♥♥♥The Nikolai Nuthouse♥♥♥: Happy 22nd Birthday Brittany!!!

Every Year On Your Birthday

Every year, on your birthday,

I think about how glad I am that you were born,

how thankful I am to have you in my life.

Every year is another year filled with the special joys you bring

just by being yourself.

Every year, when you open your birthday gifts,

realize what a gift you are to everyone who knows you,

especially me.

Happy 22nd Birthday Brittany!

March 29, 1989

March 29, 1989 only a few hours old

22 years ago today proved to be one of the happiest and one of the most frightening days of our lives...you were born at 12:41 am at Kenosha Hospital weighing in at a "whopping" 7lbs 1 oz and 19 inches long. Everyone thought you were the perfect little girl until you developed breathing problems hours after you were born and were transported to the neonatal ICU in Racine after you stopped breathing numerous times. The doctors asked if we would like to give you last rites and grandma and grandpa arranged to have the priest to come to the hospital to do so. The doctors had almost convinced us entirely that we were going to lose you.

We lived in the neonatal ICU, holding your hand every moment we could. Not knowing if we would be able to for very long. You were hooked up to every machine imaginable with tubes and wires and your red glowing big toe. But you have been a fighter since day one and proved the doctors wrong...you started improving quickly. We were soon able to finally hold you...and then try to teach you how to drink from a bottle. We were ecstatic when the doctors finally let us bring you home. We took a tons of pictures at the hospital with your nurses, especially Theresa who we had to bribe with a box of Fannie May candy to let you go. <3 Unfortunately we only have a few photos from that time, as the film in the camera somehow was exposed and all of the photographs were lost. But that's ok, because we had YOU instead.