Harrison is 3 weeks old today!! He had a doctor's appointment because his doctor was out of the office when he turned 2 weeks old. Let me start off by explaining the worst phone call I've ever received in my life that happened yesterday. Harrison's pediatrician called me to explain that his newborn screen was flagged for Cystic Fibrosis. His IRT level was a little high - not abnormal though. I'm not sure how familiar you are with CF but it is a life shortening disease and there is nothing good or promising about it in my opinion.... EXTREMELY scary and devastating. He explained to me that the statistics of him actually having the diseases was 1-2% and that the IRT level can be raised for different reasons other than the baby actually having CF. The abnormal level is 100 and his was only 60 so he said that they were really just being overly sensitive to it and they want to rule it out completely. My heart sank. I couldn't even keep it together on the phone. I could tell he felt so bad for me and he tried really hard to calm me down and assured me that he was 99% sure that everything would come back negative and he would be a healthy baby just like we thought. Well, all I could think about was that 1%. The last thing on earth you want is for your baby to be sick and well, this is much more serious than that. All I could do was cry and pray.... I prayed harder than I've ever prayed in my life. I am a firm believer in the power of prayer... I know there is no way I can get through this without God. I prayed for his will and that he would give me strength no matter the outcome. I know that there is probably a reason we are about to go through this struggle and that He will get us through it. I called Corey and explained it to him and he was pretty calming... he made me see the optimistic part of it and how small the chances are he actually has it. I felt better about it for a whole 5 minutes maybe and then it was back to crying. All I could do the rest of that day and night was hold Harrison as tight as possible and stare at him praying.
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So here we are today and we had his check up. He has went from 7 lb 4 oz when we left the hospital to 8 lb 9 oz! His doctor said everything looked perfect and his weight gain was great... this made me especially happy since breastfeeding is going so great and I really want to continue. He talked to us about the newborn screen much more in detail. He also made us an appointment to go to Arkansas Children's Hospital on Thursday to get a sweat test done. They will collect sweat from little H and test it for chloride levels. They refer to this test as the "gold standard" test for CF and it will either show that he has it or rule it out completely - there will be no more questions at all. I'm still terrified and extremely depressed. Yes, I have faith that God will get us through this but that doesn't make it easy by any means. I am thankful they were able to schedule us in just two days so that we don't have to go on a long time wondering what the outcome will be. We will also find out the results before we leave there. We are keeping this very personal until after we get our results - which is why I will not be posting this until then. This blog is really therapeutic for me and I also love going back and reading memories in our lives.... good or bad, there is a reason that everything happens and I want to be able to come back to this one day. We just don't want everyone knowing and asking questions right now because honestly it's just too hard for me to even talk about. I will be spending a lot of time with God to give me strength. I have to be strong for both of our little boys. Corey is my rock and has been so comforting through this. I guess I will be posting on Thursday the outcome of this terrible nightmare.
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