The first few days went well, I took lots of pictures. I started to try to teach him how to suck (using a hospital pacifier I would rub it on his tongue in order to stimulate the sucking reflex most babies are born with). I held him, Oh did I hold him (:o)!

I diapered, bathed, changed and fed him. Almost what any other mother would do after bringing their baby home. I had baby-sat before so I knew it wasn’t the same but it was beginning to be normal for me. Then it happened, I awoke one morning an hour before the alarm was supposed to go off. It was the wee hours of the morning so I was surprised I woke up, being as tired as new moms usually are, and then I knew something was wrong. I ran to the crib that was a few feet away, and I found Steven blue, cold, and not breathing. I don’t know why I didn’t panic. I picked him up and started rubbing him. It was something I had seen somewhere about stimulating breathing in a SIDS baby. He took a deep breath and then some shallow breaths. I ran with him in my arms to the phone and dialed 911. When the operator answered, I lost it. I was in hysterics. The operator was trying to get me to calm down but I couldn’t. I was shaking all over. It seemed like an eternity but the ambulance finally arrived. Little did I know at that time but this was to be the first of many times, Steven would stop breathing in the middle of the night. I don’t remember a lot about that morning only that at the hospital I was told Steven would need to go back into the hospital for monitoring for a few days. The hospital he was taken to that morning was the same one he was born in and they were not equipped to deal with his numerous problems so they ambulance him back to the hospital in LA where he had just spent 6 weeks in NICU. This time, though he was placed in the peds ICU. While he was there, it was decided that when I would bring him home again it would be with an ampnia monitor. This was so that his breathing and heart rate would be monitored and an alarm would go off if he stopped breathing again. This would start a long list of medical equipment that I would have at home to help him in some form or another.

About two months later Steven and I joined my Husband at his first duty station, Ft. Hood TX. In order to get there the doctors wanted Steven to be flown via Med-E-Vac, in a military plane. I had flown before when I was really young, but I didn't remember these flights, so this was to be a new experience for both of us. We flew out of March AFB in southern California around 1 p.m. on the 16th of January 1991. The flight was spread out between two days of hopping from one base to another all over California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah and Texas. Finally landing in San Antonio around 10 p.m. on the 17th. I was exhausted. That’s when I found out they had no buses going to Ft. Hood until Monday and this was Thursday. I was to be placed in guest housing and Steven at the hospital there, till we could be bused to Ft. Hood. I was not happy with this arrangement so the doctor graciously decided it would be O.K. if my Husband could drive up and get us. It took him 3 hours to drive up and 3 hours back and he had to work that morning. His Unit at the time was great. They let him report to work that morning and then have the rest of the day off. I couldn't believe it, we were finally a family! (:o)

We set up house in a small, one bedroom, partially furnished apartment in Killeen, TX. Over the next few months Steven had regular visits to the doctors, along with several emergency visits and a few stays in the hospital. We were told that he was most likely blind, and deaf. One afternoon though, we found out, for sure, he wasn't deaf. I was doing dishes and Steven was on a blanket on the floor, I accidentally dropped some silverware onto a dish and it made a loud clinking noise. I happened to look over at Steven at just that moment, and saw him startle. I wasn't sure, so I picked up the silverware and dropped them again, to my dismay he startled again. I was so excited! He could hear! You should have seen me! I spent the rest of the afternoon dropping silverware onto a plate. I am sure Steven wasn't as pleased as I was but I couldn't help myself. When my husband came home from work that evening he found me in my robe, dishes halfway done, and no dinner anywhere to be found, and dropping silverware onto a plate lol. I think he thought I had lost my mind till I told him what I had discovered (:o). Then the two of us sat there dropping silverware. It's funny in a way to think what little things can touch us the most. That day was the first day of hope for us, that Steven was not just in a vegetative state. I worked hard with him and was able to teach him to eat small amounts from a bottle and from a spoon. I also taught him how to roll over from his stomach to his back. He never quite mastered from the back to the stomach though. He was doing things the doctors said he would never do. I had several doctors say to me that I should just put him in a home for children like him. That he was a burden to us. I had from the time I was little wanted to be a mom and I was not going to give him up because he had a few problems. He was our little miracle baby from the start. They never thought he would live through the first day let alone a week or a month or a year. How could I turn my back on my son! Without the love, from us, and the work we did with him, would he have done as much as he did? As to being a burden, I loved taking care of him. I would have not had it any other way.