A Gift from God

OK. Finally a chance to breathe. Which means a chance to update the blogging world on our exploits.

I know this is going to be long. Bear with me.

Thursday I went to work for a while, but came home early in the day for a conference call that was late in the afternoon. It was good to be home, because I was able to be with C, who had contractions that were starting to come more regularly. We teach an evening Institute class at a college institute that is about 45 minutes from our house. That's on Thursdays, so we decided to go to class, as it was our last class for the year.

Thursday night contractions were coming every 8-10 minutes, with an occasional 5 minute, or 6 minute contraction. We taught our class, and drove home. On the way home, C was lamenting not getting her hair cut before the baby came. She was sad about the thought that if the baby were to come overnight, she wouldn't have had her hair cut (the appointment was for Friday morning). So while we were driving home, I called our neighbor on the phone. This neighbor cuts hair, and has a salon in her house. I asked if she would consider an emergency 9:45 PM hair appointment, which she did. We got home knowing that no matter what, there would be cute hair for the baby's birth. :)

We got to bed late, and the contractions stayed regular throughout the night, and C didn't sleep much. We woke up, and timed them again, and they were about 6 minutes apart, but weren't extremely intense. We watched them get to be about five minutes apart, but somewhat irregularly; some were 20 minutes apart, which seemed to indicate false labor, however at about noon, C decided that it was maybe time to go to the hospital to get checked out. When she scheduled the original hair appointment, she had also scheduled an eyebrow wax (hey, there's going to be pictures for posterity, right?), but since she hadn't gone to the hair appointment, she hadn't had the wax either. While we were driving to the hospital, we passed an waxing place, and C said, "I bet it wouldn't take long if we stopped and had the eyebrow wax before we went to the hospital." Well, knowing what I know now, there is no chance I would have stopped for a wax. But we were uninformed, and somewhat naïve, I suppose, so we stopped and had the eyebrows waxed. (I should have taken a picture after it was done. They were so red!)

We got to the hospital. I half expected them to send us away, since the contractions weren't as severe as they are for those women in the movies! They got C hooked up to the monitors and started watching the baby. Everybody who came in asked if we knew the gender. Of course, we knew it was a baby girl. The ultrasonographer at week 20 was certain it was a girl, and we've been planning accordingly. I've never seen so much pink in my life. And we found the most adorable little baby girl coming home outfit I've ever seen. But that is getting side tracked from the topic here.

More...

The fetal monitor showed minimal variation in the baby's heart rate, which meant that the baby wasn't responding to anything. They tried making baby listen to loud sounds, and they tried pushing and prodding the baby. Major pushing and prodding. During contractions. Nothing caused the heart rate to move much.

After a couple of hours, they decided that they needed to do internal monitoring (by placing a sensor directly on baby's head). In order to do that, they had to artificially rupture the membrane. At this point, the pain had become unbearable, for a couple of reasons including hemorrhoids. Since they were going to have to do stuff internally, we decided to go ahead and get the epidural. She had dilated to a six at this point, but we talked about it and felt the epidural intervention was necessary. So the anesthesiologist came in and gave the epidural. Then they broke the membranes and discovered that the baby had passed the first bowel movement in-utero, which was bad news, since baby was still a week away from the due date. It is a sign that there is fetal distress. After two attempts, they finally got the internal monitor working (turns out the first time it was a faulty connection, not a problem with the monitor or the monitor site), and they were able to see that with every contraction, the baby's heart rate was dropping. The doctor determined that it wasn't in baby's best interest to try to be born naturally, when baby couldn't handle the stress of a standard contraction. The decision was made to do a c-section, and I'm so glad we did it.

They took us back into the operating room and prepped C for the surgery. I'm weak-kneed with a weak stomach, so I didn't really want to watch. They offered a mirror for C to watch, but she decided that she didn't want to watch either. As the head started to come out of the incision, the anesthesiologist pointed, and I looked. I saw the head come out and then the body. As they were carrying the baby over to the nursery side of the OR, I saw between the little legs, and I said, "Is that a BOY?" The doctor said, "Yep! It's a boy!" And I thought, "Did you pull out the right baby? We're expecting a GIRL!"

When I found out it was a boy, I was in shock. I couldn't believe it. This was not what we expected at all. Not that I'm sad at all about a boy. I'm just so surprised! I mean, WOW! This is not what I expected. I think it's like planning a trip to Hawaii and getting on the plane, and having the plane land in England. Both are great places to visit, but you'd pack different clothes for the trip, if only you'd known when you started.

Anyway, back to the story. I followed the baby while they stitched up Mom. They let her look at him briefly before we ran out the door to the nursery. They weighed him, and he was 8 pounds, zero ounces, and 20.5 inches long. He has long dark hair, and is adorable. And you don't have to take my word for it.

After a bit, I saw the Grandmas eagerly (impatiently? excitedly?) awaiting info. This is the first grandchild on both sides, and they were both very eager to hear any updates. I walked out and told them the news: mom was doing well, but baby was not a girl. Baby was a boy. They didn't believe me. I told them to ask one of the nursing staff. The nursing staff confirmed that he was indeed a boy, and that the first grandchild on both sides is a grandson. For visual confirmation, we opened the diaper.

The at-that-point-unnamed-child had his first shots, and was put in an oxygen tent to help give him air. The doctor came over and started telling me about the previously-unknown complications. As it turns out it is literally a miracle that this baby didn't die in-utero. There were three major complications. First, the placenta had begun to calcify. That isn't all that unusual, except that our baby was a week early. That is a sign of fetal distress, and means that the baby isn't getting the needed nutrition. To understand the more serious second and third complications, you have to know that an umbilical cord is basically composed of two arteries, covered in a protective cord-like covering. Generally, an umbilical cord attaches to the middle of the placenta. A good connection is essential, since if severed, the baby would bleed out and die before you knew anything was wrong. Okay, so the second complication was that the umbilical cord was not implanted in the placenta. It was implanted on the membranes, or bag of waters. If the water had broken in the wrong spot, the baby would have died, and mom's life would have been in serious jeopardy. Third, the protective cord-like covering was missing over the last 5 inches of the umbilical cord, so the two arteries were totally exposed with no protection. In addition, the arteries didn't connect to the membranes before they spider-branched out, and connected to the membrane with many smaller veins rather than the large arteries. Apparently in many of these cases, the movement of the baby pinches or severs these little veins, and the baby bleeds out. I mean, the look on the doctor's face was worth a thousand words. The doctor basically said that a baby in this situation would not normally have survived in the womb, and most certainly wouldn't have survived a natural delivery. I can't tell you how many nurses that have come into the room and told us how lucky and blessed we are. He truly is a miracle baby.

Anyway, I stayed with Kiddo as they did the first shots and such. It took a couple of hours before they were ready to let him go meet mom. Finally, they let him go down to mom's room. Mom got to hold him for the first time, which was a lot fun for everybody. He tried to hang out for a while, but his monitors said he wasn't stable, so they took him back to the nursery.

He had fluid and meconium in the lungs, and he developed pneumonia. He also developed a slight case of jaundice. They put him on a billy-bed for light therapy. His infection blood results were quite high, and they were double checked by a different hospital, so he will be on antibiotics for another week or so. They are carefully watching for meningitis, although the pediatrician is very positive saying she is almost certain that isn't what he has. She thinks that the antibiotics will kick-in in the next 24 hours, and he should be able to come off oxygen.

They have been watching him very closely in the nursery. Until this afternoon (Monday) they haven't even let him come out to feed, so C has been heading down to feed him every couple of hours. I was lucky enough to find a wi-fi internet connection here at the hospital, so its been fun to feel a bit more connected to the outside world.

We hadn't picked a name when we came to the hospital, which turned out to be kind of a good thing, but we hadn't even considered little boy names. Finally, C and I sat down together on Saturday and picked a name. We chose N-------l because, well, first we really liked the name. Second we loved the meaning: "Gift from God." He truly is a gift from God. He is lucky to have lived through birth. Not so many years ago, he probably wouldn't have made it. Even considering the marvels of modern medicine, if a couple of things hadn't gone just right, we could have been in big trouble. I can't tell you how many ways that might have gone wrong. But God was gracious and gave us a wonderful blessing and gift.

So we are counting our blessings, recognizing how lucky and blessed we are to have a happy, mostly-healthy-baby boy.

Mom is doing very well; she's tired, but recovering well. She will be released tomorrow. Kiddo probably doesn't get to come home right away. We're hoping it will maybe only be an extra day.

Thank you, all of you, for your prayers and support during this time. The outlook today is fantastic. Kiddo just needs a little extra help to get off to the best start possible.

So that is the story of how Kiddo came into the world.