On this day 4 years ago

I'm just in awe of how fast children grow up. It doesn't seem like it was that long ago that I had both of my girls. So today, on Maggie's 4th birthday I want to celebrate her life...because it's flying by! Two days before Maggie was born I started having pains in my chest. They weren't heart burn. I dealt with them. That night and into the wee morning hours I basically sat backwards on my couch, leaning over the back of the couch trying to make the pain stop...rolling around...moaning. It hurt! I had no idea what it was. But I knew it wasn't good, so at about 3:00 in the morning I went and woke Josh up and said "I need to go to the Emergency Room."

We called my dad to come over to stay with Tessa, who was 8 months old at the time. (Don't you freak out when someone calls you in the middle of the night!) He came over. They gave me a blessing, and Josh drove me an hour to Ogden to the ER. (Yes we have an ER here, but they would have just life flighted me to Utah, so we skipped a step.)

Once I got there the nurse looked at me like I was some dumb mom, thinking I had heart burn. They took their time checking me in, and had me change into the gown and all of that. Then the nurse took my vitals.

As soon as the machine read my blood pressure the nurse went running down the hall screaming for the head nurse to call the Dr. I looked at Josh and smiled and said "Told ya so." My blood pressure was 205/136.

It wasn't long after that they life flighted me to Salt Lake, to a bigger hospital. That was when Maggie took her first helicopter ride!

They tried to keep Maggie in there as long as they could, but my blood pressure wouldn't go down, and they were afraid my kidney would receive permanent damage or I would have a stroke. So we prepared for surgery.

We were scared. Maggie wasn't due for another 13 weeks. We didn't know if she would survive. It was very scary. We prayed like crazy, and when we had a few moments alone we just cried together. There wasn't much more we could do.

And then it was time. Everything went well, and Maggie was amazing. The first time I saw her I was shocked. I had seen little babies before. Tessa was a preemie, and I saw lots of preemies in the NICU. But none as small as Maggie. Babies just don't live much earlier than that. And yet Maggie was just amazing. The nurses would always tell me that Maggie "never did any of the the naughty things babies that early usually do." She was a fighter.I remember that her skin was almost see through, and her nose was so tiny and cute. Her eyes were still fused shut. She opened them 5 days later...that was amazing to see! We were both there to see her (I was still in the hospital) and suddenly she just opened her eyes and looked at me! I gasped, "Did you see that! She opened her eyes!." Then she did it a few minutes later for Josh.

We waited 3 and a half months before we could bring her home. Those were excruciating months. I had two babies, and they both needed me, and I couldn't be with both of them.

But finally she came home. And now she is four. I just can't believe it!