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I was pregnant with my 5th child and was 4 months along when I went in for a regular ultrasound to find out what it was going to be. The tech told me that she was a girl but she thought that she needed the head tech to come in and look at something on the screen. She told me that they couldn’t get a good picture of her belly button and that they really needed it, so they would be calling me back in for another check. I have four previous children and never had I had to go back and have something go wrong but I knew when I left that day that something just wasn’t right. I got the phone call about 3 days later with the nurse telling me that there was something wrong with my baby. And that they were sending me to UAB to the high risk doctors. I had never heard of what gastroschisis was, all I knew is that it was where the intestines were on the out side of the body. I went to the high risk doctors at UAB and they told me that they wanted me to at least get to 38 weeks so that her lungs would be developed so I went back for several sonar grams and check-ups. Then when I was 33 weeks I went in for a regular ultrasound and the doctor told me that he was going to do an amniocentesis to see if her lungs were developed because she needed to be delivered.. I got the call at 5 am the next morning to be there at 9 to induce me. They induced me and I went for a whole day and the next morning, (Children’s NICU called all that night to check on me and to find out if I had delivered or not) they came in and told me that they was going to do a C-Section. It was a very scary feeling because I have never had a c-section before. They called her transport from Children’s to let them know that she was here and to get ready for her. She was born at 7:47AM and was transported to Children’s Hospital they let me see her for about 3 minutes before they left with her. I didn’t get to see her till 4 days later. I thought I was going to go insane but I knew that she was in good hands and THANK- GOD for the nurses and doctors at Children’s they was wonderful. She had her 1st surgery when she was 6 days old. I was told when I got there that you would start to take steps out the door. 1st step NICU 2nd, step 3rd floor NICU, 3rd step Cube and last step room in with your baby. It took her about 2 months to get to the last step and we got to come home. But it was a long struggle. I stayed at the Ronald McDonald house so I could be close to her and every morning I would walk the 3 blocks to the hospital. When she was in the NICU I would walk back and forth because of visiting hours. But then she got moved into the cube on the 6th floor and I got to stay all day with her and I would ride the shuttle back. The feedings are the worst. When she started to feed I started to take extra clothes with me because she would suck 5-10 cc and throw it up everywhere. She would get up to about 30 cc and get sick and they would stop her feedings for a day or two. It is a start and stop process. She got released and came home for a week. She was losing weight so we ended up going back and staying for about a month. They thought they was going to send her home on what they call TPN they had to put in a central line that she could come home with the TPN with but she got the Staph infection so they had to take it out.. The doctors told me that they was going to give her over the weekend to see if she could hold her weight and if she could then they would let her come home. I prayed and prayed and put it in God’s hands and guess what she did? She held her weight and has not let up since. She got to come home. She now weighs 19 pounds and is 7 months old she is a little behind on learning things but that’s ok we will get to all of that. She has to have one more surgery on a hernia that she got that I was told that most gastroschisis babies get. But they say she will only be in there 4-5 days. All babies with this are blessings and they go through so much but when I look at her I know that she is going to be fine. They are fighters.

Children's is a blessing to me. The doctors are great the nurses are angels. The nurses were there to help me through a time when I felt all alone. The nurses became mine and my daughter’s family. I could talk to them and cry to them and they knew what to say to make me feel better. I know that everyone says that they had the best nurses when they were there, but I know I had them. All of her nurses were wonderful. From the nurses in the NICU 6th-3rd floor to the nurses on 6NW; I don't want to name any because I am afraid that I might leave someone out, but Children’s is a blessing and everyone that works there was put there as God’s way of taking care of his children. Thank you to all who had Jada Ayala.