Scariest Moment of My Life

Around noon on Valentine's Day I got a call from daycare that Alex had a fever of 100.0 and needed to be picked up. He had had a cough for awhile, but hadn't been congested in several days. Still, we go to the doctor. The doctor said that he had Bronchiolitis and probably had RSV seems how we both had some cold symptoms. We did a breathing treatment in the office and the doc sent us home with our own little nebulizer and Alburol script so that we could treat him at home. She seemed confident that he would be better and able to return to daycare on Monday.

This is Roscoe Frog, Alex's nebulizer.
All the cool kids have one. ;)

Things go well Thursday and most of Friday. His breathing was rather labored but the treatments seemed to help. Friday I was getting us ready to go pick up Philip from the airport (he had been in California for business) and before doing Alex's breathing treatment I did a respiration count. He took 58 breaths in one minute and 61 the next. I called the on call doc and she said to do his treatment and if it helps, just keep an eye him, if it doesn't, he'll have to go to the hospital.

I already had his treatment set up so I sat down with him and we go started. He hated it. This loud machine was blowing stuff in his face and this big green thing (the mask) was always in front of him. He squirmed and kicked and fought. The nurse had said that they just more medicine that way because they take more breaths. Well, as he's kicking and screaming and coughing, his eyes started to roll back. I immediately called my mom (she used to be a peds nurse) who told me to take him straight to the emergency room.

I already had the diaper bag next to the car seat for us to leave. I grabbed my keys and as I started to put Alex into his car seat, he turned grey. (My heart is pounding as I type this.) I rubbed on his little chest and his color came back. He started screaming at me again (lately he has hated getting into his car seat). I grabbed the diaper bag and ran out to the car. Later I realized that I hadn't locked the door.

I broke every possible traffic law on the way to the hospital and bottomed out coming over a few hills (no damage to the car). Alex was crying. A few blocks from the hospital he went silent. No cries. No wimpers. No little Alex jabber. I don't know that I ever prayed so hard that a baby would cry.

When I got to the hospital (probably less than three minutes from when I called my mom), I went to get Alex out and he was as white as a ghost. I rubbed his chest and he woke up looking pretty startled and out of it. I ran him into the ER and handed him over the counter to the nurse as I told her that he had Bronchiolitis and had turned grey. She took him straight back.

A few minutes later they let me back to his exam room. I texted a friend to go pick up Philip from the airport. Once they had assessed Alex and saw that he okay, they had me sit on the guerny and hold him. They tested him for RSV and it came back positive. They did a breathing treatment and X-ray in the ER. Philip got there just before they put in Alex's IV and sent us up to Pediatrics.

The doctor and the nurse think that Alex had so much thick mucus in his lungs that when he was coughing during the breathing treatment a piece go lodged in his airway. He was admitted and we spent Friday through Tuesday at Hendricks.

He had two types of breathing treatments every 4 hours: a saline solution to help break up the mucus and the Alburol to help open up his lungs. The respiratory nurses also did chest precussions to help loosen it all up. They did eventually start an IV to keep him hydrated so that he didn't have to eat as his stats seemed to dip while he drank.

He's doing much better now. He's still wheezing and sometimes breathing heavy, but that could continue for up to a month. He's likely to develop asthma now and we've been warned that he could wheeze with any respiratory illness in the next year.

Through it all, he only acted "sick" for about a day. He's been a little extra fussy the last few days but he's also drooling like a hounddog so I think he's getting some teeth in. He's such a strong little guy and I am so blessed to be his mommy.

Alex playing with his yellow block in the hospital.
He still used his IV hand to play so I had to give him toys he didn't have to grasp.

One Stressful Week

Saturday:
Alex and I were out running errands. He had been napping pretty soundly for awhile and had slept through a feeding. He had been pretty hungry the week before so I figure he's having a growth spurt and that's what made him so sleepy. We're at Drug Emporium when he wakes up. I change him and fix him a bottle. I feed him while looking at some of the baby/toddler foods they had available, after all it won't be too much longer before he starts solids. He eats most of his bottle and then throws up, big time. He's covered, his carseat and stroller are covered; it's gross. I change him and wipe up his seat as best I can. He still had about an ounce or so left in the bottle so after a few minutes, I offer that to him. He pukes again. Well, I only had one set of clothes with me so we high tail it out of the store and back home to get him cleaned up.

Sunday:
We stayed home from church. Philip had a migraine and with the vomiting the day before, I'm thinking Alex's reflux meds aren't working and I don't really want to have him spew at church. Later that day he throws up again. Again there are two spews close together. I make a plan to call the doc in the morning so we can discuss his reflux meds. My mom recommends giving him a tiny bit of rice cereal and mashed banana to help soak up the extra stomach acid. He enjoys his first tastes of real food, but his tongue thrust reflex is still pretty strong so he only gets a few bites. Alex sleeps a full eight hours plus some that night.

Monday:
I have the day off for MLK Jr. Day but Philip has to work. Alex has a large, loose bowel movement in the morning. He eats about half his bottle, then vomits and falls back to sleep. I call the doctor's office and leave a message for the nurse. When Alex wakes up again he has mucusy, bloody diarrhea. He eats a half bottle then falls back asleep. I call again and the receptionist says there's no appointments until the following morning so I leave another message for the nurse and call my mom. She thinks its serious. I debate on taking Alex to the walk-in clinic near the apartments. I want him to be seen but don't want to expose him to the flu which will be in all those waiting rooms. I send mom a picture of his bloody stool and she calls back and says to take Alex to the doctor or the emergency room. I text Philip that he needs to come home now and call the doctor's office again. I tell them I will be taking my infant to the emergency room if they cannot see him that day. He has an appointment at 1:30.

I pack a simple diaper bag thinking we'll only be gone a few hours and go to the doctor, bloody diaper in tow. They weigh Alex when we get there. He's 11 pounds, 14 ounces! We see Dr. L who confirms that it was blood in his stool. That stool combined with him sleeping through feeds has her worried. She gives us orders for him to be admitted to the hospital for tests and to make sure he stays hydrated. The office is on the hospital campus so it's a quick drive to the main hospital. Philip drops us off at Admissions and goes back to the office to wrap up the project he was working on. I fill out the admissions papers and we wait for his room to be ready.

Once we get the room, the nurses start his vitals and the tests that Dr. L ordered. He's a full two feet tall! He hated the infant pulse-ox and blood pressure cuff. They take him blood, but not from his heel like I was used to, they take it from his arm and both nurses have to hold him down to do it. This was worst part of all the tests. He screamed and screamed. When he caught my eye, he just stared at me and cried his lungs out. I held his little hand and stroked his hair and they were done not nearly soon enough. I held him for a little while and then we were off to get his ultrasound done. The tech tells me that the scan looks normal but they will have to wait for the doctor to give the all clear.



On the way back to the room (themed after the Berenstain Bears Go On Vacation) the nurse tells me that he's positive for Rotavirus so we have to be very careful to wash our hands, especially after any diaper changes. The nurse doesn't know if that's the problem though. He can't eat until the doctor gives the all clear on the ultrasound so the nurse gives me some sugar water to make his paci sweet and help keep him happy. A little while later she brings in some Pedialyte and says the doc gave him the okay to try to eat as his ultrasound was clear and he wasn't going to be needing surgery.

He drinks some of the Pedialyte but obviously isn't happy with it. I think he only drank it because he'd gulp it so fast before he could taste it. When Dr. L comes by for rounds she says he can have formula again. He loves that idea! He eats a whole bunch and sleeps pretty well that night. When they weighed him he had lost a little weight, but the nurse assures me that it wasn't much (they weighed him in kilograms so it was hard for me to tell as I was never very good with the metric system).

Resting after a long day

Tuesday:
In the morning, Dr. Su. checks on him. She says that if he keeps his food down he might be able to go home that night. She assures me that his weight loss was minimal and was the difference of having eaten or peed recently. All his tests had come back except his bacteria cultures which could take 24-48 hours and the only positive so far was the Rotavirus, but she couldn't say if it was from the vaccine he got a week ago or if he caught a wild strain. He does really well that day and is on full formula feedings by about midday. He spits up quite a bit a couple of times, but it's not enough to be clearly vomit. He does still have very liquid stools during the day. Dr. Sh. sees him that evening. He's not quite comfortable letting him go home yet, especially since the bacteria cultures aren't back and he wants to rule out Salmonella and E. Coli both of which can cause bloody stools.  He suggests Alex get Similac Sensitive formula as it's made for those with lactose sensitivity and having diarrhea can lead to temporary lactose intolerance. We switch his formula and he does well that night.

Wednesday:
Dr. L sees Alex in the morning. His bacteria cultures came back negative. He's free to go home. He can even return to daycare after a day of no diarrhea or vomiting. Because he got sick so soon after getting his first Rotavirus vaccine (it was just a week prior to symptoms) there's no way to tell if he got it from the vaccine or if he just caught it. He won't be getting the second dose of the Rotavirus vaccine. He got the virus so he has the antibodies now. She'll note this incident in his chart for when he goes to school. We go home and I bleach all his diapers and sanitize everything in sight. That night we try going back to his regular formula and he throws up again. We call the doctor. Dr. Su is on call and says to put him back on Pedialyte and try formula again later. She says that if we want, she will readmit him, otherwise we can just bring him in in the morning. He does well with the Pedialyte but shows a few symptoms of dehydration so I decide that I will make sure he takes at least two ounces every two hours. He also develops a bit of a cough during this time. It doesn't sound like his regular reflux cough. He also has a low grade fever.

Thursday:
Alex still has some very loose stools. Some of them look a little red. I'm pretty sure it's just the dyes from the Pedialyte but I bring a diaper with us to the doctor just in case. Dr. Su sees him that afternoon.  She says that he looks good and he's okay to stay at home as long as he doesn't do any more backsliding. She also says that he could have diarrhea for a week and that would be okay. She takes a listen to his chest. It appears he picked up a cold at the hospital. We don't have any vomiting or bowel movements that night but he does spit up a bit when we try a thickened feed.

Friday (today):
We had healthy stool today! It was a bit dark and pasty, but definitely not diarrhea! He's still had a slight fever and a bit of a cold. He seems to be teething too. He's done really well. He's spitting up a bit, but I think that's because we haven't been thickening his feeds. He's happy and eating great.

This has been the most stressful week ever. I hated being at the hospital but it was better safe than sorry.  I'm so relieved that he's feeling better and that it wasn't something more serious. I just pray he's never in the hospital again (unless he decides to become a surgeon).

Alex's Arrival

The little one is asleep and the husband is off enjoying his first Black Friday shopping adventure not as a retail employee so I think I will try to write out the story of how Alex entered the world. (This will be very detailed. I wish I had heard more detailed stories for other women and I wanted to remember the details down the road myself.)

Alex had measured big for all of my last trimester so when we hit that magical 37 weeks and "full term" we started working to encourage little Alex to get out before he got too much bigger. Philip and I went walking around the neighborhood every night and I added in some walking and sets of squats at work. At my last prenatal doctor's appointment, I was 37 weeks 4 days and dilated to one centimeter and about 75% effaced. The doc tried to manually stretch my cervix to see how ripe it was. It didn't move, but he was very encouraging that the effacement was a good sign. We made the appointment for the next week but doc said he wouldn't be surprised if he didn't see me then.

Well, we kept up the walking and squatting and I ate as much spicy food as my heartburn would let me.  The nesting instinct hit hard soon after that. I wanted to clean everything and get everything organized. I could hardly sleep or concentrate on anything because I had such a long list of things I wanted to get done. (Most of which were still waiting when the three of us got home.)

Thursday the first I started having contractions while we were out running errands. Nothing too bad, but they were noticeable. I called the on call doctor after about two hours of contractions and he said that it didn't seem like enough. Well, they kept coming so I called Labor and Delivery. The nurse advised me to try to make them go away instead of working to keep them going. That was more effective at seeing if it was real labor or not. Well, they went away.

Friday night I had some more contractions with one or two being a bit painful. However, I could make them go away by drinking water or resting for a bit.

Early Saturday morning, right around 3 am I got up to use the bathroom and feed the cat (just like I had done at 3 am every morning since about 25 weeks). While I was up I felt a pretty strong contraction so I decided I would put up some of the clean dishes and see what happened. The contractions continued and were rather uncomfortable, though not quite painful and kept up for about forty-five minutes or so. I remembered the nurse's advice and went to lay back down in bed and see if the contractions kept up. After laying there for about fifteen minutes there were no more contractions, but I needed to pee again. So around 4 or 4:15, I decide that I will go to the bathroom then try to get some more sleep. After all, this could be my last Saturday to sleep in...

I get to just outside the bathroom door and gush! This was no trickle. There was no mistaking it for peeing on myself. My water broke in true movie style. For once I was glad for our ugly concrete floors. I grabbed a towel for the floor and put another between my legs as I walked over to the bed and woke Philip up. We were packed and ready to go in no time. I sent a text to family letting them know that we were headed to the hospital to see if this was the real deal but that I was pretty certain and I called L&D to let them know we were on our way.

We get to the hospital and I change into the lovely gown that I will be wearing for the next two days. When the nurse goes to do the amniotic fluid test, she takes a quick look and says that she's pretty sure I'm ruptured. Well, I was. I was also about 90% effaced at this point though no more dilated. They admit me and we fill out all the fun paperwork. I also find out that my doctor is not on call this weekend at all and I would be starting with the doctor that I had left because I didn't like his personality.

I give the nurse my birth plan and we get started with all the fun wires and tubes. I get hooked up to the monitors. I also get an IV for the routine fluids to keep me hydrated. I also get started on antibiotics as I was group B strep positive.

The doctor then comes in to check on me and discuss the birth plan. My water broke but I wasn't in active labor. We discussed the timeline that this put us on. The longer you labor with your water broken the higher the chances for infection, prolapsed cord, and other not-so-good stuff. Dr. B said that he would feel comfortable with me trying to get labor started on my own for 24 hours before we needed to start Pitocin. That was all I needed to hear. I would get labor going within 24 hours come hell or high water! He checked my cervix. Due to the group B strep he checked my cervix rectally. This was extremely uncomfortable, and he said, not very accurate. Well, he said I was at about a 2 and because I wasn't in active labor, he would let me get up and walk around off the monitors for periods of 15 minutes. Every 15 minutes though I had to get on the monitors for the nurse to check the heart rate.

Well, we keep up the 15 minute schedule for about an hour and half, maybe two. Then the nurse said I had to stay in bed. At each check my blood pressure had been taken and apparently it was getting pretty high and concerning. She wanted me to stay in bed and try to relax, perhaps being up and moving so much was just pushing it too far. Then Dr. B came in. Apparently my blood pressure wasn't getting any better and was raising some rather big red flags. The traditional, normal treatment is Magnesium. Dr. B said that normally he would just go with the Mag, but if he started the Magnesium it would likely stop my labor. Then we'd have to start Pitocin and doing so this early into the labor process gave me a high chance of a c-section. Dr. B says that there was another option. We could do a half-dose of demerol (half of what they normally give you for labor pain). He said that he understood that I didn't want pain medication but that the demerol would lower my pulse and blood pressure and could help stop the escalation he was seeing. Demerol it was. Oh, and I had to stay in bed on my left side with the exception of getting up to use the restroom.

Fast forward a bit. Family got into town around 6 or so Saturday night. Around the same time, my labor started getting more intense. Normally in hospitals, you get your cervix checked pretty frequently, but because of the strep, they weren't checking me unless I asked them to do so. This just meant that I had no clue how I was progressing for much of the time. At the same time, they stopped telling me what my blood pressure readings were. My blood pressure was checked automatically every 15 minutes and at first the nurse or Philip would read me the number. Then it started just being, "It's pretty high" and "That one wasn't so bad."

That night gets rather fuzzy to me. I went into active labor sometime Saturday evening though I'm not sure when. I just know that eventually it went from kind of uncomfortable to noticeable painful with each contraction. We did do another half dose of demerol and then later a full dose closer to transition. Philip and the nurse became more and more strict about getting up just to go to the restroom and then getting right back into the bed. I would rest for a second when I sat up, and the contractions were a lot easier to deal with when sitting, but I had to be quick. What they weren't telling me, or what I wasn't understanding at the time, was that my blood pressure was reaching very dangerous levels every time I sat up. We're talking 200/100+.

I do remember the 2:00 hour Sunday morning as we took note that the clock wound itself back for Daylight Savings Time. By that point and for some time previously, the contractions were very, very painful. I would grab hold of the railing to the bed with one hand and took Philip's hand in the other. I thought for sure I would rip the railing off that bed or break Philip's fingers. Both ended up making it out okay.

At one point I looked at the nurse (who was staying in the room most of the time) and told her that I felt like I needed to push. When she had checked me last I had been at about an 8, now I just had a tiny bit of cervix left. I knew in my mind that I needed to wait until that last bit of cervix was gone or pushing could do more harm than good, but I really wanted to. Finally she said it was gone and it was time to start pushing some. As this was my first, we would do some "practice" pushes before the doctor got there and another nurse came in to help. During this time I experienced something that nearly every laboring woman does, but no one talks about: I had several bowel movements while pushing. It's the same muscle group and feels about the same. Everyone does it, the nurses are used to, but no one talks about it. Now you know. Well, after some time of pushing the nurses told me to stop pushing or I would have the baby without the doctor being there.

If you've never given birth, here's something they don't always tell you and that you can't properly describe: When you get to that point of the delivery process when the baby is right there, to not push is like trying to hold your own head underwater and not breathe. It is so completely against your instincts and feels like you will literally die if you don't push and anyone telling you to stop must be completely off their rocker.

Well, Dr. G gets there (Dr. B was no longer on call) and they let me start pushing again as she's getting suited up. A whole bunch of other people come in too, but I'm too busy to notice. Dr. G introduces herself and proceeds to say that she knew I had a birth plan, but she didn't get to read it yet and then asks me how I feel about an episiotomy. Keep in mind, I am pushing a baby out right now. We agree to an episiotomy as she thinks a short cut will help his head come right out, and it does. His head came out just seconds after the cut. Next came his shoulders and the rest of him just slipped right now. To be honest, once the head was out the rest just seemed to slide out almost on it's own.

At 6:21 am on November 4th, I heard his first little cry. It was a little gurgled and not too loud, but had a good hearty sound to it. They pick him up and I see his little face and his flailing body. Philip gets to cut the cord and they give him a quick rub down. I wanted skin to skin time as soon as possible and I ripped off that gown. (Modesty just got completely forgotten for the next several hours.) After the cord was cut, they handed me my little boy. He just wiggled for a second then he settled down and snuggled into my neck. I was in awe of him, just in complete awe. Here was this tiny little person who just minutes ago had been inside of me.

During that time I delivered the placenta. After a little bit, they took Alex to the warmer off to the side of the room to be checked out and Philip went over there with him. Dr. G then tells me that I have a fourth degree tear. Externally, there was only a third degree tear, but internally I tore a lot worse. His head had fit with the episiotomy, but his shoulders had caused most of the tear. The tear went through the vagina, perineum, and rectum. The sphincter wasn't torn which was the good news. Dr. G did a three layer repair and reinforced the sphincter just to be sure. She finished her repair and explained the recovery briefly while the nursery worker finished with Alex.

And then, just as quickly as it seemed everyone had swarmed into the room, they were all gone. It was just me and Philip and the nurse. Soon, Philip went and got the family and they got to meet little Alex. I felt rather good afterwards. I had to keep having my blood pressure monitored and was still stuck to the IV as they had started Magnesium some time during transition. I would stay on the Mag for 24 hours after the birth to ensure that I didn't have any seizures. It probably took a day or so for me to feel like there was anything physically "wrong" or like my body was recovering from anything.

And that's how I became a mother.