Hank's Story.

          I've been trying to write Hank's story for several months. It has been so hard to do, but I wanted to do it before I forgot any of the details. I have just gotten to the point where all of the awful moments surrounding his death don't constantly replay themselves in my mind. I have prayed for peace from those moments for a very long time, and they still come occasionally, but I don't have to relive those moments every moment of every day as I did the first many months after he died.The Lord has helped me through many many prayerful nights to remember the sweet moments I've spent with my baby instead of always just the scary or sad ones. That is such an incredible answered prayer, to be able to spend my day thinking about how his eyes found mine when I spoke to him, or how sweet his little cry sounded, or how proud his doctor was of how good he did- rather than the anxiety filled heart-wrenching moments that were so often running through my mind. I think the devil works on us in ways like that... he tries to completely wear us down. But God always wins, and He is good, and He is faithful, and He provides. He provides us with strength when we don't have it in us. And it is He who gave me the strength to finally write Hank's story.

So, here it is.... the story of my first born son, Hank Allen Smith.


          It was Wednesday, January 27th. My chest had been so sore for several weeks and I couldn't remember when my last cycle had been. I decided I better take a test. So, I did first thing when I got to work that morning and I could barely stand on my own two feet when that little pink line popped up and changed my world.
           I came out of the bathroom, and went back to my desk, completely unaware of what was going on around me. I was shocked, and elated, and about to bust with the news.
          Nathan's birthday was just a few days away, so I texted him and told him that I had the best birthday present ever for him (I would later find out that he thought his present was going to be a Chevelle). So, I somehow managed to keep the news to myself ALL DAY. I can't tell you how many times I looked at that little test in my bag. It was the longest day I can remember.
When I got home, I stuck the test in a box, and wrapped it up. I really thought about waiting to give it to him for his birthday..... but I just couldn't wait! He opened it and I sat.... waiting for a response. Once he finally figured out what it was, his jaw dropped. "What?! You're pregnant?!? This is the best news ever!" And so we cried and then sat there in shock with each other before we had to leave for church.
            We sat through church with silly grins on our faces.... we had amazing news to share, but for now it was just between us.
           A couple of weeks later, we went to Sweetwater to eat with my family. No one wanted to cooperate and get all in the same place at once so we could tell them. We finally got my sister, her then fiance, my mom, and dad back to my parent's house by telling them we needed to give Nancy and Alex an engagement gift. In the gift was a note that said "You're going to be the best Auntie ever!!" She got it right away, but then had to explain it to my parents. This baby was to be the first grandchild in our family. Oh, the joy that day...
              Not long after that, we got to share the news with Nathan's family. They too, were thrilled.
We ordered our families to silence. We weren't going to announce the pregnancy until after our first doctor's appointment.... and that wasn't until March!
The day of our first appointment, my husband woke me up saying that Sammy was missing. Sammy is my cat that I kept from a litter someone brought me from the side of the road, abandoned. He has glaucoma because of an auto-immune problem, and gets eye drops daily. He doesn't see very well in certain lights, and is de-clawed, and not suited for roaming the streets. And he has my heart. And he was missing!
             So I stayed home from work, and searched for him. I spent all day searching and crying. We went to our appointment with him still missing and my heart heavy on one of the most exciting days of our lives. When Dr. Ogdee put that wand on my rounding belly, and we saw our sweet baby for the first time.... I don't even have words for that feeling. The next morning, my husband opened the back door.... and there was my kitty.
                   I prayed thank you Lord, thank you for my baby and for my kitty coming home safe.
The pregnancy was going very well, and I was loving every minute of it. A couple of weeks after our first visit, the hospital Nathan works at was trying out a new 3D ultrasound machine to see if they wanted to buy it. They were looking for some pregnant women to try it out on, and I jumped at the opportunity to see my baby again. At that point, I was 15 weeks along, and the girls doing the ultrasound weren't positive, but they thought he was a boy.

 15 Week Ultrasound Pictures:

              At 17 weeks, a friend scanned me again, to see if we could determine the sex. My baby was very uncooperative, keeping legs crossed indian-style the whole time. But, she finally thought she could tell....it was a girl! We were so excited, as we were both wanting a girl.
So my sister threw us a gender- reveal party. And we let my mom cut into the cake to find it pink. And we all celebrated that we were having a girl!

             It wasn't until about a month later that my doctor did another ultrasound to look at anatomy. He kept asking, "Are you sure you want to know what it is?" We didn't tell him that we already knew. But, as he was scanning he shocked us as he told us... "It's a boy!" I didn't believe him. I was already set on having a girl and I just couldn't imagine that we were having a boy. We already knew his name. We had not been able to pick out a girls name, but had a boy's name picked for quite some time.  We liked Lorabelle for a girl, but none of our family really cared for it, so we couldn't decide on anything. I guess there was a reason we couldn't decide on a girl's name. His name would be Hank Allen. Hank because 1- it's an awesome name, and 2- I love country music and I love Hank Williams. And Allen after both of our Dads and my brother who all share the same middle name. He was named after many great men!
                Since I could not believe that he was a boy yet, we had a 3D ultrasound at Stork. There he proceeded to open his legs wide and show us his boy parts.....plain as day. I think he was tired of me trying to say he was a girl, so he was saying look mom, and showed me that he was a boy.

 

Our cute boy! 

          At that same appointment, Dr. Ogdee noticed his legs were measuring shorter than they should be. So, he had us do an anatomy scan at the hospital. The Radiologist determined that they were a little short, but that each measurement could be off by a couple of weeks, so nothing to worry about.
          One month later, at our next OB appointment, Dr. Ogdee was still concerned about his legs measuring behind so he made us an appointment for us to see Dr. Maberry with the high quality machine to do some measurements.
          The appointment was still a few weeks away. In the meantime, we went to Burnet so that Nathan could help his Dad and Step-mom move out of their house. When we got home that night, I noticed that my ankles had swollen so much! At work the next day my feet and ankles were so huge, they didn't even look like they belonged to me. I checked my blood pressure, which was slightly high, but I wasn't too worried about it. I checked for protein in my urine because the extreme swelling made me worry about pre eclampsia. There was none, so I just chalked it up to pregnancy swelling and the hot weather. 
     Two days later, on Wednesday, I had my appointment with Dr. Maberry. My blood pressure was suddenly high at 149/100.The ultrasound tech did a long, detailed scan and found that Hank was measuring two weeks behind in growth. Then, the Doctor came in and did some more looking at Hank. Then he said, due to my blood pressure, and the fact that the pressure in Hank's umbilical cord was way too high, I needed to go to the hospital.

Here are some pictures taken at Dr. Maberry's office:

          We were sent straight to the hospital and I was admitted on bed rest and a magnesium drip. Another scan later that day showed that the umbilical artery pressure was even higher. Dr. Ogdee gave us the scary news that if it continued to go up, or it stopped, or the flow reversed, we would need to deliver immediately. Thankfully, over the next few days, the pressure in his cord began to drop and my blood pressure remained stable.
          On Friday, I was sent home, to say on bed rest for the remainder of the pregnancy. I thought... how on earth am I going to stay in bed that long? I hate having people take care of me... how am I going to let someone help take care of me for three whole months? Unfortunately, I would not get the opportunity to lay there and let growing my baby be my only job.  The very night after getting out of the hospital, I began having severe pain in my right rib area. The pain got worse over night and soon, my whole chest was hurting. I attributed the pain to gallbladder problems, but since it was so severe, thought it best to go back to the hospital.
          So, Saturday afternoon, I went back to the hospital and was admitted with elevated liver enzymes and high blood pressure. I stayed in the hospital Saturday night, they started me back on the magnesium drip, and I was having very severe headaches. Dr. Stanley was the Dr. on call seeing me since my doctor was out of town. Very late Saturday evening, one of Nathan's coworkers came to do an ultrasound to check on Hank and to check his cord pressure. The pressure was good and she was so very sweet to spend extra time with us looking at our baby. My family was all in the room and got to watch little Hank show out on the screen. Hank was doing so good, and his umbilical artery pressure was improving too! I thought that was so encouraging.

These are Hank's last ultrasound pictures: 

        The next day, we would find out that I was the one who was not improving. My blood pressure was really high and they were giving me the magnesium to keep me from having a seizure. My chest pain was getting worse, and it was getting hard to breathe. Sunday afternoon, the doctors decided that it was not my gallbladder causing the pain. The pre-eclampsia had progressed to HELLP syndrome which is a very rare (happens in less than 1% of pregnant women), very severe complication of pregnancy for which the only cure is delivery. The pain I was having in my chest was caused by my liver, swelling up and filling with blood. If the process isn't stopped (by delivery) the liver can rupture. My severe headaches were from the high blood pressure, my platelets (the part of your blood that clots to prevent bleeding) were dropping, and my red blood cells were breaking apart. Because of the high blood pressure and my blood being so out of balance, my body began swelling and pushing fluid out of my veins and into my body tissue. My lungs were filling with fluid making me short of breath. At a little before 3, it was decided that I had to be delivered. So, I was prepped for an emergency c-section. My family gathered around me and prayed. I was so scared for my little boy. Because my platelets were so low, the anesthesiologist would not do a spinal block, I had to be put under general anesthesia which meant I wouldn't see my baby come into this world, and Nathan couldn't be in the room to see him either.
            Hank Allen Smith was born at 3:17 at 1 lb 13 oz, 12 1/4 in long, crying and ornery. The first thing he did was pee on the nurses. Haha....that just makes me laugh!

Look how handsome he is!

         Even though he was so small, Hank was strong! He didn't have to be put on a ventilator to breathe for him. He was put on a CPAP machine that constantly pushed air up his nose to keep his airways open and make it easier for him to breathe. He was doing so good! Nathan got to see him right away, but I was still getting sicker. I had to stay on the magnesium drip for 24 hours which meant I had to stay in bed, and I couldn't go see my baby. All of the grandparents got to go in one at a time with Nathan to see our sweet boy, before even his Momma could meet him. That was so, so hard. Nathan kept bringing me pictures of him and even a video of his sweet little cry, but I needed to see him for myself.

            Also, what was so hard for me was my inability to think straight or remember anything. The magnesium I was getting in my IV made me totally out of it and unable to concentrate. I had trouble knowing what day it was, when Hank was born, how much he weighed, and I felt like a terrible Mom. I was on oxygen most of the next day, and even with it, they were having trouble keeping my oxygen saturation above 90%. I just had so much fluid on me. I was so concerned with my baby, that I didn't realize how sick I was. I really didn't realize it until I got my hospital records and read through them. My chest x-ray showed some congestive heart failure from all of the fluid and I was given lasix to try help my body get rid of it.
             Finally, the time came when the turned off the magnesium drip and I was allowed to get up. Just about the time they got me in the wheel chair, they informed me that it was shift change and I would have to wait almost 2 more hours to see him : (. They transferred me to a regular postpartum room and I had to wait to see him. I was still so very groggy from the medication that I kept falling asleep in my wheelchair. As soon as they would let me, I went to the NICU to see Hank. 

              He was so, so tiny.... but so perfect. His little hands were so soft as he held onto my finger. We were afraid to touch him too much because they told us he would be overstimulated very easily and we wanted all of his energy to be spent on getting stronger.
             I went back to my room and did not go back to see him that night so that we could both be stronger in the morning. I asked my nurse to bring my pain meds every four hours so that I would be able to be up and visiting him the next day. I had foolishly asked to stop my pain meds several hours before I got up because I was so groggy. I wish I had known they were going to finally get me up so that I could take something. That was very, very painful trying to walk for the first time after more than a day in bed and with no pain medications. I got up every 2 hours to pump that night and would proudly send Nathan to the NICU to deliver it.

               After shift change the next morning, we went to see our sweet boy again. I held his hand and talked to him and when he heard my voice he opened his little eyes and looked around for me. When he saw me, he looked directly into my eyes and I will never ever forget that moment.
               My sister was so upset that they wouldn't let her go in and see him. So, I made a little video of me telling him about her and how much she loved him. After that visit, we went back to our room for a while. They were planning on taking out his umbilical artery line because he was doing so well and then they would start feeding him breast milk through his NG tube. They told us that getting the line out would be kind of stressful for him, so we should wait and call before we came to see him again. They wanted us to give him several hours to recover afterwards.
               We kept calling the nursery and they kept saying not to come yet. Then they told us they were having to intubate him because he was having trouble breathing, so we needed to wait to come see him. By this time it was the afternoon, and a NICU nurse came to our room and said the doctor wanted to talk to us. Nathan was so worried. I was trying to be positive, saying the probably were just going to have to leave him on the ventilator a couple of days to get him stronger. We went to the nursery and they left us standing outside the door for a really long time. Finally someone let us in and the doctor told us that when she put the tube down, she saw blood coming from his lungs. She had been trying to stop the bleeding but was not able to. They let us see him and he looked really really bad. At this point, there were tons of people working on him, scanning his brain to see if it was bleeding (it wasn't), breathing for him, and pushing meds. They'd had to do CPR on him before we came in. They were frantically trying to find a flight team to pick him up and take him to a bigger hospital to help him. I vaguely remember calling my mom in my hospital room and telling her that Hank wasn't doing well. I don't even remember exactly what I said to her or what she said back. They asked if we wanted any family to come, and immediately I called my sister. I couldn't imagine having all my family come in and see him like that, but I knew she had to come see him before he died. She got there and he was surrounded by nurses and I told her to talk to him and touch him. I HATED that she didn't get to see him until he looked that bad. She only stayed by him for a minute and then they were telling us that he didn't have a blood pressure , the flight team was still hours away, and his oxygen saturation was really low.
               Nathan and I decided we needed to let him go Home. So we held him in our arms as he took his last breaths. He passed away around 6:30 on July 5, 2011. It felt so very good to have him in my arms.....And it hurt so bad to let him be with Jesus. Afterwards, we spent time holding him. I got to change his tiny diaper, and I just remember saying, "I can't believe this is the only time I'm going to get to do this." I was still in such a state of shock. I was weirdly calm and Nathan was devastated and heartbroken. I think I was given that calmness as a gift from God, so that I could spend time with my baby boy. We made hand prints and footprints that were so adorable.

 I love these long skinny feet that look so much like his Daddy's

And these precious hands with such long fingers

    We bathed him and put lotion on him, and dressed him. And I gave him lots of kisses. We took a few really bad pictures of him on the John Deere blanket that my parents got him, and his nurse took our only family photo. And we held him, clung to him and cried.

             I so wish I had thought to have someone come take professional pictures of us with him. And of him with our family, who we took him to meet after we had spent several hours with him.
             They wheeled me back to our room that was full of family. They put him in my arms before wheeling me in, and I got to present him to our family. Everyone passed him around and gave him love. But it was late and everyone was still so worried about my health that it seemed we hardly had any time with our family. I wish we had spent more time with them holding him and loving him.
               After our family left, we were told that it was time to choose a funeral home. We knew we wanted to live in the Jim Ned area, so we looked up the funeral home in Tuscola and called. And Matt came out in the middle of the night and we started making funeral arrangements for the next day. The majority of our church was leaving for church camp in 2 days and I just couldn't imagine them not being there. So in a haze we began picking out songs, deciding on who would pray, who would speak, who would carry our baby boy. And we held him close for the little time they gave us before telling us it was time for him to go with the funeral director.
                Oh my goodness..... when I handed my baby back to that nurse I felt like I handed her the biggest chunk of my heart, and I didn't know how it was going to go on beating with such a big hole ripped in it. I just needed more time. I cry over that all the time. Why couldn't I have had just a little more time with him? Nathan always tells me it would have never been enough.... and I suppose he's right, but it just all happened so fast and I wish I had more time to hold him close to me and smell his sweet baby smell and stare at his perfect features.
                 Nathan slept in my hospital bed with me, a sleep that came from the hefty dose of sleeping pills and pain pills the nurse shoved at me as soon as we got back to our room. Those made the funeral planning and last moments with our baby groggy and hard to focus on, which I was mad at that nurse for. I know what those pills do to you, but I was in shock and numb, and just did what she told me to do. Nathan got up early in the morning to go look at cemeteries. He looked at several around Tuscola, and found the perfect one.... McBee cemetery in Ovalo.

           It was absolutely beautiful and perfect. It was in the country and so very peaceful. And just on the other side of the fence were lots of animals. It was just the kind of place we'd been looking for to live, and I couldn't help but think every time I went to see him that it's so perfect.... but it's where he was supposed to grow up- not be buried. And I could just picture him running through those pastures and it hurt so very much.
                   We had his service at 6 in the afternoon and I was shocked at how many people were able to come on such short notice. My dad and brother took such good care of our boy for us.

After the service, we had our family gather at the grave side for the burial. My husband spoke some sweet words, and then we did one of the hardest things we've ever done.... we lowered our firstborn son into the ground.

Our hearts ache to be with Hank again. We rest in the Hope given to us through Jesus Christ that we will hold him in our arms again..... and what a glorious day that will be!