Every single year for the last 6 years almost, my heart, and head is filled with thoughts of many things. I am most grateful for my son.
What is suppose to be a time of happiness and celebration or most was one of the most frightful times of my life, the second most frightful time was when my second son was born.
When DW was born though, I was 39 weeks pregnant, my uterus had easily shoved my heart, lungs, and every major organ way up under my ribs months ago. At a mere 34 weeks pregnant, my uterus measured 43 weeks! (It is why I have no sympathy sometimes when I hear a woman pregnant with only one child! lol) For those who have no idea what this means, it means that I looked quite frankly like I was having not one baby, not two but, closer to 3 or 4 babies. Everywhere I went, the first two questions I got where: "How many babies are you having?" and when they would hear only one, it was immediately followed by "Really? When are you due?". I was huge. It was called Polyhydramnios. In simple terms it simply means excess water in the uterus. It is usually a sign that something is wrong. Though no one told me this upfront. All that they said was that they wanted to keep an eye on the baby.
I remember several weeks before going in to be induced I started feeling like I was wetting myself. Nothing gushing or like it normally feels when your water breaks (if my water would've broke normally, the whole neighborhood would've known, TRUST ME!). I just felt like I was dribbling all the time. They told me that it tested positive for amniotic fluid but all sorts of things could make me test positive. They couldn't feel the uterus so, there was no need to worry. Now I know better.
After two days on pitocin, not a fun time, and no baby, no nothing. They called in my specific OBGYN. I'll never forget the look of contempt on his face when he turned to the nurses and said, "her birth canal is bent!", almost like they should've known. Which did explain feeling like they were shoving their whole hand up to check! lol So, all my plans for natural childbirth went out he window and C-section was the only option.
DW came out normal enough or so I thought. He was crying and everything. My perception of time though gets a bit muddy looking back. It took 2 spinals to work and I was then unable to move my head or swallow! Then I began hemorrhaging and after that, it gets all grey. I remember them bringing him to by my head and someone having to turn my head a bit. I remember mustering up every last bit of will power I could to move my arm to touch him, I needed to do that. It kind of flopped up and over in his direction but, was able to move my finger on his cheek. As I spoke to him, he began to settle down and not cry. I felt overjoyed! He knew who his mommy was! A few hours later I would come to regret that moment. I should've let him cry. While I know that this really wouldn't have mattered in the long run, I still wonder if those minutes where he wasn't crying, would've made a difference.
The last thing I remember clearly was touching him and then it all goes grey. I almost died that day.
When I came to in the recovery room, I was so groggy, unable to open my eyes or move much at all. The nurses running in and out of the room. Whispering but, I couldn't make it out. I remember my mother coming in and my husband. Both of them overly supportive of me but, not saying much about DW and though I registered this, I was too dopey to ask why.
They left me and after some time, another nurse came in and sat there at the side of my bed, I could hear here there, sighing and sort of like she was making up her mind. I remember her touching my shoulder and saying, "I don't know where your nurse is but, I think that someone should tell you, something's wrong with the baby."
It is amazing how your brain can do two things at once. One part of me immediately started doing an inventory of what I could move and then focused on keeping those parts moving so that I could move faster. The other part of me though immediately snapped out of the blissful groggy state, went into denial. Oh, it's nothing. They're probably just being cautious, etc. Though I knew I had to get to my baby.
It's a weird thing a C-section. You don't get to see your baby being born, you don't get to immediately hold or really touch your child. So, that bonding is just not there, it was the maternal instinct that I have in general for children that kicked in for me in the beginning. Not the "that's MY baby" thing, that most others feel. I hadn't bonded with him and for many months, though I would act as though I did, I would not. NOT because of post partum depression either, just for the shear fact that I was about to be overwhelmed!
By the time I got to see DW, I knew it wasn't just something simple. He'd been blue when I saw him and though was turning a pretty pick, he'd begun to turn blue again in the nursery. The only time he wasn't blue was when he was crying. They tried to help him by clearing his airways but, were unable to get anything through to his nose on either side to get to his lungs, let alone anywhere else. So, they tried going through his mouth and hit a blockage somewhere in his esophagus too. A condition so rare, nurses and doctors will not see it in their lifetime usually. One doctor realized that the blockage in his esophagus was a partial, softer blockage and as bad as it sounds, gave the tube a harder shove and pushed his way through. At this point it was an emergency to do this. Babies are born unable to breath from their mouths, only out of their noses and it was clear to the staff, that DW could not and without a proper way to intubate him, he would die.
When I saw my sweet, sweet angel for the first time, he was covered in wires and tubes.
It is an odd thing as a mother to see. The NICU nurses were nice enough to let me hold him, though every time I would move him, the tubes would shift and he would gag, the wires would move and the alarms would go off. I held onto that little baby. Trying to get a feel for him, how he felt in my arms but, instead all I saw was tubes and wires. The next day, he had to be transferred to another NICU acroos town. I was lucky enough that he was only shipped across town, if I had, had him anywhere else, he would've had to leave the city I was in to come to the hospital here, the only one regionally with a specialist who could do the surgery to correct his nose. Still, knowing that your baby was across town and you would be here for another 3 days was NOT ok. So, after only 36 hours after a very serious and complicated C-section, I begged, pleaded and ultimately convinced the OBGYN to let a VERY anemic me, out of the hospital so I could be with my baby. I had agreed to only a few hours a day visitations in the NICU, being wheelchair bound for at least 3 more days and being careful because I was really anemic. I did none of those things!
My first day out of the hospital, I spent 8 hours in a wheelchair by my son's side. The second day, it was 6 hours and then a small break to go home as I was feeling very sick and needed to pump. I returned for another 4 hours. No one could convince me otherwise. By not quite 48 hours out of the hospital, the wheelchair had begun to annoy me and I ditched it! It was not easy to get in and out of a chair but, I didn't want to be a burden on everyone. DW had his first surgery that next day too.
Nothing is more scary than knowing that your baby, not even a week old is going in for surgery. Never mind that he could come out blind, or brain damaged. It is just that they are so young, I would not wish it on any parent.
Needless to say he came out fine. The prognosis was good, he might have some kind of brain damage from the lack of oxygen for a couple hours after birth, the whole in his heart was not too big, his kidneys, while VERY small were functioning and though he'd failed his newborn hearing screen, he was alive and ok. There was a chance that this would reoccur but, for now he was ok.
I remember the first time that I saw him without tubes and wires, I didn't recognize him! I remember asking my husband, "is this our baby?!"
We left the NICU on December 8th. Before Christmas we would be back. Our first two holidays, with our new baby boy was spent in a hospital, praying that he'd be ok as the specialist was out of town. His 2nd surgery was almost to the day a month after his first one. Leaving the hospital this time was not a happy experience either. I will simply say that there were things that had to be done to his nose that we had to learn to do at home.....thank god for my mother. I physically was unable to do it and she could!
One month later, things were good. Well, kind of. He was SCREAMING....I don't mean crying, fussing or any other such nonesense, I do me full on SCREAMING! He would do this for 8 hours or more a day, not stopping to eat, to nap or breathe! I remember one night after my husband had gone to work at 2:30, DW began his tirade about 3 and was still going by 11pm that night, it was freezing outside but, I could take no more. Feeling like a failure, I snapped him into his swing and walked outside in the night, with the phone in tears. I remember calling my husband and my mother.
A few weeks later, my mother was there and DW began his screaming again and I refused to let anyone hold him, not because I'd bonded with him yet, because I had not yet, it was because I had the mentality that I was his mother, I should be able to handle it, make it better. I remember my mother saying that it was normal, she just kept repeating it to me until I finally found myself wondering. Later that night, she changed his diaper and there in his diaper was blood!
We found ourselves back at the hospital almost a month to the day from our last stay. This time he was diagnosed with MSPI (milk soy protein intolerance) and Failure to Thrive. I will share what the next two and half months brought with this, tomorrow. Until then, if you read this, hug your little ones a bit tighter and take a moment to remember that there are whole families out there with their babies in the NICU, whose lives have stopped as we go on with ours.
