No control...

The best way to explain this whole experience is by using the analogy of a roller coaster ride. You have highs, you have lows, you are excited but scared out of your mind, and most of all you have absolutely no control.

Harrison Reed Miller - Just a few hours old

Harrison was born with severe respiratory distress. When I first saw his handsome face, he looked so worried and was almost wheezing while he was breathing. Poor little boy. When I saw him for the first time in the NICU room, he was having some major subcostal retractions. That is when the baby is working so hard at breathing that their whole abdomen just sinks in as they breathe. (Logan, please correct me where I am wrong :)) He wasn't able to make the lining that usually coats babies lungs to help them breathe, so they had to intubate him. They also found that Harrison was very anemic so they had to give him blood. That was the first of our worries. We were just hoping and praying that he would be taken off intubation and the new blood would give him more oxygen. It was about two days later and we thought all was well when we got some more scary news (another low on the roller coaster). Harrison was born with a PDA (you can find out what that is here) and a VSD (find out about that here). More worries and crying followed that news. The amazing NICU cardiologist assured me that a PDA can be treated with medicine and will usually close up on its own. He also assured me that the VSD would be a very easy surgery that we would possibly need to do way in the future, like 6 or seven months. Okay, I could handle that, very doable. Then, we came to another low on our crazy roller coaster.

The doctors did an ultrasound on baby Harrison's head (I'm forgetting why they did this at the moment, it could have been routine or they might have been checking something). The results came back and they were not what we wanted to hear. I remember standing in the room, listening to the doctor talk about the ultrasound, not knowing what the heck she was saying. She started talking about how Harrison could possibly have an Arnold Chiari Malformation (explanation here). She also said because of his "wide forehead" and other features, he could possibly have something else that might be a genetic disorder. They wanted to cover all of the bases so they decided to send off for a karyotype test (found here) to look for genetic disorders. Another test they wanted to do was an MRI. Harrison was too young and unstable with his breathing at that time so they decided to wait a couple of weeks before delving into that test. Logan and I felt as though a train had mowed over us. Our brand new little baby who we felt was perfect in every way, could possibly have some major physical and mental disabilities. We were crushed.

Now, the day Harrison was born, Logan gave him the most amazing blessing. A blessing of life, health and serving the Lord. This gave us much hope. We both knew that the blessing was not coming from Logan, it was coming from the Lord. After finding that Harrison might have multiple malformations, we had no other choice but to hand the situation over to the Lord. We asked for help from all of our family and friends and anyone else who wanted to pray and fast for little Harrison. We knew that the outcome of these tests might not be what we wanted to hear and that was okay. We would still love him anyway. I remembered the strong feeling that I had when we first found out I was pregnant with Harrison, that he was special, and it was making more and more sense to me now. He could very well be one of the most valiant spirits in heaven whose only test in life was to come and obtain a body on earth. If that was the case, I could be strong, I could handle it. I knew that having a child with disabilities was hard, not by experience, but I loved him, so I was more than willing to live for him.

I think about a day had passed when Logan and I were in the NICU with Harrison once more. A couple of nurses were there caring for our sweet baby boy when Logan asked them if he could read the doctors report of the ultrasound on his brain. They pulled it up on the computer and Logan read through the doctors words. I remember watching his face as he read that they couldn't quite see the corpus callosum in Harrison's brain. His face went pale and he asked the nurses why the doctor didn't tell us about this. They didn't quite have an answer. Logan explained to me what other problems Harrison would have with the lack of a corpus callosum and my heart sank. This roller coaster ride was really starting to make me sick. How could this sweet, tiny baby have so many things wrong inside of him? It just did not make sense. We came to the conclusion that possibly the reason the doctor hadn't told us about that was because she didn't want to make us worry even more when they needed further testing to confirm it was true. An ultrasound isn't really a great way for seeing those kinds of things.

And now we were on a plateau. Waiting......praying.......crying......thinking......fasting.......praying.....crying.....and praying. Our friends and family were so amazing and supportive while we went through these trying times. My mother came and was with us during these days and Logan's mom was coming very soon. Logan and I tried to stay close to the Lord as we waited for the results. He gave us comfort and spoke to both of our hearts telling us that Harrison would be just fine. There were days when I was certain that Harrison wouldn't have anything wrong with him and Logan would be just the opposite. And then we would switch roles were I was depressed and crying and Logan was so optimistic. It is amazing how Satan will try and mess with your life even when its something so personal as your child not being healthy. All I have to say about that is 'how dare he'.

Nov. 10, 2013