Welcome to the First Day of the Rest of Your Life Kelly!

Something truly amazing happen to me, something I will never forget as long as I live. The feeling of being a brand new person had began to come over me. 

Sitting in the ICU one day waiting for my family to arrive I took a good long look at myself.  Unbelievably swollen due to the DIC my hands and feet were barely recognizable.  There were lines connected all over my body, my hair at the time was to the middle of my back and was so incredibly knotted from being on life support and having it taped to me that I  could not even get my fingers through it. 

My heart was hurting so badly because there is absolutely no words to describe the feeling of knowing your entire family has seen your child, the child you have carried in your body for the past 40 weeks, the child you have felt move  inside of you all that time, the child you had longed for since you yourself were a small child.  And at that very moment of my own self pity I thought to myself, well clearly I cannot just get up and run away although I wanted to so badly. 

Two choices were layed out in front of me. One I can lay here and feel horrible about everything that happened. Or, two I can make the best out of this.  The decision seemed so clear to me. 

I have always believed in mind of matter and I really felt that if my head was in the right place the healing of my body would follow along.  So for the last few days of my stay at the hospital I made great friends with the amazing staff, and I started making a mental check list of the things I wanted to do as soon as I was released.  And anytime I started to feel down I would just remind myself that the day was coming soon. The first day of the rest of my life!

Five days after waking from my coma, that day came.  A truly amazing nurse who takes such incredible care of her patients helped me to get ready to go meet my daughter for the first time.  A gesture that I will hold close to my heart for as long as I live. 

You are never prepared at the age of 24 to need help taking care of yourself, but at that time those were the cards I was dealt, and I hold that nurse so close to my heart because she made that day so special for me!  For the first time in what seemed like an eterntiy I felt like a close version to my "normal self." I am able to laugh about it now , but I remember telling my husband, "How in the world are we going to put shoes on my feet?!!! I can't go meet my daughter barefoot!!!" But even with the horrible swelling my husband was able to figure something out and there we went off to Children's Hospital sporting my "RUN DMC" look.  (We had to take the laces out of my tennis shoes, to put my foot into it because my feet were twice there normal size)

The day is so clear to me.  I remember being so thankful that it didn't take long at all to get there.  My husband pulled me up to the front door of Children's Hospital and put me in a wheelchair because I was not able to walk or stand for very long at all, and wheeled me up to the NICU. Walking in or rolling in I should say was very unusual.  I felt like I had three heads, the staff was aware of what had happened with Kendall, and I and didn't expect seeing me anytime soon or to be honest truly didnt expect to see me ever. 

The staff was incredible trying to help me and all I could think of in my head was "I'm here now, I'm her mother, I'm fine, I can do it!!" Looking back on it those poor nurses probably didn't know what to do!  Here I am pale as a ghost, barely able to walk, and had literally been out of the hospital for 30 minutes and I'm telling them what to do! But I will say in that moment my life began. It truly hit me right then, how incredibly lucky I was to be there holding my child. At that very second nothing mattered anymore about the days leading up to that very second.  It was over now and together Brian, Kendall and I were going to live our lives to the very fullest. 

More then anything I feel so privileged because as adults we seldomly remember much about our childhood and there is no way for us to remember being infants.  But in a sense I feel I was given that chance to be young again, to be like a brand new baby again, the second chance to start over.  The guilt that I had for my daughter being without me for those couple days washed away as I sat there with my husband looking at our beautiful daughter and knowing it was all going to be OK!

The beauty of the message I want you to take from this is that as humans we are all given this opportunity.  It doesn't nessecarily have to take something horrible to happen to experience "the first day of the rest of your life." It is never to late to start over!  And the great part about life is you can start over as many times as you want! 

In my case I wanted to get back in touch with a few of my great friends that I hadn't spoken to in some years, I also wanted to RELAX. I was always so TYPE A everything had to be just so!!  Worrying was my part-time job!!!!  The second I layed my eyes on Kendall it was as though so spoke to me!  And from that day forward I have made it my goal to be a better me, for myself, my child, my husband, my family! 

Everyday that we wake up we all have that same decision that I had in the ICU we are either going to sit and make ourselves miserable or we are going to make the best of the situation we are dealing with!  As the old saying goes "when life throws you lemons, make lemonade." Well my friends I hope you all make one fantastic pitcher of excellent lemonade!!