The Sheridan Gang: The Trio

Like I said before the trio were born on March 9th 2006. At 16 weeks early. After they were born they took them to the room next to us were the doctors and nurses from akron Childrens were waiting on them to get them stable so they could be transfered to Akron Childrens. I don't remember much about that day due to it was such a blur and I am sure the pain meds didn't help that matter. I remember them wheeling them into the recovery room 1 baby at a time before they took them over to childrens. I remember them just being covered with wires, they were so tiny and sick looking. They were beautiful to me but very scary also. They had wires and tube down their throat it was very hard to see your babies going through that. They got me to my room and while I rested my husband, parents and mother in law went over to Childrens to see the babies and bring me back pictures. They came back and told me all about them and I was at ease with what was going on. i was pretty excited also to be a mommy for the first time. We went to bed that night and I got up around 3 in the morning to pump and i called the hospital to check on my babies. It wasn't a very good report. The doctor told us that Preston had been on a hundred percent oxygen and they have given him all the meds they could at the time. He told me we should come over since they didn't know if he was going to make it. It is like 3 o'clock in the morning and the nurse and my husband and mom are trying to get me ready to get me to the hospital which is about a block or two away. So they get me ready drug me up with more pain meds since I had a c-section and got me to the hospital. When we got to the NICU I didn't not know what to expect at all. I was thrown into a world of chaos. It was crazy the monitors beeping like crazy, tubes everywhere, machines, iv's everywhere. Remember looking at my children and they didn't look like babies they looked like pincushions or something. When we got to the NICU preston was doing better he stats were coming down and Hayden was starting to act up. I don't remember how long we stayed at the hospital but I am sure it was awhile. I remember i kept trying to fall asleep in the wheelchair and then i would ask the nurses something and not remember what they told me because i would being falling back to sleep. The babies like I said were very sick when they were born. Their eyes were still fused shut when they were born for about two weeks. Their skin was very red and dry looking so they kept putting this gel stuff on them to keep them from drying out. I couldn't rub my babies to comfort them cause their nerves were not developed. It would hurt them and then their stats would go all over the place. I could touch them but not for long and as long as it was a firm touch not a rub. It was a very scary time for us. When the trio were about five days old they did head u/s on all of them and Maddie's came back bad. She had a level 2 and level 4 brain bleed. They told us she would have severe cerebral palsy and mental retardation. Two days later I called over early in the morning to check on the kids after I pumped and got told that Maddie was very sick. She was on death's door. They couldn't get a blood pressure on her, her oxygen levels were going up and her belly was black and swollen. I got up and got dressed and got over to the NICU. At this time my mom and I were staying at the Ronald Mcdonald House. I got over to the NICU and went straight to my daughters bed. It was a very scary sight. She was gray looking cold to the touch and not moving much. We called family in thinking the worst. All of our family lives an hour or more away from the hospital. My husband got there and went straight to maddie's bed and put his hand on her foot and she gave him a good kick. He said then that she isn't done fighting and that we are not giving up on her. They took us back into a private room and told us that we should take her off the vent and let her pass. Main reason cause of her brain bleeds, they told me putting her through surgery didn't make sense since she would be worth much anyway. We decided that was not the option and we wanted them to do surgery. They preped the NICU for the surgery they did surgery right in the NICU at her bed. She had a bowel rupture and went into septic shock. The surgeron came out a couple of hours later and told us that everything look good right now and that it was a hole in her bowel. They gave her an ostomy which is they brought her large intestine out through her belly and that is what she pooped out of. That night my husband and I stayed with her at the hospital and they came and got us around 2 in the morning and told us we should hold her. They did not think she was going to make it through the night. All the blood products they gave her was coming right back out. She bleed like this for over 24 hours when the nurse practioner finally had enough and took the bandage off of her stoma and found a hole in it which was causing all the bleeding. They called the surgeon who put something on it and then she stopped bleeding and swelled up like a big purple grape. Her belly was still purpler so when she swelled up she looked funny. Here are a few pictures of the kids at birth and when Maddie had her surgery.