I thought everything would be fine when we got home... I thought all would magically get better... I couldn't have been more wrong.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE being home and having my baby and my family all under one roof... it's been a lil over 3 months since we come home from the NICU and it hasn't been all fun and games and easy peasy like I envisioned it.
I thought... I'm gonna get him home and he's just gonna take right off with his feedings and I'll get to pull that yucky tube and he's gonna be just fine!
Well, he is just fine... for the most part but I haven't been able to pull that yucky tube... and its not all fun and games. Everyday is a struggle... but a struggle I would do 10-fold for my baby boy.
Upon arriving home we had to find a pediatrician in addition to our family practioner to oversee Greyson's tube feeding & weight gain. We also had a visiting nurse for 3 times a week for the first few weeks to monitor his weight and make sure I was capable of managing his ng tube.
For those of you who don't know... an NG feeding tube is a tube that goes in his nose, down his throat, and into his stomach. His formula is delivered through this tube. In order to place it, I have to measure it out from ear to his nose and then down to wear his belly should be. Then I insert it through his nose to the proper measurement and then I have to check it. Which requires listening with my stethescope as I try to get a risidual (suck stomach contents back up through the tube with a syringe) or push in a lil air followed by a lil fluid to make sure its in his belly and not in his lungs. At the hospital and when we first came home we would hang a 60 cc syringe and fill it and let gravity send the feed through the tube to his belly and this is the way most people do ng feedings.... however our lil guy did not tolerate it well and we ended up finding that drawing his formula into a syringe using the plunger and then SLOWLY and ever so GENTLY using the plunger to push the formula through the tube is the best method for him. He gets less air and he keeps more of his feeds down this way than the other way.
As I metioned before he was only taking about 30% of his feeds by mouth due to oral aversion. After almost a month at home he stopped oral feeds all together when he got a nasty upper respiratory infection and he has never resumed. While he has a severe case of oral aversion.. his isn't as bad as it could be. He will put his fingers in his mouth and go to town sucking on them... he will put toys in his mouth and allow me to put my fingers in his mouth... occassionally he will take a pacifier but as soon as you put a nipple in his mouth and any fluid comes out of it he will gag and throw up. As I said... it could be worse... some babies you can't put anything near their lips without them gagging... others can't even look at a bottle or a breast without gagging.
After a few months it became clear that he would need to have a g-tube placed... which means instead of his food going through a tube in his nose, they would surgically make a hole above his tummy and the tube would go directly in there. Prolonged NG feeding can damage the airway and isn't near as effective in delivering the volume he needs to gain weight and grow.
The first few months were horrible trying to keep food in him and get him to gain weight... everytime we'd bump up his daily volume he'd vomit even more of it out. But like I said... we found the less air he gets the better chance he has of keeping his food in. He also does better if he is asleep!
In November, the day before our 3rd wedding anniversary, we had an appointment with High Risk & the Gastro team in Iowa City. High Risk said he was developing nicely... on the small side... wasn't laughing yet like they would like and of course not feeding like they would like but otherwise doing everything he's supposed to be doing for his age. Gastro made an appointment to place his g-tube and sent us to xray for an upper gi study to make sure the anatomy was correct and their wouldn't be any surprises.
SURPRISE.... the next day we get a phone call from his gastro doctor telling us that the gi study showed that Mr. Greyson's belly is not where it should be. She said his belly sits alot higher and is partially hidden behind a few ribs and lays flat instead of hanging in a j.... which would be why he throws up soooo much! She said that they would be moving the surgery to the OR and have a surgery team on stand by in case they can't get it to drop down when they inflate it with air. If that's the case then the surgery team will step in and surgically place his stomach by sewing it to his abdomen... he was supposed to have surgery Dec 12th, 2012... but he developed another respiratory infection so it was postponed... we have another surgery date of Jan 23, 2013.
On one hand... I can't wait til he gets it because he will also be going on a pump. As it is now... because of how his belly is placed we have to feed him very small amounts frequently.
I get up anywhere from 4:30-5am and start pushing a lil food 30-40cc's over a 8-10 min period every 20 minutes or so to get about 100cc's in him before he wakes up anywhere from 5:30-6:30am...
In between getting the kids up and ready for school I'm pushing 5-10cc's at a time every 15 min or so. If he's awake, every few feedings he throws up... when he goes to sleep is when I hit him hard. Over the past few months I've managed to expand his stomach with these feedings that he takes while he's asleep.. so he only throws up a few times a day now instead of 100... this makes it impossible to go anywhere. I do household chores and homework in between pushing feeds. Hell... as I type I am pushing feeds! When we do have to go somewhere it throws us off completely. We rarely get our daily target volume in him but boy do we try. Here lately its gotten better and we reach our goal more often than before... but its no life for either of us. When he gets the gtube and goes on the pump, the bulk of his feedings will be delivered over a 10 hour period at night while he (hopefully) sleeps.
When I'm not pushing feeds, doing homework or housework, or tending to the other 3 kids... I work with him... we work on all our development skills- sitting, playing, tummy time, standing, etc. I also work with him on his oral aversion. Of course, Iowa City says I should offer him a bottle at every feeding.. 1st of all... his feedings run together... so there is no "every feeding"... second of all they also told me to make sure feeding time is pleasant and a happy time and as soon as he gags or starts to cry- stop. Well... everytime I stick a bottle in his mouth he gags and cries... soooooooo therefor I only try a bottle every other day and once a day. I always did it with formula and recently switched to to sugar water- he likes the sugar water better and doesn't usually gag as soon as the fluid hits his tongue- like formula but as soon as enough fluid builds up in his mouth and he has to swallow he gags. But I encourage him to suck on his thumb... I try to replace his thumb with a pacifier at least once a day- usually doesn't go over well. I give him toys and encourage him to put them in his mouth & yes, I let him suck on my fingers and I often feel his gums and his tongue as long as he tolerates it. I've done a lil bit of research and am putting together tools to help in oral aversion... one being an electric toothbrush.... so far he can only tolerate the stimulation briefly but its still something!
In reality... we will be struggling with this for some time to come... My son may never take a bottle... The only thing we can do is hope maybe he will take a sippy cup or a regular cup. However it may be some time & lots of work before he takes fluids by mouth... our other hope is that if he doesn't take fluids by mouth that at the very least he'll take solid foods by mouth. I'm not sure who or when exactly but I'm under the impression that in addition to the pump, we will be getting either a speech or an occupational therapist to work with us shortly after the gtube surgery. Between therapy and growing up and seeing us eat and drink... we are hopeful he will someday eat regularly. He likes a full belly... he gets mad and cranky and will suck on his fingers fiercely when he is hungry... so that's a good thing and means everything works properly... he just has this mental block when it comes to anything oral & that's something we can work with!
So this is our journey... my husband is ever the optomist... he thinks that the ng tube is 90% of Greyson's problem and as soon as it comes out he is just gonna take off... I am more a realist and expect it to be a long bumpy road. I know my son... I knew my son before he even came out of me. A few weeks before Greyson was born, the hubby and I had a huge fight about opening up the baby monitor... we had everything else opened and put together but I wanted to wait on the baby monitor JUST IN CASE something went wrong and we needed to return it and spend the extra money on something like a movement sensored monitor. Well, the hubby opened it depsite my protests and told me I was over reacting and everything was going to be fine... well everything wasn't fine! Then.. I worried about his feeding while he was on the vents and the hubby was like "you're over reacting everything is gonna be fine"... well guess what... mother's intuition is not a force to be reckoned with! Honey, if you're reading this... trust me as the mother of your child.... and trust my gut feelings and instincts!!!!!
I definitely have mixed feelings about the g-tube surgery.... on one hand I will be soooo happy to get him on a pump- it will make things much easier on me and him... not that I wouldn't do this for the rest of my life if I had to... I would do anything for my son, I would do anything for any of my children. But its frustrating. Then there is the whole fear of the surgery itself... I'm gonna bawl like a baby when they take him away from me. Then there is the healing process... my bubba boo is gonna be ouchie for awhile. Then there is the whole developmental process that could be delayed while he heals from the surgery. Then there is the whole slew of complications that come with that.. but we're as ready as we can be. My husband says he can't wait to see him everyday without the tube in his nose... I say I've gotten so used to the tube being there I don't know how I'll feel without it there. I certainly don't like changing and placing it every week but I think it gives him character and makes him all the more cuter!!
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Our darkest days....
We didn't get a whole lot of time to celebrate the arrival of our precious baby boy before everything went to hell... but enough time had passed that the hubby had managed to update our facebook status's and notify key family members that we had a healthy baby boy weighing in at 7lbs 9oz and was 19& 3/4 inches long as well as debut our handsome stud in a few adorable pics.
When they brought me my baby he was mad and hungry and crying up a storm. As I tried to breastfeed him my hubby told me all about his bath and his 2nd apgar score of 10 and all those first moments I had missed while still in the ER. It wasn't long before the nurse noticed lil man was breathing a lil rapidly and wanted me to reposition him on my breast so we did and that didn't seem to help. She took his temperature and thought he was a little bit cooler than he should be so we wrapped him up against me and still in my drug induced state I didn't think much of it. Before I knew it tho the nurse felt he needed to go over to the nursery to be checked out quick and promised to bring him right back. I sat there quietly while my husband kept saying "he's fine"... "he'll be fine" and it wasn't long before the nurse came back empty handed and informed us that they had put him in an oxygen bubble over in the nicu and were waiting on xray to see what was going on.
A short time later the baby doc came in and told us that our son had a pneumothorax in his right lung which is basically a hole that air was escaping into between the lung and the skin. He said it was not uncommon and alot of babies get them and most don't even know it. They were going to keep him on oxygen and keep monitoring him in the NICU but were going to start him on antibiotics to make sure he didn't get any worse. I was immediately distressed and freaking out... this was not how I pictured our son's birth day at all. The nurses were great about keeping us up to date and the hubby kept going back and forth between the nicu (right across the hall) and my room. I called my mom to let her know what was going on and that they wouldn't be able to bring the kids up to meet their new brother. I really didn't know what was going on...
At one point the doc came in and said they took another xray and the pneumo looked like it was going away but he was still breathing extremely fast so they would continue to monitor him. My dad left work and they left my kids with my sister so him and my mom could come be with my husband and I. Once they arrived the doctor came in to talk to us and told us if his condition continued or worsened they would have to intubate him and he'd have to go to the Children's Hospital almost 2 hours away at the University of Iowa. We all just kept hoping it wouldn't come to that... finally my parents went home and the nurses took pity on me and told me that they would help me get up and moving so I could go see my baby (I wasn't supposed to be out of bed til the next morning). I went and visited him later that night, right before I sent my hubby home for some rest and to take care of the dog. At this point his condition hadn't changed so I thought we were safe.
I couldn't sleep... and around 2am they called the baby doc back to the hosptial cuz Greyson was getting worse. His baby doc made the call to Iowa City to send a transport team, they were going to need to intubate and I made the call for my husband to come rushing back. I just hoped he made it before the transport team did. I made the nurses take me back over there and all's I could do was cry... I couldn't speak.. I couldn't even tell him I loved him because I couldn't get the words to come out. My husband arrived and tried to comfort me and we went back to my room. We immediately tried to decide whether he should set out for Iowa City as soon as lil man did or wait and see if I could be discharged as soon as my OB doc came in. Meanwhile the transport team showed up and they got him intubated and settled in to the transport isolet... he had Iowa Hawkeye sheets... we are Hawkeye fans despite my dad graduating from Iowa State. The transport team brought him into my room so we could say good bye and promised to take good care of him til we arrived. I couldn't stop crying..... in fact I am crying now as I remember feeling soooooooo helpless and out of control. I wanted my baby....
We had decided my husband would stay with me til we were able to talk to the OB about discharge. If she wasn't going to let me go I was going to sign out AMA and we would swing by the house to grab a bag for the hubby and head directly to Iowa City. Finally the OB came in and while she wasn't entirely comfortable releasing me 24hours post surgery she knew she didn't have much of a choice so they began the discharge process as long as I promised to get a nap and eat lunch before I left. We notified family, made arrangements for the dog, made arrangements for the kids... we napped, I ate, and we got the hell out of there after I promised to stay off my feet and rest as much as possible. We didn't talk about Greyson or what was going on... we went home and packed up anything and everything we could think of cuz we had no clue how long we would be there. We stopped by the store for a few necessities and the hubby made me sit in a wheel chair & then we left town. On the way there I called the NICU to get an update on our baby and his nurse could only tell me he was VERY sick and we would have to wait and talk to his doctor's when we got there. As I relayed the news to my husband we sat in silence... I noticed he sped up... we were pushing 80mph as we got closer & closer to the city we hit traffic and road work... my husband grew very impatient and for the first time ever I saw him shed a few tears.... thats when everything really hit me.
When we finally arrived at the hospital (its HUGE) and found the NICU we were brought to our son's room and even with my medical background I was NOT prepared for what we saw. They ended up having to completely paralyze him instead of just regular sedation because he was fighting the vents and over breathing them so bad... they had to put in a chest tube on his right side to drain... they had a tentative umbilical line going... a pic line in his leg... an iv in his arm...and of course a cathether. so when we walk in we see our baby laying their with all kinds of tubes coming from him, naked in a diaper, and not moving the slightest... his chest wasn't even rising and falling. The nurse handed me this binder and told me it was ours and we should read it... it was the ins and outs of the NICU and I remember barely giving it a glance and thinking "are you f-ing kidding me?" I completely broke down and was reduced to tears and once again couldn't speak. My hubby and I just held each other and touched his arms and legs and watched the monitors. After the doctor came and spoke to us... I can't even recall what he said... we stayed with him for another hour or so before we left to find a hotel for the night.
It was probably 9ish and we no sooner got checked into our room and all our crap hauled in and pizza ordered and the hospital called my cell phone. It was one of his doctors calling to tell me that Greyson had gotten worse, there was now a pneumo on the left side too so they may have to put a chest tube in and they were going put him on a different vent... the last resort vent called an oscillator. I asked if we should come back and he said they were in the process of trying to get him stabalized and felt we should stay put until they called us back. The guy had a heavy accent so I didn't know whether we would get a call when they got him stabalized or just get a call if we needed to come back. We tried to eat... but neither of us had much of an appetite.. even tho my milk had yet to come in, I pumped... I figured it was the only thing I could do at that point. We decided to try to get some sleep and just as we were about to sleep the phone rang and our hearts dropped... I couldn't get to my phone fast enough so it went to voice mail and I swear my heart about beat out of my chest while I waited for them to pick up my return call. His doctor was immediately put on the phone and told me that he wasn't out of the woods yet but they had him stabalized and we should try to get some rest. I cried from relief... from still being scared out of mind... and the hubby and I talked about how scared we were when that phone rang.
The next morning we went directly to the hospital... I cried some more... we talked to the doctors and they informed us that they were running tests and waiting for results but apparently he had developed sepsis shortly after birth, a pneumothorax, and from their pulmonary hypertension. They did not know if the sepsis was from the pneumothorax or if the pneumorthorax was a result of the sepsis. They also told us that in utero the blood flows one direction, at birth it alternates direction and flows how it does for the rest of your life. Shortly after birth his blood flow reverted back to the direction of flow in utero. We were told we would probably be there for a few weeks.
I won't go into details of our 2 month stay in the NICU because honestly I don't remember when, how, etc. everything took place. It all ran together. But I can tell you the feelings... I will never forget the feelings...We stayed at hotels for the first few nights til we got a room at the Rossi house which is located in the hospital itself. We would get up in the morning and go sit in on rounds & then go to breakfast and back to the room to rest for a few before going back to the NICU for a few hours and then go back to our room for a few hours... and then back to the NICU for a few hours. It was hard... a few days into our NICU stay my parents brought the kids out to meet their baby brother. I remember having to really control myself and paste on a smile and a happy face and try to portray all the tubes and machines as not a big deal and everything was going to be fine so our other kids wouldn't be scared. It was all fake... inside I was terrified and inside my mind was screaming "what if its not" "its not ok"...My husband was the optimistic one... his mantra was "he's gonna be fine" "everything is gonna be good" "we'll be home before you know it"... as each day passed I grew more angry. With my medical background I feared that the more time he spent on the vents, the harder it would be to get him off. I was worried about his feeding... the longer he went not being able to nurse or take a bottle... the harder I knew it could be when he finally did get to... I counted off the days since I had held my baby... I hadn't even got to hold him for a half hour since he'd been born... I counted off the days since I'd heard him cry. My belly was empty and so were my arms and it was an ache that just wouldn't go away. We'd go out to eat and it seemed there were always families with babies and I just wanted to scream that it wasn't fair. To make it all worse, I missed my other 3 kids and they would be starting school soon... Hubby had already missed so much work... my parents were basically financing our stay in Iowa City. But day by day our lil man fought and made a lil progress. It was just so hard because we'd take a lil step forward and then we'd always end up taking 2 steps back. I didn't get to hold him again till he was 18 days old... the day after my dad's birthday and we let my dad hold him first since he was the birthday boy and my mom hold him next cuz her birthday was in a few days... the hubby held him next and I almost didn't hold him. At that point I wanted to hold him soooo bad... but then again I didn't cuz I knew it would hurt too bad when I had to let him go. My parents & hubby encouraged me to hold him and of course I cried.
The entire process was emotional... a roller coaster ride of emotions and feelings. I would sit for hours and play the "what if" game... I still do... "what if I did this instead of that" "what if I hadn't done this, this, & this"... "what if I did this, this, & this".... I blamed myself... I still do... and in those first few days I remember getting sooooo mad at myself... I was soooo scared we were going to lose him and then I recalled that I had had my tubes tied and I remember thinking "oh no, if we lose him this is it... there won't be no more babies"... not that another baby could ever replace him... I think it was a knee jerk reaction as was the getting angry with myself for even thinking such a thing.
My husband and I "moved" back home after a month of being up there. During that month we had been home for a few hours at a time a few times so we could register the kids for school and attend orientations for school. The older 3 had started school and were staying with their great aunt.I had started classes (all online).. we missed our kids... we missed our dog... we missed our house... we missed our life. It was time to go home and that was the hardest decision ever. Even tho lil man was out of the woods, it was hard to leave him. His breathing problems had cleared up but we were working on getting him off the morphine- he was addicted and working on feeding, as I feared he was having issues. They called it oral aversion. I made the drive a few times a week and would stay all day with him... usually one day a week after the kids got home from school we would take them up, and then we'd go on Sundays cuz the hospital was located across the street from the Hawkeye's football field and game days were hell. On days I didn't go I would call several times a day to check on him. On Saturdays I would watch the Hawkeyes play at home and wish they would take the damn cameras across the street to my son's room and let me see him.
Through it all he was perfect to me... adorable... handsome... sweet... and oh soooo funny! I loved him more than I ever thought imaginable. The time came they finally started saying the "H" word... HOME..... I went and stayed a week at the hospital so I could learn the in's and out's for NG feeding... he would only take about 30% of his daily feeds by mouth. We were also sent home with reflux meds and a recipe to mix his formula for higher calories. I had to learn to place the NG tube myself and exactly how to care for a baby with his needs. I had tunnel vision... all I could think about was taking my baby home. The day I walked out of the NICU carrying my baby in his infant seat was one of the happiest days. The closer we got to the doors, the more I cried! As soon as we got in the car, I called my hubby at work to tell him we were on our way... and then I called my mom. I cried alot on that drive home... which wasn't unusual but what was unusual was these tears were tears of joy!
I thought "everything is gonna be alright"..... I really had no clue what we were getting into....
When they brought me my baby he was mad and hungry and crying up a storm. As I tried to breastfeed him my hubby told me all about his bath and his 2nd apgar score of 10 and all those first moments I had missed while still in the ER. It wasn't long before the nurse noticed lil man was breathing a lil rapidly and wanted me to reposition him on my breast so we did and that didn't seem to help. She took his temperature and thought he was a little bit cooler than he should be so we wrapped him up against me and still in my drug induced state I didn't think much of it. Before I knew it tho the nurse felt he needed to go over to the nursery to be checked out quick and promised to bring him right back. I sat there quietly while my husband kept saying "he's fine"... "he'll be fine" and it wasn't long before the nurse came back empty handed and informed us that they had put him in an oxygen bubble over in the nicu and were waiting on xray to see what was going on.
A short time later the baby doc came in and told us that our son had a pneumothorax in his right lung which is basically a hole that air was escaping into between the lung and the skin. He said it was not uncommon and alot of babies get them and most don't even know it. They were going to keep him on oxygen and keep monitoring him in the NICU but were going to start him on antibiotics to make sure he didn't get any worse. I was immediately distressed and freaking out... this was not how I pictured our son's birth day at all. The nurses were great about keeping us up to date and the hubby kept going back and forth between the nicu (right across the hall) and my room. I called my mom to let her know what was going on and that they wouldn't be able to bring the kids up to meet their new brother. I really didn't know what was going on...
At one point the doc came in and said they took another xray and the pneumo looked like it was going away but he was still breathing extremely fast so they would continue to monitor him. My dad left work and they left my kids with my sister so him and my mom could come be with my husband and I. Once they arrived the doctor came in to talk to us and told us if his condition continued or worsened they would have to intubate him and he'd have to go to the Children's Hospital almost 2 hours away at the University of Iowa. We all just kept hoping it wouldn't come to that... finally my parents went home and the nurses took pity on me and told me that they would help me get up and moving so I could go see my baby (I wasn't supposed to be out of bed til the next morning). I went and visited him later that night, right before I sent my hubby home for some rest and to take care of the dog. At this point his condition hadn't changed so I thought we were safe.
I couldn't sleep... and around 2am they called the baby doc back to the hosptial cuz Greyson was getting worse. His baby doc made the call to Iowa City to send a transport team, they were going to need to intubate and I made the call for my husband to come rushing back. I just hoped he made it before the transport team did. I made the nurses take me back over there and all's I could do was cry... I couldn't speak.. I couldn't even tell him I loved him because I couldn't get the words to come out. My husband arrived and tried to comfort me and we went back to my room. We immediately tried to decide whether he should set out for Iowa City as soon as lil man did or wait and see if I could be discharged as soon as my OB doc came in. Meanwhile the transport team showed up and they got him intubated and settled in to the transport isolet... he had Iowa Hawkeye sheets... we are Hawkeye fans despite my dad graduating from Iowa State. The transport team brought him into my room so we could say good bye and promised to take good care of him til we arrived. I couldn't stop crying..... in fact I am crying now as I remember feeling soooooooo helpless and out of control. I wanted my baby....
We had decided my husband would stay with me til we were able to talk to the OB about discharge. If she wasn't going to let me go I was going to sign out AMA and we would swing by the house to grab a bag for the hubby and head directly to Iowa City. Finally the OB came in and while she wasn't entirely comfortable releasing me 24hours post surgery she knew she didn't have much of a choice so they began the discharge process as long as I promised to get a nap and eat lunch before I left. We notified family, made arrangements for the dog, made arrangements for the kids... we napped, I ate, and we got the hell out of there after I promised to stay off my feet and rest as much as possible. We didn't talk about Greyson or what was going on... we went home and packed up anything and everything we could think of cuz we had no clue how long we would be there. We stopped by the store for a few necessities and the hubby made me sit in a wheel chair & then we left town. On the way there I called the NICU to get an update on our baby and his nurse could only tell me he was VERY sick and we would have to wait and talk to his doctor's when we got there. As I relayed the news to my husband we sat in silence... I noticed he sped up... we were pushing 80mph as we got closer & closer to the city we hit traffic and road work... my husband grew very impatient and for the first time ever I saw him shed a few tears.... thats when everything really hit me.
When we finally arrived at the hospital (its HUGE) and found the NICU we were brought to our son's room and even with my medical background I was NOT prepared for what we saw. They ended up having to completely paralyze him instead of just regular sedation because he was fighting the vents and over breathing them so bad... they had to put in a chest tube on his right side to drain... they had a tentative umbilical line going... a pic line in his leg... an iv in his arm...and of course a cathether. so when we walk in we see our baby laying their with all kinds of tubes coming from him, naked in a diaper, and not moving the slightest... his chest wasn't even rising and falling. The nurse handed me this binder and told me it was ours and we should read it... it was the ins and outs of the NICU and I remember barely giving it a glance and thinking "are you f-ing kidding me?" I completely broke down and was reduced to tears and once again couldn't speak. My hubby and I just held each other and touched his arms and legs and watched the monitors. After the doctor came and spoke to us... I can't even recall what he said... we stayed with him for another hour or so before we left to find a hotel for the night.
It was probably 9ish and we no sooner got checked into our room and all our crap hauled in and pizza ordered and the hospital called my cell phone. It was one of his doctors calling to tell me that Greyson had gotten worse, there was now a pneumo on the left side too so they may have to put a chest tube in and they were going put him on a different vent... the last resort vent called an oscillator. I asked if we should come back and he said they were in the process of trying to get him stabalized and felt we should stay put until they called us back. The guy had a heavy accent so I didn't know whether we would get a call when they got him stabalized or just get a call if we needed to come back. We tried to eat... but neither of us had much of an appetite.. even tho my milk had yet to come in, I pumped... I figured it was the only thing I could do at that point. We decided to try to get some sleep and just as we were about to sleep the phone rang and our hearts dropped... I couldn't get to my phone fast enough so it went to voice mail and I swear my heart about beat out of my chest while I waited for them to pick up my return call. His doctor was immediately put on the phone and told me that he wasn't out of the woods yet but they had him stabalized and we should try to get some rest. I cried from relief... from still being scared out of mind... and the hubby and I talked about how scared we were when that phone rang.
The next morning we went directly to the hospital... I cried some more... we talked to the doctors and they informed us that they were running tests and waiting for results but apparently he had developed sepsis shortly after birth, a pneumothorax, and from their pulmonary hypertension. They did not know if the sepsis was from the pneumothorax or if the pneumorthorax was a result of the sepsis. They also told us that in utero the blood flows one direction, at birth it alternates direction and flows how it does for the rest of your life. Shortly after birth his blood flow reverted back to the direction of flow in utero. We were told we would probably be there for a few weeks.
I won't go into details of our 2 month stay in the NICU because honestly I don't remember when, how, etc. everything took place. It all ran together. But I can tell you the feelings... I will never forget the feelings...We stayed at hotels for the first few nights til we got a room at the Rossi house which is located in the hospital itself. We would get up in the morning and go sit in on rounds & then go to breakfast and back to the room to rest for a few before going back to the NICU for a few hours and then go back to our room for a few hours... and then back to the NICU for a few hours. It was hard... a few days into our NICU stay my parents brought the kids out to meet their baby brother. I remember having to really control myself and paste on a smile and a happy face and try to portray all the tubes and machines as not a big deal and everything was going to be fine so our other kids wouldn't be scared. It was all fake... inside I was terrified and inside my mind was screaming "what if its not" "its not ok"...My husband was the optimistic one... his mantra was "he's gonna be fine" "everything is gonna be good" "we'll be home before you know it"... as each day passed I grew more angry. With my medical background I feared that the more time he spent on the vents, the harder it would be to get him off. I was worried about his feeding... the longer he went not being able to nurse or take a bottle... the harder I knew it could be when he finally did get to... I counted off the days since I had held my baby... I hadn't even got to hold him for a half hour since he'd been born... I counted off the days since I'd heard him cry. My belly was empty and so were my arms and it was an ache that just wouldn't go away. We'd go out to eat and it seemed there were always families with babies and I just wanted to scream that it wasn't fair. To make it all worse, I missed my other 3 kids and they would be starting school soon... Hubby had already missed so much work... my parents were basically financing our stay in Iowa City. But day by day our lil man fought and made a lil progress. It was just so hard because we'd take a lil step forward and then we'd always end up taking 2 steps back. I didn't get to hold him again till he was 18 days old... the day after my dad's birthday and we let my dad hold him first since he was the birthday boy and my mom hold him next cuz her birthday was in a few days... the hubby held him next and I almost didn't hold him. At that point I wanted to hold him soooo bad... but then again I didn't cuz I knew it would hurt too bad when I had to let him go. My parents & hubby encouraged me to hold him and of course I cried.
The entire process was emotional... a roller coaster ride of emotions and feelings. I would sit for hours and play the "what if" game... I still do... "what if I did this instead of that" "what if I hadn't done this, this, & this"... "what if I did this, this, & this".... I blamed myself... I still do... and in those first few days I remember getting sooooo mad at myself... I was soooo scared we were going to lose him and then I recalled that I had had my tubes tied and I remember thinking "oh no, if we lose him this is it... there won't be no more babies"... not that another baby could ever replace him... I think it was a knee jerk reaction as was the getting angry with myself for even thinking such a thing.
My husband and I "moved" back home after a month of being up there. During that month we had been home for a few hours at a time a few times so we could register the kids for school and attend orientations for school. The older 3 had started school and were staying with their great aunt.I had started classes (all online).. we missed our kids... we missed our dog... we missed our house... we missed our life. It was time to go home and that was the hardest decision ever. Even tho lil man was out of the woods, it was hard to leave him. His breathing problems had cleared up but we were working on getting him off the morphine- he was addicted and working on feeding, as I feared he was having issues. They called it oral aversion. I made the drive a few times a week and would stay all day with him... usually one day a week after the kids got home from school we would take them up, and then we'd go on Sundays cuz the hospital was located across the street from the Hawkeye's football field and game days were hell. On days I didn't go I would call several times a day to check on him. On Saturdays I would watch the Hawkeyes play at home and wish they would take the damn cameras across the street to my son's room and let me see him.
Through it all he was perfect to me... adorable... handsome... sweet... and oh soooo funny! I loved him more than I ever thought imaginable. The time came they finally started saying the "H" word... HOME..... I went and stayed a week at the hospital so I could learn the in's and out's for NG feeding... he would only take about 30% of his daily feeds by mouth. We were also sent home with reflux meds and a recipe to mix his formula for higher calories. I had to learn to place the NG tube myself and exactly how to care for a baby with his needs. I had tunnel vision... all I could think about was taking my baby home. The day I walked out of the NICU carrying my baby in his infant seat was one of the happiest days. The closer we got to the doors, the more I cried! As soon as we got in the car, I called my hubby at work to tell him we were on our way... and then I called my mom. I cried alot on that drive home... which wasn't unusual but what was unusual was these tears were tears of joy!
I thought "everything is gonna be alright"..... I really had no clue what we were getting into....
Here we go.....
This is my first blogging experience... but I have pleanty of social media experience so this can't be that different right?!
I guess I'll start with a little back ground before I jump right in to the purpose of this blog.
I met my husband in the beginning of November 2008, we actually met on a social media site and we hit it off from the get go. I had a daughter, Harley (age 4) from a previous relationship that I had sole custody of and he had a son, Tre (age 7) and a daughter, Kendell (age 4) from a previous relationship that he had sole custody. We quickly came together as a family and a year later we were married in November of 2009. My daughter's biological father had never really been a part of her life and spent more time on the phone with his lawyer trying to figure out how he could "get rid of her" than he ever did getting to know her so my husband adopted her and she finally got the daddy she deserved in January of 2010. My husband's 2 children were in need of something as well, they needed a mom. There mom had left when they were younger to join the military and wasn't able to be around much and the summer before my husband and I met, she was murdered by her husband. So we were all in need of love.
We had always talked about having a baby of our own... it just always seemed as though the timing wasn't right. My first pregnancy was not planned & I wanted to make sure I did it right if I did it again. Since combining our families I had been a stay at home mom. But when the youngest, Kendell, started 1st grade in the Fall of 2011 I wasn't needed as much and there really was no great job opportunities in our community. I have a background in the medical field & really wanted to continue that so I decided to go back to school. I planned it so that 3 out of 4 of my classes were online.. so should the kiddos need me, I'd still be available.
In early Fall we broached the subject of a baby... for like the zillionth time. We kind of started talking about maybe in another year... and we were actually talking seriously, not just "maybe someday". Later that night my Grandpa passed away from stomach cancer and caught up in trying to balance my grief with still being a mom and a student... a baby became the farthest thing in my thoughts.
My husband and I celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary that November with a kid free weekend at home. I killed a whole bottle of Barefoot Bubbly Pink Moscato Champagne by myself and a few weeks later I discovered I was late. Not entirely unusual... I am very regular but between school and the kids sometimes I am off a bit on the days in my head. So it was not alarming or unusual when I made my hubby stop off at the store so I could get a pregnancy test. I tend to panic or worry so I usually kept them on hand for cases like this. We both expected it to be negative like ALLLLLL the other times so you can imagine our surprise when it was positive! There were 2 tests in the box so I immediately repeated the test and got the same response... in disbelief I left my husband to figure out what to feed our 3 children and went right back out to the store and bought 3 more tests. Sure enough... all of them were positive! My husband was happy and excited... I was terrified. I'm not sure why considering this time around I was 30 years old and married (opposed to 22/23 and not married)... I had wanted a baby for the longest time...throughout my husband and I's relationship it was something I felt we needed to make our family complete... a baby would be something to tie all of us together in a complete circle.... but suddenly the weight of the responsibility was crushing!
But I soon got past that knee jerk reaction and the excitement quickly replaced the anxiety... and morning sickness was quick to follow! Ohhhhh it was horrible, so bad I had to go on medication and it lasted almost 6 months! There were many days I did nothing but the bare minimum... get the kids off to school in the morning and lay around for the rest of the day... rushing through homework when I had to and spending the rest of my time trying to sleep thru it all. Hubby was great about picking up the slack when he got home from work while I laid on my blankets and pillows on the livingroom floor, curled up with our 4 legged kid- a pitbull named Portia.
As I mentioned before, I am a worrier. I am also no skinny mini & with being soooo sick I didn't gain any weight, actually lost weight, for the first 5-6 months of my pregnancy and when I did start to gain I basically only gained back everything I had lost and didn't really go over my pre-pregnancy weight. But I constantly worried that my baby was not getting enough nurishment or was going to be tiny... I also am a smoker & while I cut back on the number of cigarettes I smoked a day, I couldn't cut them out all together-- hell, I had already given up my anxiety & insomnia meds as soon as that test was positive! I did the same thing with my first child but wasn't near as sick as I was with the 2nd and she was just fine & weighed in at 6lbs 5oz. For the most part I ate as healthy as I possibly could... gave up most sweets and chips, etc. I was always measuring right on track and ultrasounds were all NORMAL!!
Now, like most parents we didn't care what we had, boy or girl as long as it was healthy... BUT we were really hoping for a boy. A boy would completely balance out our family- 3 boys/3 girls... and it would also be my parents 1st biological male grandchild (my sister had 4 girls) as well as my mom's parents 1st male (great) grandchild. My husband would constantly say... "oh I'm sure it will be a girl"... I think he was trying not to jinx us... Tre and Kendell wanted a baby brother and Harley was odd man out wanting a baby sister.... so at my 5 month ultrasound we were elated when we saw HIS little peepee!!! On the drive home I called my parents, & even though I talk to my mom daily on the phone, I called my dad at work first and he had this giddy boyish giggle/chuckle that I will never forget when I told him he was having a grandson!! Then I called my mom and she already had a feeling it would be a boy due to the fact I was carrying this pregnancy sooooo differently than I did with my daughter. I also called my grandma on my mom's side... the side of the Grandpa I had lost just months before... and I told her what I had been thinking throughout the whole pregnancy... "this was Grandpa's doing"... I don't mean literally folks! I just mean it was just another sign that it was meant to be. Here we'd been talking about the whole baby idea the night he passed away and a few months later I get pregnant out of the blue... it was like a sign from him telling us life is too short to wait... and then for it to be a boy... WOW... that just added to the confirmation this was something Grandpa would've wanted for us. Of course, I then cried after I got off the phone with her because it finally hit me that he wouldn't be here for any of it and that was a really tough dose of reality to swallow. We ended up stopping off at the local flower shop on the way home and got the biggest "It's a Boy" baby foot balloon we could find. We left it at the top of the stairs for the kids to see immediately when they came home! They were definitely excited!!
My husband immediately took to every baby name website he could find and started filling up a whole notebook page of boy names. We knew the middle name would be Michael, after my father. I wanted the first name to begin with an "L" after my husband's father who had passed away when he was 24 but we just couldn't agree on any and finally we gave up the "L" search because my husband said "he will have my and therefore my father's last name and that's good enough for me". About a month later I finally sat down and seriously began to compile my own list of names. I hadn't really give much thought to my husband's list cuz frankly we don't have the same tastes and I was actually dreading trying to come up with a first name cuz I was certain it would lead to a few arguements. When the time came for us to trade lists we were surprised to find that we both had the name Grayson/Greyson listed... I had recently read a book in which one of the characters was named Greyson and he had found it on a baby name website. We narrowed it down to Greyson (my one and only choice other than Liam) and Devlin (my hubby's other choice). I was opposed to Devlin because I knew this child would be partly my hubby's and trust me... he didn't need any help or further encouragment in the "lil devil" department. So it was quickly and painlessly agreed upon that our baby boy would be named Greyson Michael!!
When I was 7 months along we were given temporary custody of our 15 year old nephew by DHS. My husband's sister's family was in utter chaos which in turn brought chaos, worries, and anxiety to our family. I spent the last 2 months of my pregnancy sooooo stressed due to the family situation and the financial situation and the straight up guilt that we could only take one of the kids instead of all 3 and we could only keep him temporarily at that. When baby time came our nephew would have to go somewhere else. It killed me that we couldn't do more and these kids were going through what they were going through. It was a very rough time for us all and to be honest it completely killed the excitement of the upcoming arrival of our bundle of joy. I constantly felt guilty that here we were adding to our family and another family we loved was falling apart.
A few weeks before my due date our nephew left our home and it was really weird not having him around & I really missed his company. The excitement started to grow day by day and I couldn't wait to have someone new back in the home to occupy my time and attention cuz my other 3 rarely came out of their rooms... too cool to hang out with mom! Each day I became more and more uncomfortable and just wanted my lil guy here. I hoped every day I would go into labor even tho I wasn't scheduled for a c-section til 3 days before my due date... and just my luck he stayed in right up until the scheduled cesarian! At every prenatal appt the doc would say all is good... all is great! At the final prenatal appt, one of the doc's predicted that he would be small and guessed he would weigh between 6 and 7lbs.
August 1st, 2012... we had made arrangements for the kids to go to my parents while we were welcoming Mr. Greyson into the world. I met my mom for the afternoon and handed off my kiddos... I cried the whole way home- I always get super emotional before surgeries and when you add pregnancy hormones to it, I was a lost cause! The hubby and I enjoyed a quiet evening at home... he dined on McDonald's and I enjoyed Subway and we talked about how our lives were going to change the next day. We went to bed early since we had to be at the hospital super early to prep for surgery, and poked and played with my belly one last night! Surprisingly I slept alot better than I thought I would!
August 2nd, 2012... FINALLY time to meet our little guy! I was a bundle of nerves... I cried off and on for the drive to the hospital and we upon arrival and registration were quickly taken to our room and they began prepping me for surgery. It's kind of a blur... I know I cried alot... I know I was very nervous and scared! They wheeled me back to the OR and got me on the table and then began getting the spinal block in to me. This was an issue because of my previous back surgeries and all the scar tissue, we ended up having to wait 20 minutes and the anesthesiologist had to give me more because only one side completely numbed up initially. I finally couldn't move my left foot/toes any more and then it was time to bring the hubby in and get my baby out! Now, I had quite the morning in store for me because as soon as lil man was out I was scheduled to get my tubes tied and I had a fibroid that they were going to try to remove if possible. My main focus was to get out of the OR asap and get to my room so my son could be brought in and I could immediately begin breastfeeding.
So, my hubby is sitting by me head anxiously awaiting the arrival of our son and I'm crying and not really able to say much of anything and out comes our lil man and of course, I can't see ANYTHING but the hubby keeps alternating between "he's big" and "he has hair", the later important cuz my daughter didn't have hair til she was like 4! The nurses are telling me he's healthy and adorable and perfect and I'm listening to my baby screaming and I'm just thinking "I want to see him!!!!" At this point, I still couldn't really say much... I didn't know what to say and of course, I was still crying! HaHa... my hubby left my side to go to Greyson where they were cleaning him up and getting apgar scores and such.. I recall hearing someone say he was an 8 for his first apgar and that was the best thing I could hear. My OB immediately set to getting my tubes tied and finally my baby was brought over and he was perfect... it was love at first sight... and he was soooo much bigger than I expected! After posing for a few pictures I suddenly began to feel extremely nauseas and I was starting to feel pain on my left side so I told my hubby to take him to the nursery. As the room cleared out, I relayed to the anesthesiologist what I was feeling. He immediately gave me meds for the nausea but the pain steadily grew worse and worse and it was actually terrifying... they ended up having to give me emergency iv narcotics because the spinal block had worn off on my left side and I was feeling everything they were doing to my uterus. The OB also informed me that she had no choice but to remove the golf ball size fibroid cuz it was right where she needed to close me up. I can remember thinking "just hurry up... I want my baby"... finally we were done and surprisingly I was still awake despite the additional meds that should've knocked me out... I was awake but pretty out of it and I remember thinking "I survived, the worst is over... we survived.. let the fun begin"! They took me back to my room and once again things are a lil blurry til they placed my lil guy in my arms and after a few moments of bliss and perfection.... our world turned upside down.....
I guess I'll start with a little back ground before I jump right in to the purpose of this blog.
I met my husband in the beginning of November 2008, we actually met on a social media site and we hit it off from the get go. I had a daughter, Harley (age 4) from a previous relationship that I had sole custody of and he had a son, Tre (age 7) and a daughter, Kendell (age 4) from a previous relationship that he had sole custody. We quickly came together as a family and a year later we were married in November of 2009. My daughter's biological father had never really been a part of her life and spent more time on the phone with his lawyer trying to figure out how he could "get rid of her" than he ever did getting to know her so my husband adopted her and she finally got the daddy she deserved in January of 2010. My husband's 2 children were in need of something as well, they needed a mom. There mom had left when they were younger to join the military and wasn't able to be around much and the summer before my husband and I met, she was murdered by her husband. So we were all in need of love.
We had always talked about having a baby of our own... it just always seemed as though the timing wasn't right. My first pregnancy was not planned & I wanted to make sure I did it right if I did it again. Since combining our families I had been a stay at home mom. But when the youngest, Kendell, started 1st grade in the Fall of 2011 I wasn't needed as much and there really was no great job opportunities in our community. I have a background in the medical field & really wanted to continue that so I decided to go back to school. I planned it so that 3 out of 4 of my classes were online.. so should the kiddos need me, I'd still be available.
In early Fall we broached the subject of a baby... for like the zillionth time. We kind of started talking about maybe in another year... and we were actually talking seriously, not just "maybe someday". Later that night my Grandpa passed away from stomach cancer and caught up in trying to balance my grief with still being a mom and a student... a baby became the farthest thing in my thoughts.
My husband and I celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary that November with a kid free weekend at home. I killed a whole bottle of Barefoot Bubbly Pink Moscato Champagne by myself and a few weeks later I discovered I was late. Not entirely unusual... I am very regular but between school and the kids sometimes I am off a bit on the days in my head. So it was not alarming or unusual when I made my hubby stop off at the store so I could get a pregnancy test. I tend to panic or worry so I usually kept them on hand for cases like this. We both expected it to be negative like ALLLLLL the other times so you can imagine our surprise when it was positive! There were 2 tests in the box so I immediately repeated the test and got the same response... in disbelief I left my husband to figure out what to feed our 3 children and went right back out to the store and bought 3 more tests. Sure enough... all of them were positive! My husband was happy and excited... I was terrified. I'm not sure why considering this time around I was 30 years old and married (opposed to 22/23 and not married)... I had wanted a baby for the longest time...throughout my husband and I's relationship it was something I felt we needed to make our family complete... a baby would be something to tie all of us together in a complete circle.... but suddenly the weight of the responsibility was crushing!
But I soon got past that knee jerk reaction and the excitement quickly replaced the anxiety... and morning sickness was quick to follow! Ohhhhh it was horrible, so bad I had to go on medication and it lasted almost 6 months! There were many days I did nothing but the bare minimum... get the kids off to school in the morning and lay around for the rest of the day... rushing through homework when I had to and spending the rest of my time trying to sleep thru it all. Hubby was great about picking up the slack when he got home from work while I laid on my blankets and pillows on the livingroom floor, curled up with our 4 legged kid- a pitbull named Portia.
As I mentioned before, I am a worrier. I am also no skinny mini & with being soooo sick I didn't gain any weight, actually lost weight, for the first 5-6 months of my pregnancy and when I did start to gain I basically only gained back everything I had lost and didn't really go over my pre-pregnancy weight. But I constantly worried that my baby was not getting enough nurishment or was going to be tiny... I also am a smoker & while I cut back on the number of cigarettes I smoked a day, I couldn't cut them out all together-- hell, I had already given up my anxiety & insomnia meds as soon as that test was positive! I did the same thing with my first child but wasn't near as sick as I was with the 2nd and she was just fine & weighed in at 6lbs 5oz. For the most part I ate as healthy as I possibly could... gave up most sweets and chips, etc. I was always measuring right on track and ultrasounds were all NORMAL!!
Now, like most parents we didn't care what we had, boy or girl as long as it was healthy... BUT we were really hoping for a boy. A boy would completely balance out our family- 3 boys/3 girls... and it would also be my parents 1st biological male grandchild (my sister had 4 girls) as well as my mom's parents 1st male (great) grandchild. My husband would constantly say... "oh I'm sure it will be a girl"... I think he was trying not to jinx us... Tre and Kendell wanted a baby brother and Harley was odd man out wanting a baby sister.... so at my 5 month ultrasound we were elated when we saw HIS little peepee!!! On the drive home I called my parents, & even though I talk to my mom daily on the phone, I called my dad at work first and he had this giddy boyish giggle/chuckle that I will never forget when I told him he was having a grandson!! Then I called my mom and she already had a feeling it would be a boy due to the fact I was carrying this pregnancy sooooo differently than I did with my daughter. I also called my grandma on my mom's side... the side of the Grandpa I had lost just months before... and I told her what I had been thinking throughout the whole pregnancy... "this was Grandpa's doing"... I don't mean literally folks! I just mean it was just another sign that it was meant to be. Here we'd been talking about the whole baby idea the night he passed away and a few months later I get pregnant out of the blue... it was like a sign from him telling us life is too short to wait... and then for it to be a boy... WOW... that just added to the confirmation this was something Grandpa would've wanted for us. Of course, I then cried after I got off the phone with her because it finally hit me that he wouldn't be here for any of it and that was a really tough dose of reality to swallow. We ended up stopping off at the local flower shop on the way home and got the biggest "It's a Boy" baby foot balloon we could find. We left it at the top of the stairs for the kids to see immediately when they came home! They were definitely excited!!
My husband immediately took to every baby name website he could find and started filling up a whole notebook page of boy names. We knew the middle name would be Michael, after my father. I wanted the first name to begin with an "L" after my husband's father who had passed away when he was 24 but we just couldn't agree on any and finally we gave up the "L" search because my husband said "he will have my and therefore my father's last name and that's good enough for me". About a month later I finally sat down and seriously began to compile my own list of names. I hadn't really give much thought to my husband's list cuz frankly we don't have the same tastes and I was actually dreading trying to come up with a first name cuz I was certain it would lead to a few arguements. When the time came for us to trade lists we were surprised to find that we both had the name Grayson/Greyson listed... I had recently read a book in which one of the characters was named Greyson and he had found it on a baby name website. We narrowed it down to Greyson (my one and only choice other than Liam) and Devlin (my hubby's other choice). I was opposed to Devlin because I knew this child would be partly my hubby's and trust me... he didn't need any help or further encouragment in the "lil devil" department. So it was quickly and painlessly agreed upon that our baby boy would be named Greyson Michael!!
Greyson Michael
Quickly we began buying all the necessary baby paraphenalia and soon we had everything we needed except for baby!! Over the next few months my belly got bigger than it ever had with my daughter (you could barely tell I was pregnant when I had her) and he was sooooo active. I loved to lay there and poke at my belly and make him move around. As someone who had 3 previous back surgeries (one being fusion) my back did surprisingly well! No pain at all (like in my 1st pregnancy) in my back... just all kinds of pains and stretching in my belly!When I was 7 months along we were given temporary custody of our 15 year old nephew by DHS. My husband's sister's family was in utter chaos which in turn brought chaos, worries, and anxiety to our family. I spent the last 2 months of my pregnancy sooooo stressed due to the family situation and the financial situation and the straight up guilt that we could only take one of the kids instead of all 3 and we could only keep him temporarily at that. When baby time came our nephew would have to go somewhere else. It killed me that we couldn't do more and these kids were going through what they were going through. It was a very rough time for us all and to be honest it completely killed the excitement of the upcoming arrival of our bundle of joy. I constantly felt guilty that here we were adding to our family and another family we loved was falling apart.
A few weeks before my due date our nephew left our home and it was really weird not having him around & I really missed his company. The excitement started to grow day by day and I couldn't wait to have someone new back in the home to occupy my time and attention cuz my other 3 rarely came out of their rooms... too cool to hang out with mom! Each day I became more and more uncomfortable and just wanted my lil guy here. I hoped every day I would go into labor even tho I wasn't scheduled for a c-section til 3 days before my due date... and just my luck he stayed in right up until the scheduled cesarian! At every prenatal appt the doc would say all is good... all is great! At the final prenatal appt, one of the doc's predicted that he would be small and guessed he would weigh between 6 and 7lbs.
August 1st, 2012... we had made arrangements for the kids to go to my parents while we were welcoming Mr. Greyson into the world. I met my mom for the afternoon and handed off my kiddos... I cried the whole way home- I always get super emotional before surgeries and when you add pregnancy hormones to it, I was a lost cause! The hubby and I enjoyed a quiet evening at home... he dined on McDonald's and I enjoyed Subway and we talked about how our lives were going to change the next day. We went to bed early since we had to be at the hospital super early to prep for surgery, and poked and played with my belly one last night! Surprisingly I slept alot better than I thought I would!
August 2nd, 2012... FINALLY time to meet our little guy! I was a bundle of nerves... I cried off and on for the drive to the hospital and we upon arrival and registration were quickly taken to our room and they began prepping me for surgery. It's kind of a blur... I know I cried alot... I know I was very nervous and scared! They wheeled me back to the OR and got me on the table and then began getting the spinal block in to me. This was an issue because of my previous back surgeries and all the scar tissue, we ended up having to wait 20 minutes and the anesthesiologist had to give me more because only one side completely numbed up initially. I finally couldn't move my left foot/toes any more and then it was time to bring the hubby in and get my baby out! Now, I had quite the morning in store for me because as soon as lil man was out I was scheduled to get my tubes tied and I had a fibroid that they were going to try to remove if possible. My main focus was to get out of the OR asap and get to my room so my son could be brought in and I could immediately begin breastfeeding.
So, my hubby is sitting by me head anxiously awaiting the arrival of our son and I'm crying and not really able to say much of anything and out comes our lil man and of course, I can't see ANYTHING but the hubby keeps alternating between "he's big" and "he has hair", the later important cuz my daughter didn't have hair til she was like 4! The nurses are telling me he's healthy and adorable and perfect and I'm listening to my baby screaming and I'm just thinking "I want to see him!!!!" At this point, I still couldn't really say much... I didn't know what to say and of course, I was still crying! HaHa... my hubby left my side to go to Greyson where they were cleaning him up and getting apgar scores and such.. I recall hearing someone say he was an 8 for his first apgar and that was the best thing I could hear. My OB immediately set to getting my tubes tied and finally my baby was brought over and he was perfect... it was love at first sight... and he was soooo much bigger than I expected! After posing for a few pictures I suddenly began to feel extremely nauseas and I was starting to feel pain on my left side so I told my hubby to take him to the nursery. As the room cleared out, I relayed to the anesthesiologist what I was feeling. He immediately gave me meds for the nausea but the pain steadily grew worse and worse and it was actually terrifying... they ended up having to give me emergency iv narcotics because the spinal block had worn off on my left side and I was feeling everything they were doing to my uterus. The OB also informed me that she had no choice but to remove the golf ball size fibroid cuz it was right where she needed to close me up. I can remember thinking "just hurry up... I want my baby"... finally we were done and surprisingly I was still awake despite the additional meds that should've knocked me out... I was awake but pretty out of it and I remember thinking "I survived, the worst is over... we survived.. let the fun begin"! They took me back to my room and once again things are a lil blurry til they placed my lil guy in my arms and after a few moments of bliss and perfection.... our world turned upside down.....
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