Happy 19th Birthday Cory

Today Cory turned 19. Wow! My baby turning 19. Thats just crazy to me. He has turned from a cute little boy into a really nice young man and i dont know when that happened. Where the years all went. He was always the baby! We are so proud of him and the wonderful person he has become and we know hes going to have a wonderful future ahead of him. I started on Lees birthday last month blogging about the birth story so i will do with each of my kids. Boys this year and the girls next year, all on there next birthdays. So Lees is done and here we go with Corys. Everyone though that Cory was a mistake. lol. Not after he was born but when i first got pg with him. Lucy was only five months old so people just figured he wasnt planned. The truth was he was planned. With all my kids (other then Lucy) i got pg first month of trying. With Lucy it took five months. So when she was around four months we figured it was taking me longer now and we better start now. And of course it was right away. lol. But he certainly was planned and very much wanted. Three weeks before my due date some of my daycare kids had this strange rash on them that lasted about a week with a fever. Then i came down with it which wasnt good as i wasnt due in three weeks. That night i got out of the shower and my waters broke. I wasnt happy at all. I wasnt feeling good due to whatever the bug was, it was eleven at night and i was exhausted and just wanted to go to bed. I kept telling myself it wasnt my waters and i should just go to bed anyway. But yeah with it being my 6th kid i couldnt really tell myself that. I wasnt having any pains or anything but figured i better go check at the hospital. Of course they confirmed it was and called the doctors who decided to start the labor. Although my first four kids were natural with Lucy and Cory i did it the easy way with an epidual (it really is the easy way, dont care what anyone says, try natural if you dont belive me). Anyway they did the epidual there and then as the guy was there already so i never had one single pain with Cory. Cool! But it was a long night as i just wanted to sleep and of course couldnt knowing i was having a baby. The doctor felt that the fever and rash i had caught started me early. But who knows. Ralph tried to sleep as much as he could. And it was nice after with Lee and Jay doing it by myself natural all alone to have Ralph always with me when we had the last four. (there dad just wasnt into that stuff). Cory came and i though right away that something wasnt right. He wasnt crying like my others and he looked kinda grey to me. But everyone said he was fine but then took him straight to the nursery. I didnt get it at first that there was a problem. I though it was because i was so exhausted. They told us a little while later that his heart was having some issues. He had a mumor and they thought maybe an infection from what the daycare kids had had. They wasnt sure. They had life flight ready to come get him why they were trying to decide to send him to primarys or not and i of course was going to discharge myself right there and then had that happened. lol. We didnt have maternity insurance with him as Ralphs company had let it go without telling us after Lucy was born. We found out once Lucys bills came in. Although they did get new insurance we were already pg with Cory by then and they wouldnt cover us. But luckily all the Level 2 nursery stuff came under reg insurance so that was paid for just not the delivery stuff. But anyway as everyone was un sure of that at the time they decided not to transport him to primarys unless things got worse. But they did have a ped heart doc at primarys that was involved in the care over the phone etc. He spent five days in there and it was very hard. I dont know how people do it for weeks or months. After i was discharged they let me stay in a spare room there with no charge so i could be with him 24/7 so that was nice. Most of that was a blur. They decided after a few days that they couldnt hear the mumor again and that everything had to have been the infection etc. So they let us come home. Other then two days inbeween meds Cory was on anitbodies for the first 18 months of his life. Everytime he came off them for just two days he ended up in the ER. He also had tubes put in at four months old and 15 months old. He just wasnt healthy and no one knew why. He caught RSV at four months old (again from a day care kid) and it just wasnt a healthy first few years. They even did imune tests to see why he was getting so sick but there wasnt any answers. They started hearing his heart murmor again at a year old and that started the round of cardo ped docs, echos, ekgs, chest xrays, you name it he did it and many many times. The echo showed a hole around 14mm in his heart and it was twice the size it should be and just wasnt getting pumped around like it should have been. They said it would more then likely close as he got older. Hmm. Well by the time he was three he couldnt walk very fast at all. He was very slow in his movements, and just wasnt healthy. For the most part he had been of meds since he was 18 months but still ended up in the ER alot with high fevers that no one knew what they were. By three and a half his hole that was suppose to have closed had gone from 14mm to 24 mm. At that time they felt that his only hope was to have open heart surgery to close it. They said if they didnt by the time he was five he would have the heart of a 65 year old man. It was also three times larger then normal. He also was at risk of being one of those kids whos heart just stopped as he got older so we had no choice but to do that. I remember two days before surgery he was in a little T ball game and he had a hard time running to first base. He was always sad cause he got out. But he would have to sit four times and rest just getting to first base. I remember that day hearing a very loud grandmother in a voice so i would hear saying. That mother should do something about that child messing around. Put him in time out until he can stop sitting and acting out. I let it go but her daughter happened to be someone i was working with at the hospital. I figured she would explain it to her. Tho she never did tell me sorry. lol. Oh well. But anyway two days later he had the surgery. He was two months shy of being four years old and his weight was 28lbs. Like a skinny spider. Let me tell you spending a week in the ICU of primarys makes you know how freaking lucky you and your kids are. We saw many beautiful children that never made it home. And hearing the crys of pain is just heartbreaking. Having them take Cory away to do the surgery was the hardest thing i have ever dont in my life. The time seemed to last forever tho i think it was beween three and four hours. We went downstairs and tried to eat breakfast and then just hung out in the waiting room. My dad had flown our from England to support us during this hard time. My mum had tried but her work couldnt let her off at that time. That was hard for her. So the three of us sat there and the nurse came out every 15 mins to tell us what was happening at that time. Hearing he was on by pass was hard. His heart no longer was beating! My baby was being kept alive by a machine. It was the worse feeling in the world. Then of course i was worried it wouldnt start by itself. They did have a few minor problems of it not starting right away when they took him off and a lung collasping but all that stuff i guess is minor, lol. But it was hard and we almost cried when they came out and told us his heart was not beating on its own again. His hole they said was one of the largest that they see and they couldnt even just sew it together. They had to put something in beween the hole and close it up that way. But the surgery was a success, we were a reck but it was a success. lol. Seeing him in the ICU for the first time was very hard. So many tubes in such a skinny little body. Hard to see him with them all. Who would have though all those tubes could fit in there. He was in so much pain when awake that they kept him sleeping the first few days. That was very hard. What was hard too was i couldnt stay the first few nights, they wouldnt let me. We were the lucky parents, not only was he not life threating but we lived in the valley, so all the rooms and chairs were taken by out of state parents or those by children at high risk. Makes sense but very hard. I had promised Cory i wouldnt leave him and would stay with him and i felt terrible. Everyone told me he wouldnt remember. But you know what a few days later when he was more alert. He told me, Mum, you said you would stay with me and when i woke up you wasnt there! Yea. You can imgine how i felt. Luckily around the 4th night a room at the end of ICU opened up and we were put in there and i was able to stay with him. Couldnt sleep due to all his machines and babies crying all night but i was there when he woke up. He jumped back amazing well. Had a scare at a month old when one of the day care kids pushed him down some stone stairs and he landed on his chest. He ended up in the ER again to make sure nothing had got re broke as his chest wasnt healed but luckily all was well. His engery level went sky high. At his tball game the following year. He ran to first base. Then came running to me saying. Mum, i can run like the other kids now!. It was awesome. Only trouble was he was really spoiled at that time. We didnt know which way things would go so what he wanted he got. Simple as that. Then suddenly we had an almost four year old that had to learn the word No. lol. It took awhile but we were glad it was a problem we had. He really had no other problems after that.He has to have check ups and echos every few years but thats it. At 17 two years ago his lung collasped and they found that he has a slight deformed chest wall and problems with his lungs but again its not something he cant live with. In the two weeks he was in the hospital he had three minor surgerys and one major on his lung and that lung should be okay. The other one has the same problem and could go any time or never go. But with the way insuarnces are you cant fix it till it goes or they wont pain. A pain for sure. But anyway i knew this would be the longest birth story. lol. Do many problems but so worth it. We were so thilled to have another son. We had planned on having one more to hopefully get him a brother his age but with all his problems we decided not to risk having another one. We though maybe it was someone telling us to stop. lol. But we were so thilled to have you and it has been a pleasure having you as our son and watching you grow from the skinny grey baby you were (7lbs 7oz, good for three weeks early) to the skinny man you are now. lol. We are so proud of you and know you have great things ahead of you. You have a great life and a great girlfriend Dani who you have been dating for over a year now. We wish you every happiness on your 19th birthday and am excited to see what the next few years will bring.

Happy Birthday Cory.

Cory had a great weekend for his birthday. His girlfriend came over and made him breakfast. Texas Roadhouse, Shooting range, dinner with some of the family and cake. I think he had a good weekend.