Katana's story

Katana is my miracle. I honestly look at her every day and know that God handed me a miracle to call mine. Her story starts before she even made an entrance to this world. I was 23 weeks 3 day pregnant when I went into labor. We were flown to a major trauma hospital with a level 3 NICU just in case she decided to make an early appearance. Well she did make her appearance 4 days later coming into the world at exactly 24 weeks. She tipped the scales at 1lb 7.5 oz and measuring just 11 inches, she was literally the size of a baby doll. Katana spent the next few weeks fighting to live. She was hooked up to so many machines sleeping in a tiny plastic box that was literally covered in Plastic wrap, to keep her warm. We knew from the beginning that Kat was a fighter, her doctor told me that she was the first 24 weeker that he had ever heard cry, yes she actually cried when she was born. I remember a day while she was in NICU I was sitting by her bed. I remember blatantly telling God that she was in his hand, I only made one request of him, that if he was going to take her to be an angel with him I wanted to hold her before I knew he was going to take her from me. That very night the nurses let me hold her for the first time. It was the best moment and the scariest moment. I had asked God only hours earlier to let me hold her if he was going to take her from me than I sat there for the first time holding her in my arms praying it wouldn't be the last time. I cried both tears of joy and tears of fear that night, knowing that if God took her I couldn't be angry because he had given me my one request. I am so glad that God has given me every second with her. I know he has big plans for her. Katana’s first months of life proved she was a fighter beyond anything you could imagine out of someone so small. She would fight so many challenges from jaundice, to 6 blood transfusions, to Necrotizing enterocolitis. She is thought to have also had an intraventricular hemorrhage even though one was never verified by Ultrasound. Katana had an MRI on July 3, 2006 which was the first sign that something was wrong. We were told that they saw something on the MRI but they were just going to watch it for a while. We went back in October and did a repeat CT scan. It was then that we were given the diagnosis of Hydrocephalus. It was also the first time I had ever heard that word. I had no idea what it meant for her or us. We saw a neurosurgeon in January of 2007, it was then that we were told that katana would need a shunt to survive. A shunt drains the extra fluid off her brain into her intestinal cavity. Her Shunt was placed March of 2007. Katana has been lucky with her shunt as she has her original shunt after almost 5 years which is almost unheard of in the hydrocephalus community. Even though we now believe that she may need a shunt revision we are still happy she has done so well. I will continue to update this as our story plays out. I hope you will stay tuned.