Emily Elizabeth Fisher, January 8th 2005

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Six years ago today, my daughter Emily Elizabeth Fisher was born. You can’t tell by looking at her now, but she was born at the six and a half month point of her intended nine month gestation! She was not due on January 8th, 2005. She was due on March 15th, almost 10 weeks later.

Friday night, December 31st, 2005. My wife and I were going to drive a little under half an hour away to spend New Years Eve with friends, dining out, followed by a movie at their home. My wife wasn’t feeling fully up to it at the last minute, and insisted I go without her. I offered multiple times to stay home, she told me there was no reason I couldn’t go have fun. So I did, even though I had a feeling I’d be called to come home before Midnight.

That call came and I arrived home, helped get her more comfortable with her strange pains, and we went to bed. She woke me up at about 2 am or so, and we went to the Hospital. Happy New Year! We’re going to the hospital.

We stayed till morning, where they said it was just some sort of abdominal pain and told us to go back home. However, that night it was much worse and there was definitely something wrong. She took an ambulance, because even the slightest movement was unbearable.

Meanwhile we had an ice storm here in Marion IN. I can’t fully remember when it started, Monday or Tuesday Jan the 3rd or 4th. I vividly remember waking up alone in bed to no heat, or electricity, having slept in past time to get to work.

Luckily I had just gotten a cell phone. It was actually easier that my wife was in the Hospital so I could take care of the errands at hand: making sure that our Boston Terrier at the time was not freezing, prepping the faucets to keep from freezing, and getting food out of the Refrigerator and Freezer that was ironically unfreezing.

I juggled all that along with figuring out work hours, since my wife was safe in the Hospital, and I needed to save my family sick days and vacation time for when the baby acutely arrived.

I know I didn’t have work, on Thursday January 6th because there was no power to my building. Friday January 7th, I went to check on my wife early in the morning in the hospital. She was fine as she could be in the situation, so I headed to work.

Then, I got the call. Her water had broke and she needed to be sent to a much better facility at the IU Med Center in Indianapolis. I headed to the hospital, then back in the car south an hour south to Indianapolis, while she rode in the Ambulance.

We were there all day, where they ran better tests and finally figured out what the problem was: Placenta Pre-via, where the placenta prematurely starts to from the uterus. It can be caused by many things, and we still don’t know now what may have triggered it.

We stayed that night, waking every hour or so lying on the fold out single chair that turned into a “bed” if you can call it that. We were told that the goal was to keep Emily in gestation as long as possible, but she has other plans.

Saturday January 8th, 2005 Emily Elizabeth Fisher was born a preemie. She did exceptional well. She was kept in the NICU to be monitored closely and given the extra care a preemie needs.

My wife stayed in the Ronald McDonald house a few blocks away the whole time Emily was kept in the Hospital. I was back at home, holding down the fort, and working to save my vacation time for when they were able to come home.

I’d visit and stay through the weekends, and visit at least once or twice through the week, especially if friends wanted to take the trip down in the evening to visit and buy us dinner. We say a lot of love poured out on us during this time.

Gradually Emily got her body weight up, and got rid of her Jaundice, and still came home earlier than her intended due date. She was released on Valentines Day February 14th, 6 weeks after being born. Since then, I remember her coming home that day more than the Valentines day holiday itself. It was the best Valentines day I ever had.