ican Stories - Audrey

Our Beautiful Angel sent from Heaven Above!

I am the mother of three beautiful, wonderful children, two boys and one little girl. On January 12, little Audrey Rose was born! J I had some complications during pregnancy and we were told that she had severe heart defects. We were told that she would be blue when she was born and we would not be able to hold her. She would be put in an incubator and taken directly to NICU.

My husband and I could not understand why this was happening. He has 2 older children from a previous marriage that are healthy as horses and I have 2 young boys that are healthy also. We could not understand why this was happening to us, but found out later that this sort of thing just happens sometimes.
None of these things happened. In fact, she was very pink in color, screaming, and we got to hold her for about 5 minutes before they took her away. Her Apgar score at birth and five minutes later was 9. It was a blessing from God!

She was transported to UCSF about 5 hours later. We went there to see her and on the second day they told us we could take her home. My husband and I discussed that we had not seen her eyes as of yet. It concerned us, so I asked the nurse about it. She told us that little Audrey had opened both her eyes and they were beautiful. When the cardiologist came in, we told him of our concerns because my husband tried to open her eyes, but had a difficult time. He tried also, but said he could not see anything. He wanted to get an ophthalmologist in there to take a look. He went to go talk to the nurse and we overheard her say that MAYBE she only saw one eye open. It was amazing that her story changed from one minute to the next.

After waiting a few hours, and ophthalmologist finally showed up. She said that she was not sure what was going on and wanted to get her superior there to look. We waited another two hours and finally he showed up. He was shaking like a leaf while trying to pry her eyes open with his tool.

After he was done he conferred with the first lady who showed up. They went outside of our room to do this. He came back in and he said, “One of her eyes is sealed shut and I can not get it open. It should open in a week. The other eye has a film over it that babies have while they are in the uterus and that should dissipate within a few days.” So, we took our bundle of joy home.

We made an appt. with an ophthalmologist near home and took her in that next Friday. This woman confirmed our known fears. Our daughter was born without any eyeballs at all. She said there just was nothing in there. You can imagine our frustration with the ophthalmologists and nurse at UCSF. We did not discuss anything about it with UCSF though because we knew our little angel would have more surgeries there and did not want anything to happen to her.

It has been quite trying these past few months with little Audrey. Every time we take her to the ocularist for a new set of conformers she clings to my husband and screams. The ocularist has cut her eye and we have had to make numerous visits back and forth because he cannot get them in or they have to bake longer than a day.

Besides the conformers, she has also had 2 heart catheterizations, one heart surgery to put a shunt in, and we are awaiting her major surgery. This will be done in October. They will actually stop her heart for this one and fix everything that is wrong. The whole procedure could take 10-12 hours. Once this is done, she should only have to have a new pulmonary valve put in when her body outgrows the old one.

You would never know that our little Angel has gone through so much. She is so full of energy and such a happy little girl. We are so blessed. Audrey has so many people in her life that love her so much. She is so happy and besides her medical issues, she is pretty healthy.

I am looking forward to the time that the ocularist says it is time to put her painted eyes in. I cannot wait to see our little girl with eyes. She is so beautiful now; I know that she will just be that much prettier!!!

We have been through so much, but I thank God each and every day for all of my wonderful blessings! We have many to be thankful for! Audrey is one of the most special blessings we ever could have received!