July is here... and I have a feeling its going to be a hard one

July is finally here, for the past year at times I have been so excited for July to come, My precious Landon will be 6 and my Delaney would be 1! I anxiously awaited the times that we (Tanner, Landon and I) could proudly take her back to the NICU and show the doctors and nurses just how big and beautiful our girl had gotten. I had it all planned out in my head her being in a cute little pillow case dress with her name on it and of course a big ol' bow on her head :) and her smiling and happy just being a precious baby. We had so many plans for her and us, her and Landon are supposed to be the best of friends and fuss and drive us nuts. She was supposed to be his little person, and she already was my 2nd little person, because I have never loved 2 human beings more than I love my Landon and my Laney. Delaney Claire was my little friend and my gosh how much I miss her. Its really hard when Daddy takes Landon to do boy things like fishing, baseball, or picking out camoflauge for the hunting lease that he is getting on.. Because I want my girl here to do our stuff with, I feel like I should be getting ready to throw 2 of the biggest birthday bashes ever celebrating the triumphant year we have had, and instead I'm planning 1 big birthday for my big boy and I have never been happier to watch a little boy turn a year older. I am so thankful that the Lord has given us 2 children to love, and I have never loved and cherished Landon more. With a baby comes hope...... Hope for a future of happiness and joy, and when a baby is taken to heaven so suddenly that hope feels like it is just ripped away without warning. We were so focused on G-tube surgery and 11 lbs for a home vent.. days filled with hope about the day when Tanner and I would finally bring our baby girl home to really meet her big brother, yes she had saw him numerous times in the hospital, but I mean really meet her awesome big brother. we were so ready...... There were so many of our family that never got to meet sweet Delaney before she went to heaven however the impact she had on so many people still brings me to tears, she brought so many people to their knees in prayer and showed people that faith can move mountains....        

 love you my prince and princess.

its been crazy around the Goins house, after pinning and graduation and Landon getting out of school and starting my new job it was definitly time for a vacation and we had a great time. It was very bittersweet, this time last year while we were in PCB I was pregnant with Delaney. I couldnt have been happier.

 

Then after returning from this vacation everything in my pregnancy started to change :( It had been great until this point. Little did I know this would be one of the last pictures taken of me with my princess in my belly.   So going back this year after the hard year we have been through and not having our baby with us and Landon was a very hard pill to swallow, I broke down at times, especially when we ate at Sharky's. The grieving process is terrible, you can be just fine and then something you see, hear or smell takes you right back to reality that my baby is in Heaven. At Sharky's last year I was miserable, the smell of seafood and the first time I had tried to eat shrimp during this pregnancy was all to much and I got sick as stink :) I am sure the workers hated me for puking in their bathroom... and then this year we get there and that same smell hit me and took me right back and I missed the time and the feeling of her safe and sound in my stomach. I have been struggling for a long time with wanting to have family pictures made, because all of my family isnt here and I dont ever want to feel like we are moving on without her, because yes she was only here for 7 months but she changed Tanner, Landon and I forever and we will ALWAYS be a family of 4 unless the sweet Lord decides to make us a family of 5 one day.  During our family pictures I wanted to remember her ......

  I love how in this picture you see that ray of light coming down behind us, hi sweet girl.. we love you mommy is wearing your bracelet that you were wearing when you went to heaven and Daddy is wearing your bracelet and doesnt take it off..

Daddy and Pop never take these bracelets off, we all miss her so much and wish we had more time with her to love on her, neither does Aunt T, Aunt Corky (Wore your bracelet for protection when she went in to have sweet Bristol and Kennedy, uncle Shane made sure she had it on, and on the board it said your angels "Delaney Claire" ), Aunt KC, Papaw Rick, Nanny Dora.

I love these pictures and feel like they showed alot of Delaney, I wish she was here.

Now as I prepare to take my state board exam I just needed to write about my sweet girl to get some sadness off my chest.. We love and miss our sweet girl every day.. 

In the past few weeks I linked up with Kellys Korner blog in a group that was called show us your life... the title Mom's who have lost children. This is group that I wish I didnt have any buisness being a part of. But here we are in our new reality.  

This is one of my favorite pictures of Delaney and I an its one of the last that I have. This was on Tues Valentines day and sweet baby passed away on Sunday.  I miss my girl very very much.

Some songs that have helped get me thru some pretty dark days.

I miss you so much my princess and there were a couple songs on my heart tonight and I thought I would write about them: I have came to realize that I am in love with the Christian group Mercy Me every song I hear of these seems to fit our situation and life to a tee.

"Homesick"

You're in a better place, I've heard a thousand times
And at least a thousand times I've rejoiced for you
But the reason why I'm broken, the reason why I cry
Is how long must I wait to be with you

I close my eyes and I see your face
If home's where my heart is then I'm out of place
Lord, won't you give me strength to make it through somehow
I've never been more homesick than now

Help me Lord cause I don't understand your ways
The reason why I wonder if I'll ever know
But, even if you showed me, the hurt would be the same
Cause I'm still here so far away from home

I close my eyes and I see your face
If home's where my heart is then I'm out of place
Lord, won't you give me strength to make it through somehow
I've never been more homesick than now

In Christ, there are no goodbye
And in Christ, there is no end
So I'll hold onto Jesus with all that I have
To see you again
To see you again

And I close my eyes and I see your face
If home's where my heart is then I'm out of place
Lord, won't you give me strength to make it through somehow
Won't you give me strength to make it through somehow
Won't you give me strength to make it through somehow

I've never been more homesick than now

The other one is called the Hurt and the Healer and this one brought me to my knees tonight

gosh its not fair pumpkin.

"The Hurt & The Healer"

Why?
The question that is never far away
The healing doesn’t come from the explained
Jesus please don’t let this go in vain
You’re all I have
All that remains

So here I am
What’s left of me
Where glory meets my suffering

I’m alive
Even though a part of me has died
You take my heart and breathe it back to life
I’ve fallen into Your arms open wide
When the hurt and the healer collide

Breathe
Sometimes I feel it’s all that I can do
Pain so deep that I can hardly move
Just keep my eyes completely fixed on You
Lord take hold and pull me through

So here I am
What’s left of me
Where glory meets my suffering

I’m alive
Even though a part of me has died
You take my heart and breathe it back to life
I’ve fallen into your arms open wide
When the hurt and the healer collide

It’s the moment when humanity
Is overcome by majesty
When grace is ushered in for good
And all our scars are understood
When mercy takes its rightful place
And all these questions fade away
When out of the weakness we must bow
And hear You say “It’s over now”

I’m alive
Even though a part of me has died
You take my heart and breathe it back to life
I’ve fallen into your arms open wide
When The hurt and the healer collide

Jesus come and break my fear
Awake my heart and take my tears
Find Your glory even here
When the hurt and the healer collide [x2]

Jesus come and break my fear
Awake my heart and take my tears
Find Your glory even here

more about my angel

One of our favorite NNP Stefanie called me and let me know that there had been a change in Delaney, this was 4 weeks into the 6 week time span we were trying to wait to have her tummy surgery, baby girl had blood work drawn and it showed her platelet level had dropped from 240000 to 40000 over night and if you are medical personnel you are clinching your bottom at the sound of that... and even if your not a medical person that means something is using up all sweet peas ability to clot blood or blood was being lost from somewhere either way was not a good sign, and Stef had said her and Dr. Lisa were going to see if they could talk Dr. Carr into going ahead with the surgery and not wait any longer, thats all I needed to hear, I jumped up and we got ready, got Landon to school and then to Chattanooga we went. By the time we got there Dr. Blake our very favorite neonatoligist was on shift and he agreed we should press Dr. Carr, but if anyone knows Dr. Carr he doesnt press very well. He's a genius and I love him dearly. Dr. Carr agreed today is the day so within a few hours princess pea was on her way to her very 1st surgery and Tanner and I was scared crapless. We had been told that they had no clue how much of her bowel they would have to remove and there would always be the possibilty of strictures again once any adhesions were removed. But we dropped to our knees praying for hours and just clinging to the hope that our baby just had to be ok. She just had to. I will NEVER forget Katie and Dr. Blake coming out to tell us she was out of surgery and had done great.. I hit my knees again in prayer thanking the Lord for once again placing his healing and protecting hand around our baby. When Dr. Carr came to talk to us I just wanted to hug him and he looked at me like I had lost my mind :) once again you have to know Dr. Carr he doesn't hug. He told us he had to remove her ENTIRE colon and I about hit the floor, a thousand different thoughts were running through my mind, is she ok? will she ever be ok? will she ever eat like a normal baby? She was ok... she was perfect actually, Tanner and I went in to see her as soon as she was back in the unit and she looked like an angel laying there in her RADIANT WARMER! This was a big deal she had been in an isolette for what seemed like forever. The next few weeks she was still being fed TPN thru her central line that was inserted in surgery. I have never been more happy than when we got the go ahead to introduce milk again! And so the battle with her tummy issues continued. She would do so great for a little while but it seemed like once they would get to certain volumes her tummy would be like ok hold up I cannot keep up with you and they would have to stop feeds or back off them for fear of another intestial infection. It was 2 weeks after Delaney's tummy surgery, I had left for the day and called 2 hrs later like always to check on her and the nurse said ya know she's doing good , she got mad when they did her echo... I was like wait huh? Echo? Why did you guys do an echo? She said just to look for cor pulmonale which I KNOW WHAT THAT IS! So I start to freak and ask why I wasnt notified earlier? and did they think something was going on with her heart and the nurse said its just precautionary because shes been on the vent so long alot of baby's develop this after being on the vent but she said everything was fine no worries. So I didn't I never thought about it again. I come in the next morning like always to spend my day with my princess while my prince was at school, Im sitting in the rocking chair rocking her and singing to her having a great morning then Dr. Lisa comes up and tells me Delaney needs surgery! I FREAK! I am like oh no her tummy? what happened she's been tolerating her feedings well? thinking oh my gosh I cannot relive the last 7 weeks it has been torture.. and she stops me and said no its on her heart. WHAT!!!! What in the crap is wrong with her heart???? She explains that her PDA was open! It had already been closed previously but the stress of the NEC infection caused it to open. This was a freaking nightmare, I'm like but the nurse said everything was FINE NO Worries, Tanner is at the firehall and Landon is at school.. and you are telling me she needs heart surgery and she has to go today.. it was all too much to wrap my brain around. WE WERE TOTALLY BLINDSIDED. She went to surgery again with Dr. Carr and came out again like a rockstar. Dr. Carr came out and hugged my neck 1st thing he knew I was a total basket case. I will write more when I get a chance. :) Love you and miss you my precious girl

the next few days...

So sorry, I posted 1 post then went MIA for a bit. School has been wearing me out but on a brighter note I just finished clinicals whoo hoo and I am 1 step closer to RN behind my name!....

the next few days after Delaney Claire was born are kind of a blur, but I will do my best to remember. I just remember I kept thinking she can't be here already I had barely felt her start to move and had only known she was a girl for 7 weeks before she was here, that just didnt seem like enough time. Delaney spent the next few weeks on medicine to help her BP stablize. She was doing great starting out of the gate, she never lost any weight right after she was born she just started gaining which wasn't a huge surprise to me because bless her little heart she didnt have anymore room in my tummy and the placenta sure wasnt helping her it was in all reality hurting her. She started gaining weight like a champ, they had to put her on the ossilator ventilator to help keep her lungs open. The right upper lobe of her right lung kept trying to collapse which is a scary feeling knowing that your daughters lung is collapsing. Already have been in nursing school for 2 yrs by this point was a blessing in one sense and a curse in another because I realized the severity of this. She was on the ossilator for a couple weeks, which as with any kind of assistive breathing device they are wonderful in the fact that they are keeping her breathing and here with us but not great in the fact that in trying to do its work it scars the lungs and makes them stiff. shortly after this she was able to go back to the conventional ventilator which showed improvement. a couple weeks later they attempted to put her on CPAP which would have been AWESOME if she could have stayed on it. She was able to stay on CPAP for a couple hours before she had to be reintubated. Little did we know one week later, the Ronald McDonald house would have to close due to mold and we would go to the Marriott for the 3 days they paid for then as hard as it was Tanner and I came back home to Cleveland for the 1st night since she was born. Little did we know the phone call we would recieve as soon as we got to Cleveland. It was Carol the NNP telling us that Delaney had blood in her stool and my heart sank, I totally knew what that meant, she tried to keep me optimistic and I was thinking the worse. The next morning it was confirmed by xray that she had Necrotizing Enterocolitis and our lives would never be the same. The next 4 weeks were the most torturous time because Dr. Carr her surgeon said the infection was too new to have surgery and if we did surgery right then there was a huge chance she would loose most of her bowels and the farther out from the infection we could get before doing surgery the better chance she would have of no complications during surgery and she would be much more stable for surgery. This was so painful to watch your little girl be so uncomfortable. I will write more soon!

Well here goes.... Delaney's Birth

I am going to attempt to blog about the life of my precious daughter. I probably should have started doing this 7 or 8 months ago but better late than never right :) ... When I was 19 weeks pregnant Tanner and I found out we were having a little girl! I was OVER the moon excited I have always wanted a boy and a girl and now that was coming true! At 20 weeks pregnant I went to my high risk dr. appointment and was told that my BP was elevated so they would just watch it, and they wanted me to check my BP 2x daily and keep a log, so i did, this was the same dr. appointment they told us she had a 2 vessel cord but they thought it would be fine just would need to watch it. Our family went on a great vacation to Flordia and my next dr. visit was at 25 weeks and Tanner and I were told that Little Miss wasn't growing like she should be and was very small for her gestational age, the high risk dr. wanted me to have an amniocentesis to see if there was something geneticly going on that we should be concerned about, me being me wanted to listen the exactly what the Dr. said so we would have no regrets. So against my husband's gut feeling we had the amniocentesis. Even though in our hearts and gut we knew even if there was something geneticly wrong we would not abort and would love her no matter what. My amniotic fluid was low and the amnio proceeded to make it even lower :(. Delaney Claire kept us on our toes that week, she wasn't moving a whole lot because of the low fluid. At one point I was very worried and had Tanner get the doppler and listen for heart tones luckily he found them! All the tests came back Normal just like we thought and we were 110% sure our baby girl was indeed a baby girl! I was even more excited. The high risk dr. had mentioned to us because of her size they would probably put me in the hospital around 26-27 weeks pregnant to get the steroids to help with her lungs. The next week I had a normal ultrasound scheduled at my OBGYN and I noticed the ultrasound tech kept looking at something and had a fretful look on her face then printed some pictures and excused herself. My twin sister Terri was with me thank the Lord because momma started to freak! They took my BP and it was thru the roof! Dr. came in and told me the blood flow in her cord had REVERSED, and my placenta was getting bigger and bigger and I needed to go get my husband, pack a bag and go STRAIGHT to the high risk dr. in Chattanooga. So we did panicing! We got to the dr. and they tried FOREVER to get little girl to move and they looked at her lungs and said they were not moving, they even tried putting this thing on my stomach that sent some sound thru my stomach and that didnt even work. The dr. looked at me and said "I hate to say this but your little girl is not moving and her lungs are not moving, but her heart is still beating but we dont know for how long it will be. She looked at me and said so here are some of your options"........... me stunned couldnt even look at Tanner and I stopped her very abruptly and said our ONLY option is to get to the hospital to do whatever it is we have to do to save our baby. She warned us that Delaney was too small to be born yet and that if she didnt weigh at least 500 grams they would not be able to intubate. We went straight to the hospital and by the time we got there Delaney was moving SO fast they couldn't get her on the monitor! I prayed a very simple prayer in the car on the way to the hospital "I said Lord please, please, please be with my baby and if she is not big enough yet for them to be able to help please don't let her be born today." I stayed in L&D that whole night and they monitered her movement and my blood pressure and I had an ultrasound 1st thing in the AM and PRAISE THE LORD the flow in her cord had reversed! I was transferred to the High Risk Perinatal Unit (HRPU) where I stayed for 7 days and had ultrasounds everyday making sure everything with peanut was ok. The on July 19 the day after our little boys 5th birthday, Tanner made it to the hospital in time to go for the ultrasound with me and as a mom I could just feel that something had changed. :( Then the ultrasound confirmed it that she was a little bigger however the flow in her cord was reversed again. I was immediatly transferred to L&D where they were just going to "watch" and see what happened well it wasn't long before my blood pressure went thru the roof and Delaney's heartrate was doing CRAZY things on the monitor so they said it's time! I said oh my word it can't be I should still have 3 months! And this is where precious Delaney Claire's journey really began. At 3:13 on July 19th 2011 the tinyest little miracle came into this world weighing 1 lb 2 oz at 515 grams. She was 11 1/2 inches long. One of the most beautiful little miracles I have ever seen in my life! She was immediatly intubated and put in a ziplock bag to keep her warm and they wisked her away to the NICU. She was such a trooper! The next few days were kind of a blur, there were alot of drs, medicine, and tests and uncertainty. But she was letting everyone know right away I am a fighter and I am not out of this yet!