William is Here

At 4:12 p.m. our little boy arrived.  It was a brand new experience for Mike and I being behind the hospital drapes and being told he was about to be born.  They told me I would feel a lot of pressure while they pushed/pulled him out and that I did, for a few seconds it was hard to take a deep breath, but then in no time he was here.  They held him up and Mike peaked over the curtain to check out his bits and announced that we were having a boy.  By the time he looked down at me he already had tears in his eyes, as did I, our family was complete with this little boy.  Instantly our exuberant excitement was a tad clouded by his slightly muffled cries, they were immediate but weak and garbled.As the NICU nurse and respiratory therapist worked to stabilize him, I could see him having retractions (chest going out and sucking in very hard) and them using oxygen.  I instantly knew it wasn’t good and after a few seconds they confirmed that the needed to take him upstairs to the NICU.  Mike and I got to take a few pictures with him, I kissed him and then I sent my 2 boys on their way, while I was still laying open on an operating table.  I sent out a text finally to our families and a few friends that he had been born and that we still didn’t know his name.  At that point we didn’t clue many people in to what exactly was going on, because we didn’t know for sure either.  Mike and I were texting back and forth about what was happening to me and how our little guy was doing.  It was also how we finalized his name.  Both how William was born and the aftermath of his birth were a long ways off from our “plan.”  After they closed me up and brought me to my recovery room it felt like forever before we got the call that they were admitting William to the NICU and that I needed to get up there ASAP to see him and to help Mike make some decisions about his care.  They unlocked my hospital bed and we were off, I don’t think I had any idea what type of condition William was actually in until I saw him.  He looked so tiny in his little radiant warmer, he was already hooked up to a C-PAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine, had monitors connected to check his body temperature, a pulse oximeter (to check the oxygen in his blood, the cardiopulmonary monitor (breathing and heart rate) and an IV to deliver fluids (they were not allowing him to eat), a tube into his stomach (for eventual feedings and to pull off extra air that was pushed in by the C-PAP machine and antibiotics (because he came early they did not have the results of my group b strep culture back).  There were a lot of tubes and he looked really miserable.  He also was still really struggling to breathe and he had this little grunting whimper that came out with each breath. 

Shortly after Mike and William left and got up to the NICU, William had a huge destat, drop in his major vital signs, where his heart and lungs started to beat and breath slower his body lost oxygen and he turned blue.  He needed to be resuscitated with the oxygen mask and after a few trying seconds all things were ok, but this led doctors to be further concerned about his overall condition.  After they did a chest x ray they saw his lungs were still either a bit immature or that he could have had the early signs of pneumonia.  They also were concerned he had or was going to develop PPHN (persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn).  Mike and I were allowed to touch him, but we could not hold him, my heart was shattered.  He was so sick and in this little thing with tubes and all I could think was how scared and confused his little still developing body and brain must be.  We new the first 12 hours were going to be crucial and that the goal of the first night was to keep him off of the ventilator.  Then the next hardest moment happened, or maybe it was the hardest, or maybe it was the start of a collection of unthinkably hard things that were about to come happened, we had to leave our brand new newborn baby who was struggling to breathe, it was now 7:30 ish and the nurses needed to check me out some more and get me settled in a new room.  The mind is a tricky thing, in talking about these first few hours Mike and I feel like they are a bit of a blur, somewhere between our minds helping us forget the trauma and the reality of how scared we both actually were.  At this point most of our family had no clue what had happened and were also scrambling making arrangements to come help and worrying about our little family.  It was so not how we had planned!

After we left William’s side for the first time, Mike and my nurse got me settled back in my room.  My night nurse was soo sweet and she told me she would bring me back for the 8:30 and 5:30 touch times (the schedule set by the NICU for William’s feedings/diaper changes/”touching”) if I could get up and move and if I felt up to it. 

Mike got me settled and after about 10 minutes we kissed said goodbye and he headed home to try to return some normalcy to the kiddos and let Debbie head home after 2 days taking care of our kiddos.  William and I were in good hands, although it is always a bit hard and scary to be alone and feel like your once “normal” life has been split down the middle. 

We called our families and tried to prepare them for the picture they were about to see and update them on William’s condition.   We were all scared and didn’t know what the next few hours or days would bring but we were praying for the best and hoping the outcome would be William coming home sooner than later.