Baby Sophia

Carlie Anne Crosby has lived the majority of her life knowing her grandparents as her parents, as they adopted her and her brother both in 2006 when she was just 13 years old. Since then they´ve raised her to be a motivated, caring and stubborn, as she would call herself, mother and daughter who pushes through everyday to be the best she can be for her new, expanding family. Carlie and her partner, Will, have been together for close to six years now, and have lived together in their Kenmore apartment for about four years. They aren’t married, but it isn’t something that they’re against at all. According to Carlie, “Now I’m ready to be married and settled down with the person I love.” Carlie’s dream job would be to have a business of some sort, something where she could own her own adult family home, or run an in-home care business. Previously, she’s been a C.N.A., certified nursing assistant, at several different locations. Soon they are transitioning to living in a house in Granite Falls with her grandmother and brother, where they intend to remodel the house and be closer to their grandmother as their grandfather just passed away.

            It was on Carlie’s 25th birthday, November 4th, when she confirmed with a pregnancy test that she was pregnant. Previously they had gone through times where they thought there could’ve been a possibility, but it never was the case that she was pregnant. So when they were beginning to get skeptical this time around, Carlie wasn’t all too worried. She figured she was stressing for no reason, in a few minutes she would check the pregnancy test and like all other times it would show up negative. Not this time, though. This time the suspicions they had were true and the test showed up as positive. Despite never expecting to have a kid, they both agree it’s the greatest thing that’s happened to them. Even when they found out, they were more excited than scared because they now get to grow together as a family and share that excitement with their loved ones. The weekend following Carlie’s birthday, the day they found out she was pregnant, they went over to Carlie’s grandparent’s house in Granite Falls as if it were a regular visit, but little did her family know they were about to be told big news that would change all of their lives. Inside a small Ziploc bag Carlie brought with her contained the positive pregnancy test that she handed to her grandparents and family to break the news. Everyone was happy and excited at the news, and just a little bit surprised that there’d be a new addition to the family.

           Throughout the pregnancy, they were beginning to notice that the baby, Sophia, wasn’t growing as much as she should be and wasn’t as big as she should’ve been. This was due to Carlie being diagnosed with I.U.G.R., or intrauterine growth restriction, so parts of her placenta wasn’t properly delivering nutrients to Sophia like it should’ve been. This also caused the baby to have to work harder at circulating her blood back to the placenta. At 37 weeks they decided to induce Carlie using a foley bulb, or balloon, which is used to open the cervix to induce labor. For Carlie, she said the foley bulb experience was extremely painful. Nearly 12 hours had passed and she realized she was finally in labor, and they began letting some family know that they might be needing to take a trip to the hospital. It was at 11:24 a.m. on June 24th, 2019 that Sophia Anne Sanders was born, weighing only 4 pounds and 4 ounces, and 17 inches long. She got her middle name, Anne, because it was her great-grandmother’s name and her mom and grandmother also get to share it as theirs. Sophie was blessed to have a handful of support on her first day on earth, including her grandparents, uncle, and grandmother on her father’s side who were at the hospital to join.

           

Following birth, Sophia was immediately taken from the room and up a couple of floors to the N.I.C.U., or neonatal intensive care unit. She was born at such a small weight because of the I.U.G.R. Carlie was diagnosed with, so she was hooked up to all sorts of feeding tubes, wires and needles. This was obviously hard on Carlie, as her whole pregnancy all she wanted to do was hold her baby and keep her safe. Eventually, she got moved up to the N.I.C.U. with Sophia, where the spent the next 18 days in the hospital room. Being unable to go home or even take care of your baby the way you wanted to only added onto more stress for Carlie, and she said “I couldn’t wait to be home. I hated being there everyday.” Even through the excitement of wanting to go back home, it was a huge adjustment for them once they did. It might have even been more stressful going from having plenty of nurses and monitors making sure your baby is okay, to just having your own motherly instincts to go off of. Carlie admits it was hard once they came back home, but it was better than being cooped up in a small hospital room with a small selection of TV shows to watch or food to eat.

-Jordan Trussell