My Birth Story: the traumatic beginning

That’s me in the yellow gown…. My ICU gown. I had a “planned” c-section at 32 weeks pregnant. I fell at work on a wedesnday, after having contractions for a couple hours my coworkers convinced me to go get checked out. It was my fourth pregnancy, my level of concern was low, I fell on my butt and I felt fine. I didn’t want to be that over dramatic pregnant women rushing in and taking resources when it wasn’t necessary. Regardless I ended up going to the hospital to be evaluated. The baby seemed good, heart rate was stable but I was having consistent contractions. I stayed overnight, which was not easy to navigate. My neighbor went to my house to stay with my other 3 children so my husband could come be with me. We didn’t plan on that either but thank goodness we had my neighbor pushing us that my husband needed to be with me. I felt that I chose to have a lot of kids and they are our responsibility, leaning on people was not something I was good at. In the morning I was still have contractions but I wasn’t dilating, the doctors decided to do an ultrasound to make sure everything was okay before letting us go home.

I received a notification from my chart which I opened immediately, not expecting anything to be wrong but eager to see. It reported that I had “polyhydramnios”, which means extra amniotic fluid surrounding the baby, and the baby had fetal pleural effusion, also known as fetal hydrothorax, which is the accumulation of fluid in the chest cavity of a developing fetus, specifically between the lungs and chest wall (can lead to hydrops with is fatal). My first reaction was this has to be wrong. I’ve had multiple ultrasounds and nothing had ever been wrong, how is this just now showing up at 31 weeks pregnant? I was freaking out, my husband told me to call the nurse in the room. I showed her my chart and she said no it’s okay, it’s probably just extra fluid around your lungs, I’ll call the doctor and have someone come talk to you…. Confused we said ok and waited for the doctor.

The doctor came in the room, pulled up a chair and took a deep breath. Wasn’t a good sign to me. She explained that what we read on Dr. google is what the ultrasound is showing and we needed to be seen at a high risk doctor asap. That was Thursday morning. Before leaving the hospital we had an appointment with the only high risk maternal fetal medicine doctor in our city, at 4pm that day.

Even though I had multiple people telling me to stay off the internet I didn’t. I spent the day researching what this was and what to expect. It lead to nothing good, a lot of fear and anxiety. But how could I not worry? Staying off the internet wouldn’t change anything so why not try to figure out what this diagnosis is.

At the doctors office their ultrasound tech started the appointment scanning the baby. Then the doctor came in and took over the ultrasound and started looking around. The first thing that he said to us “we have a sick baby here”. Oh ok…. Thanks for that. He then pulled his cell phone out and left the room. Came back in and said let’s go to my office and talk. He told us that he needed to get in contact with Riley’s children’s hospital to see if I need to go to Indianapolis to be seen, I needed a steroid shot to help babies lungs mature and to come back in 24 hours and he would have a plan.

24 hours later we went back, it started with an ultrasound again and then we went to his office to talk. This time my husband and I asked the ultrasound tech to put the sex of the baby in an envelope so we could find the sex out if we changed our mind and wanted to know. Our doctor told us we could go to Indianapolis if we want to but the baby was coming out in the next 2 weeks regardless and would honestly be lucky to make it into May on the inside. What!? My due date is in June, everything was fine 2 days ago and now you’re telling me the baby has to come out now…. Oh and I had to have a C-section because the baby would need a team of people ready to go as soon as he was out.

We told the doctor we wanted to stay in Fort Wayne and have the baby, our support system was here, not to mention our home and 4 other children. He told us he would call us that evening to let us know when the C-section would be. He had to assemble a team of people to be present when the baby is born but it would be within the next couple of days.

At this point I felt numb, no way this was happening. I’m having my baby soon??? He is safer outside than inside?? How is any of that possible. I couldn’t process any of it.

My husband and I left the doctors office and went to our church to pray and decide if we were going to open the envelope and find out the sex of the baby. We decided to open the envelope so we could pick out a name for the baby before things were too hectic. We opened an envelope and it had my ultrasound pictures and a blue bow tie in it. We cried, pulled out a notepad and started brainstorming names. After a while of going back and forth with family names we picked David Micheal… after King David and St. Micheal. We knew this baby would have a fight ahead of him and those names felt right.

5 minutes later the doctor called and said the team was assembled and my C-section would be tomorrow morning at 9am. Woah, ok. Guess I better pack…. And pack for my kids… oh my gosh, who is going to watch my kids!?… and I need to clean the house… and I have nothing ready. I’m not ready for this. This can not be happening. I’m officially spiraling.

My mom was in the hospital, so my parents were out, we didn’t have any local family that would want to take care of 3 kids the entire weekend… so I called my best friend. My husband and I were walking around target looking at premature boy clothes when she told me her and her husband would take the kids. We went home and started preparing as much as we could.

The next morning we were up at 6am, taking our 3 older kids to my friends house, and then we headed to the hospital. I was shaking. I didn’t feel well, I was coughing nonstop, but c-section was happening at 9am. Baby David was born an hour later. I was able to turn my head and look at him for a second and then they took him up to the NICU.

I was in recovery when the neonatologist told my husband and I that my baby had a condition called CDH, congenital diaphragmatic hernia. He had a hole in his diaphragm and would need surgery. I wrote about this in my post about David’s story but it was another huge shock. We had never heard of this condition and had no idea that it was a birth defect. We didn’t process it or do any research at that point, we were taking in everything that was being thrown at us and praying our baby would make it through surgery.

On Wednesday I asked the doctors for a chest x-dat before I was discharged, my cough had gotten worse. Everything came back normal… so they discharged me and told me to put a pillow over my c-section scar when I coughed. Which was constant at that point.

We went home to regroup and then headed back to the hospital, we spent the next couple days in the NICU with David. On Friday my husband was picking up our other children while I was in the NICU with David.

I was on the phone with my mom, when I had a bad coughing fit and I felt my insides rip open. I couldn’t move, I was crying I was in so much pain. I beeped the NICU nurse into the room, she got a wheelchair and took me to the ER… who then sent me back up to labor and delivery to be evaluated.

I remember laying in the bed, staring at the ceiling, “God just let me live, let them put me to sleep so I can wake up and feel better.” I was scared to try to move. The on call doctor came in and told me I was probably sore and recovering but they would order a CT scan just to make sure. Nice, real dismissive, I felt crazy. Maybe this pain is normal and I’m just over reacting.

Well CT came back, which I again pulled up on my chart before seeing the doctor… my abdomen was fine but the CT did show that I do in fact have pneumonia. They decided to re admit me to treat my pneumonia. I was upset that they wouldn’t put me back on the labor and delivery floor… I was 6 days out of my c-section. I wanted to be taken care of by nurses who dealt with that daily. But med surg floor it was.

By lunch time on Saturday they had run all the test to make sure I wasn’t contagious and told me that I could go to the NICU to be with my son. But I had to be back for my breathing treatments and medicine. Fine, I was just happy I could go to the NICU and look at my baby. I couldn’t hold him, or touch him without gloves on. He had ivs everywhere, still intubated, waiting to see how he would recover from his surgery.

My husband arrived and we got settled to spend the night next to our son. I hadn’t gone to the restroom since my c-section, if you’ve had a baby before you know the pain… I left the NICU main area to try to do that.

Well… and this is the part where it is tmi/ could be triggering. DO NOT KEEP READING IF YOU HAVE A WEAK STOMACH.

I look down and, sorry I have no other way to describe this, a pinky squishy thing is coming out of my stomach. Oh no, my scar is coming undone. I call my husband, yes there is a nurse button next to me but that wasn’t on my mind, I told him to get our NICU nurse and get to the bathroom asap.

I had to stand up to unlock the bathroom door, and when I did that my incision split open more. I had both my hands holding my insides. The nurse took one look at me, got on the phone, and said “no, her bowels are out! We need surgery now.”

There were 5-7 nurses around me now, trying to get me to sit down in the wheelchair and move my hands so they could take over. I remember them yelling at each other “hurry, get the sterile saline.” I didn’t understand at the time, but I now know if your intestines are exposed to the air they will dry out and die.

So they have me in the wheelchair, 2 nurses are holding my intestines, other nurses are spraying water on me, they look at each other and start running to the OB floor. I remember the elevator doors opening, I looked up at the ceiling and was praying that I would live through this. I can’t leave my babies…. Dear God if you take me I’m going to be so angry…. Please save me.

We got onto the OB floor and the triage nurse said “we have an open triage bed for you.” The NICU nurses with me said “she needs the OR right now.” The doctor and anesthesiologist were by my side now, my husband was behind me.. and I asked them if I was going to die. They said no but we have to go right now. My husband gave me a kiss and they ran me into the operating room.

At this point you would think I would black out, or atleast my mind would block these memories out… but it is all so vivid still to this day. I remeber everything, the fear on everyone’s faces. The operating room was chaos.

I was in wheelchair…. Which nurses holding my insides in…. And now they were trying to figure out how to get me into the operating table. There were 4 nurses around me, and they kept looking at each other, they had no idea how to proceed. The anesthesiologist was on my left going down her list of questions, while gowning up. Insane right, she’s asking me my allergies, when the last time I ate was, while I’m watching her tie her blue scrubs together. I’m also begging them at the point to put me to sleep. Good thing about me having pneumonia is I already had an IV in, bad thing… they had to intubate me while I had pneumonia.

Finally the doctor comes to my side, looks at the nurses and says “it doesn’t matter just get her on the table” and HE picks me up by himself. This guy is maybe 5’8 160 lbs… it was crazy. Looking back it really feels like I am watching this scene from greys anatomy.

Next thing I know I’m trying to take a breathe in the recovery room…. When they extubated me I couldn’t breath. They ended up putting me on oxygen for 24 hours. I was so doped up and crying to the nurse not to put me back on the med surg floor. At this point I felt like no one was listening to me, I had a chest xray that showed nothing… then a ct that showed no abdominal issues but pneumonia and I just came out of emergency surgery because I completely ripped open. In fact I wanted to leave the hospital, but my baby was in their NICU. I kept sobbing to the recovery nurse “why can’t you put me back on the labor and delivery floor.” She went and got the head nurse and she decided to put me in the ICU….. not because I need intensive physical care but intensive emotional care? Uhm ok… I guess I’ll take it.

I started my recovery over again… now being rounded on by the pulmonologist and the OB doctors. All I wanted was to go be in the NICU with my baby, but now I was terrified to move. You know they encourage you to walk after your c-sections… I refused. I’ll move when I’m ready. I spent another week ish in the hospital. My mental state was in the worse state I’ve ever been in. I was still trying to pump so my son could eventually have breastmilk. That was also defeating. I was pumping this milk and my son couldn’t even eat it… would he ever eat it? Will he make it? Will I make it?

I had lost my faith…