On the 24th of March 2012 our lives changed in a way that we were
yet to comprehend. We knew our darling baby girl would be born with
gastroschisis; a 1 in 5000 birth defect in which there is a cavity in
the babies abdominal wall causing large and small intestines to protrude
from the body. I would like to share our journey as parents and more
importantly Jessie's journey in being a gastroschisis survivor.
Through
this blog I want to share our journey to get our baby girl better and
home, and create some awareness. A lot of people tell me they have never
heard of gastroschisis and while the stats say its only 1 in 5000, it is
fairly common.
It has been, and still is, a very emotional
thing to go through. I'll never forget the day the doctors told us our
baby had a problem. We went into our 14 week Nuchal Translucency scan,
it was a "just in case" sort of thing and really I just wanted another
excuse to see our baby again. After about 40 minutes of scanning and
happily watching our baby move around the sonographer told us there was a
defect. We had never heard of gastroschisis and after a lot of tears
together, and with our family, we set about researching every single
possible piece of information that was available. I googled, you tubed,
read about, dreamed about, obsessed about, finding out what our baby
would be facing.
There were days at work I couldn't even talk
on the phone, I would just start crying. I would see a mum with their
perfect new baby and think "that wont be me". The thoughts of, what did I
do wrong to deserve this to happen and 'why me' plagued my mind day
and night. I could never relax and just enjoy being pregnant. There were
countless scans and specialist appointments, counseling, and down
days. If it weren't for such an amazingly supportive family I couldn't
have remained so strong.
Jessie is now 43 days old, and I will
continue to tell her story, share information, links, photos and (if I
can figure out how to do it) some video's of our brave little girl. I
feel that the world should know about her, because she truly is a
fighter, and in our eyes the bravest girl in the world.
Stay tuned for more and thank you for your support.
Jodi x
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