Little House of Walkers

On January 26, 2004, Rachel graced us with her beautiful presence. This was my first pregnancy and therefore, first child. The pregnancy went smooth, no problems whatsoever. Oh, I did get the stomach flu a couple days before she was born, but that was it. I was induced on 1/26/04 at around 7:00am. Everything was perfect. I had her about 12:26pm, I think. So that went pretty fast. Five minutes after I had her I was on the phone glowing to friends and family about my precious little one. I even ate right away. I was just in awe of how smooth everything went. I loved it and my little Rachel. Rachel was such a happy baby, very pleasant, rarely cried except when she was communicating to us. As she got older, when she woke up in the morning, she would just sit in her crib, patiently waiting for someone to come get her. She slept with her hands behind her head as if she was completely relaxed and was just "taking it easy". That trait she passed on to her sister, Megan and brother, Noah. Rachel did pretty well as she got older when she was around people she didn't know that well. She would let them hold her without crying. Sometimes, she would put her hands behind her head and turn her head if she didn't know you that well. That was cute. One of our favorite memories of Rachel is when she started crawling. She would start out in our computer room (where we would hang out) and crawl all the way to the kitchen. We have a one-level, pretty small house, so it wasn't too far. But for a 6 month old, it seemed like a mile, I'm sure. But she would crawl to the kitchen and play with magnets and then truck back into the computer room and stick her head in the door and smile as if to say, "Just checking to see if you are still there". She would do this continually. It was like her exercise. Rachel was a pretty healthy baby. On November 17, 2004, we took Rachel for her normal well child check. Dr. Booth listened to her heart, and listened, and listened, and listened (for what seem to be a good 10 minutes)...finally I said, "Is there something wrong?". She was having an abnormal heartbeat. Her heartbeat was beating so fast he couldn't count it. We were sent to a pediatric University cardiologist right away for consult. The cardiologist listened to her and determined she was "back in rhythm" and was "fine". He said if it happens again, bring her on back up to his floor, the pediatric cardiology wing. Through all of the doctors poking on her and listening, Rachel never cried. In fact, she would look up at them and smile. She was just a comfortable, pleasant baby. That same night, Brandon and his Dad went to a play here in Columbia. Given the circumstances of the day, I was pretty freaked out and on edge and nervous. I don't like to be alone anyway, so this pretty much put me OVER the edge. I kept listening to her heart (the cardiologist gave us a stethoscope to use to listen to her heart to monitor her) and it just felt and sounded really fast. I'm paranoid anyway, too, so you can imagine what I was feeling at this point. I called my sister, who is a nurse and her husband is an RT. I went over to their house and Brian (RT) listened and felt it was pretty fast, too. I called her doctor, whom she saw that am and he said to bring her on to the ER. So, we took her to the ER, where her heartbeat registered 280bpm by their machine, which is very high. Thank goodness my sister drove me to the ER and was there for me, b/c I was in no shape to do anything. They were sticking needles in Rachel and pumping heart meds in her. Rachel was screaming bloody murder by this point. I couldn't even be in the room. Brandon finally came. (Oddly enough, through all of this, I still the ability, to tell his sister, Kristi, where Brandon was sitting and EXACTLY how to get to his seat.) So they kept Rachel overnight for a couple of days and eventually diagnosed her with Supraventricular Tachycardia. The cardiologist says 9 of 10 babies grow out of this by the time they are a year and half. He prescribed Digoxin and Propranol and we went home. These medicines were VERY scary for me as they regulated her heart, which is a pretty vital organ. I don't like medicine anyway. So things were fine from November until the fateful day in January... I was on my way to take Rachel to her Aunt Kristi's while I went to work. I wasn't too far from our house, when Rachel threw up in her car seat. Rachel had NEVER been sick like that. Something inside me was scared. It wasn't a bad throw-up. She was 11 months old so she was still drinking formula. So it was just formula she threw-up. So I went back home and called the doctor, just to make sure b/c she was on her heart meds and I am paranoid about everything. The doctors office agreed that since she was on heart meds that she should come in and they will check her out. This time at the doctor's office, after Dr. Booth listened to her heart, he had to go get back-up. It was not only beating fast, but very out of rhythm. They tried to put cold packs on her and push her knees up to her chest (vaso-vagal techniques) but nothing seemed to help. We went to the ER where her heart registered 450bmp. (after looking back at things, I couldn't believe their machine registered that high). Rachel was admitted to the hospital back in the cardiology unit with IV's in her, while the doctors tried to figure out what was wrong. I painfully, regretfully have to admit as part of my therapy that I went home that night to go to sleep because I was sick, too. We both went home, Brandon & I. We went home about 10 or 11. I had been holding Rachel on my chest while she slept, very carefully not to pull her IV out. I loved holding her on my chest. I did that most everyday of her life. Our routine at bedtime was her laying on my chest until she fell asleep. Anyway, when I put her back in her hospital bed, she woke up. I felt bad. Grandma and Grandma were still there, though. Brandon & I went home. We only lived maybe a 1/4 mile from the hospital and could be there in less than 5 minutes. I still feel horrible, sick and disturbed for leaving her, much less admitting this. Brandon answered a call at 3ish am to come to the hospital. I wasn't sure what they said, but knew something was wrong. I hustled to get my clothes on and even forgot my glasses. All Brandon told me was "they said we could see her now". But when we got to the parking garage, the tears started flowing. I had no clue what we were about to see, but something was telling me it wasn't good. We got up to the floor and were immediately met by a nurse, who wouldn't let us see Rachel. We were put in this little room and told she basically coded. When we showed up they were still working on her. They brought her back and a little bit later she coded again. A wonderful doctor came into ask us what we wanted to do. He told us there was an ECKMO machine that they could hook her up to and would act as her heart, while her heart rested. This whole event was a complete and total shock and surprise to us. I had no answer. Luckily, Brandon said, "do whatever you have to". This doctor knew what he was doing and was awesome at his job but sucked very much at bedside manners. He was very short with us. So finally, we got to see Rachel and she was obviously not her self. She was swollen and had tubes all over her. Her arms and feet were completely purple. They were doing this on purpose. They had her in a drug-induced coma. At one point, she opened her eyes. Again, I wasn't there for the initial one, but my sisters rushed out to get me and I was able to call, "Peanut, Peanut" (that's what we called her) and she opened her eyes, looked right into mine, and went back to sleep. That's the last time I saw her beautiful blue eyes look into mine. By the end of the week, Rachel's heart started back on it's own, a miracle in itself. We were told everything could be fixed but her brain. That's when we had to make a decision. All of that week was completely surreal, nothing you would ever dream or imagine. Rachel lived for 2 minutes after the machines were taken off. I wasn't in the room and didn't want that memory in my head. She passed away January 8, 2005 and my world has never been the same. I am not the same person and never will be. My happiness is fulfilled by my 2 new children (who never got to meet their sister) but it's still not the same. It's been 5 years and I still don't have an interest in music, tv shows, books, having much fun, shopping, etc for myself. I am now starting to WANT to have fun but I don't have the motivation. I have the motivation when I know it will make my 2 kids happy, which in turn makes me happy. But I don't have motivation to do anything for myself. I'm no longer dwelling on this. I actually haven't been able to since I had kids, but Rachel knows she is always in my heart. I always like to have her around, whether it's pictures or using her name for my Megan's middle name. Tangible things like that...I never want to leave her out. I still don't feel comfortable leaving her name out when people ask me how many kids I have, but I also don't want to go through the story, either....anyway...I'll have more thoughts on this as they come... I love you Rachel, and you will always be my little girl.