "ups" are unbelieveable, and eventually the ride does end. Hadyn has three more weeks before his official due date and we still have a lot of work ahead of us before he can come home, but I have no doubt that one day, we'll being driving by the hospital and he'll want to stop by and meet the people that saved his life... and mine.