Thursday May 3, 2012

April 24, 2012 - the day sweet Mallory Kate was brought into our world. Since the day she was born she was such a joyous baby. Very easy, alert, calm, and such a good eater (which any Mom out ther will understand how crucial that is!). Madison was adapting better than expected with her "baby Mallory." Our new family of four was so natural for us and although we were only together at home as a family for a week, it was a wonderful week.

May 3rd, 2012 - Mallory had been such a great eater that it bothered me when the past day or so she had struggled at every feeding taking maybe 2 oz at a time. She was having problems producing a bowel movement and finally had one the night before but she was still struggling and grunting quite a bit. When we woke up Thurday morning I told Dustin I was going to make a doctors appointment for her and try and get something to help her and talk to them about changing her formula. I made an appt for 9:10 and packed her up in her car seat. I had noticed she started loosing a little of her color and attributed that to the fact I could barely get her to take an ounce that morning.

As soon as we got to the doctor, I knew something wasn't right. Her color was completely grey and she was having a hard time catching her breath. They took her temperature and it was only 95. The nurse practitioner took Mallory next door to see the doctor and soon enough I was sitting in a room by myself watching the staff run around yelling to call 911.

Much after that point is still a blur. I got in touch with Dustin and he met me at the doctor's office as I was getting into the ambulance. He followed us to Childrens Heathcare - Scottish Rite. They took her to the emergency room and soon after we were put in a very small room to wait. I am unsure of how long we were waiting but it felt like an eternity. When they finally had someone to talk to us the only thing I remember them saying was how sick our little girl was.

We finally got to see her as they wheeled her to the ICU. We then had to wait another few hours while they got her settled. I have no idea what time it was when we finally got to see her but I remember thinking this could not be my baby with all of these tubes and IVs. At this point they were giving her a lot of different antibiotics to fight whatever had infected her heart but it was still a mystery as to what it was. All we knew was that most likely she had been exposed to some virus/bacteria that made her very sick.

They were having a hard time regulating her blood pressure and she was having a lot of irregular heart rhythms and tachycardia. It had appeared that the virus had attacked her heart and it was decided that the best place for her to be would be Egleston children's hospital. They had a machine that could help give her heart some rest and hopefully time to heal. The only option we saw was to get her to Egleston as soon as possible, so that is when the LifeFlight team was called and Mallory was airlifted to Egleston.

At this time it was probably close to 11:00 pm.....