"I got 3 days" (video of me)

When my church approached me to do a story & video on our Nolan, I jumped at the chance. I LOVE sharing Nolan's story. It may have the heartbreak, but it has a powerful testimony to life. A life that most Dr's said would never take place.

Dr's believed he had a fatal chromosome disorder and would not sustain life at all. We were even offered an option to deliver prematurely for medical reasons. We obviously declined, we were appalled that they would even consider this, especially with not knowing the facts. Sure, we would like to know what he had, but we would never give up on him no matter what the test results showed.

We did the tests, come to find out days later, he was 100% healthy. His amniocentesis came back perfect, he still had a suspected heart defect(we found out at birth was very very SMALL) but he was just too small for an unknown reason. This gave me even more drive to fight even harder to prove to these Dr's that they were

wrong.

Thank God for my OB because I am convinced she was the only medical professional that believed in hope for our little guy.

For weeks I fought, bed rest, ultrasounds, knowing our son was too small- measuring weeks behind. Every single ounce counted at this point. Every.single.one. in order to sustain life.

Even the day before he was born and I was admitted to the hospital, I was told by the high risk Dr's that if he were born "right now", there was no hope, he was too small. Little did we know we would find out hours later, the ENTIRE reason he was small was because my body was failing him. I came down with Pre-eclampsia & HELLP syndrome with in hours, and delivered the next morning.

Nolan was 13 ounces and 10.5 inches. He was the size of a 21 week baby, even though I was 26 weeks. Babies become viable and are given the chance to live around 23-24 weeks. He

wasn't even the size of those babies. But he came out crying, and had APGAR scores better than some full term babies.

Never once was anything wrong with Nolan, he was just too small. But he sure did show this world something miraculous, he was a fighter. A testimony to life, the reason I fought.

Through all the heartbreak and anger that he is gone, I can now look back and say...

We got 3 days.

So here is the link to the video my church did for Nolan. I am so happy they wanted to share our miracle with our parish. It shows how special he is, and even in heartbreak, I can look back and say we were lucky to get the 3 days we did given all the odds that were against him.

But I will say, he was absolutely perfect, just too small.

Here is the story that was so kindly written about Nolan.

(Click here)

Here is the video (I can't believe I am sharing because I am in it), that took me all day to finally sit down and watch. I was just too nervous, but I had tears rolling down my face. He captured his story perfect. Thank you Damien, it's amazing.

Nolan's Life from Damian Hanley on Vimeo.