We Are The A-Team

I find it ironic that I am typing this on the day that we had originally scheduled to be Abner’s birthday. He would have been born at 39 weeks 5 days…but you all know that isn’t what God had planned.

I had gone to a routine OB appointment at 34 weeks complaining of contractions and menstrual-like cramps. My doc took extreme interest and overall decided that going to 39 weeks and 5 days was NOT an option. He wanted to bump up surgery and get Abner out soon. His main concern was rupture of my uterus. After 3 previous C-sections, the lower segment had a thinning wall (only 1-2 mm thick) and any consistent contractions could easily be catastrophic for us both. So, I had an amniocentesis scheduled for 10/23 and Abner’s birth was scheduled for 10/27.

Fast forward…

Here comes delivery day. I was excited and scared. I really don’t like surgery. I was terrified of feeling ill like I did with Abilene’s birth. I just wanted to get Abner here safe and sound and pray that I started to feel better too (I do not do pregnancy well anymore). We get to the hospital around noon and get checked in. I start getting all my pre-surgery stuff done (IV, antibiotics, fetal monitor, etc…). Once all that was done, I walk on down to the OR (so weird to WALK into my surgery room). I get my spinal block and begin to feel super numb really fast. My blood pressure unfortunately dropped rather quickly too. I got chilled and SUPER sleepy. Next thing I know, I warn Kevin (anesthesiologist) that I was about to vomit. Thankfully, he was prepared. I had warned him that this sort of thing happened with my last delivery. He saw my BP top number hit 80 and was already giving me countermeasures to raise it while grabbing a pan for me to vomit in. Now let me just tell you something, it is NOT remotely easy to vomit while you can feel NOTHING from your chest down. I mean I have ZERO control. I can barely feel my finger tips. All I can do is turn my head and out comes the nasty antacid they force me to take before surgery. Ironic really. Anyway, as soon as my blood pressure started to rise, I felt SOOOO much better!!! Surgery goes beautifully without a hitch and at 2:29pm I hear the sweetest sound in the entire world!! My baby boy is crying!!! He sounded wonderful! I was so fearful since he was technically preterm at 37 weeks 3 days. I was very worried about his lungs. But he sounded amazing! I get a quick glimpse and off he is whisked with Daddy to get cleaned up. I am thanking God for the wonderful child He blessed us with and I hear chatter of Aaron talking to Abner and I am just so excited to hold him!

Then…

After 4.5 minutes of life, Abner aspirated amniotic fluid. Due to his lungs being borderline ready for life outside of the womb anyway, this sent his body into shock and he all but died on that table. He went silent. He stopped breathing. He stopped moving. His color left him. This is called secondary apnea. Our son’s heart beat was the ONLY thing that was still classifying him as alive.

I remember thinking that the room was quiet. I remember thinking…is Abner ok? Why isn’t he crying? I turn my head to look in his direction and I see all the staff huddled around Abner (intentionally blocking my view). I can feel the tension in the room. I sense that something is deeply wrong. Then I see Aaron’s eyes. He is wearing a mask, cap and gown…so all I can see are his eyes but in that flash, I knew something was horribly wrong. There was a break in the staff surrounding Abner and I see his completely lifeless body being jostled by one of the nurses. Instantly tears well into my eyes and the most fervent prayer I have ever prayed went up at that moment. I prayed for God to spare Abner’s life. Please give him back to me. Tears are rolling down my face and Kevin (the anesthesiologist) was so sweet and was dabbing them away for me. My OB leaned over the “curtain” and whispered softly to me “it will be ok. He is in good hands.” I really knew very little of severity of the situation until we were home and I was watching the birth video. Abner was dying on that table. He did not receive oxygen for nearly 3.5 minutes. They ended up having to “bag” our son to breathe again. Basically that is CPR for newborns with a “bag” to breathe for them. Thankfully he responded well to that and as the NICU trauma team arrived he was breathing and screaming again. BEST SOUND EVER!!! I prayed so many thank you’s to God for sparing our son’s life.

Abner did start breathing again but he was like a victim of a near drowning. His lungs were still very wet and needed oxygen support but he needed it at a very high flow rate to force the air sacs to be constantly open for the exchange of O2 and CO2. The NICU team came to me and said they were taking Abner from the OR to the NICU for a 4-hour observation. Unfortunately, by the time I made it out of surgery and back to my room for recovery, I was notified that Abner had been officially admitted due to his condition. His lungs needed assistance and they were doing everything they could to help him out. I was crushed. I was thankful my son was alive but crushed he was in the NICU and I couldn’t see him or hold him. Aaron had been with Abner this whole time as they were getting him stabilized in the NICU. Aaron knew what I needed most. He had my mom come up to the hospital with our other kiddos even though they wouldn’t get to see Abner. I was SOOO happy to see my other babies and hold them and squeeze their hands and see their sweet smiling faces. I needed it so much. I was so sad when they left.

I did have a WONDERFUL nurse that evening (Kedra) who was my advocate and convinced the night NICU nurse to let me hold Abner for a short time (skin to skin). It was so difficult to see my newborn son with all the tubes, wires and IV stuck to him. I just wanted to scoop him up and hold him and let him know his mommy was right there with him. I did get to hold him for about 20 minutes and then they put him back in his little warmer. I went back to my room…alone. It was probably the loneliest night I can remember. But I was strong with the strength from Christ. I leaned on Him and focused on recovering from surgery and got myself on track to get up to the NICU as often as possible.

We spent 6 long days in the hospital. I know that doesn’t sound like a really long time but when you are kept from your newborn son AND the other family members…it makes for VERY LONG DAYS AND NIGHTS. I was discharged on Thursday and moved to a room in the NICU. That was hard as the kids couldn’t come back to my room to visit. We had to have our visits out in the waiting area. But we did it and I treasured seeing them every single day. I cried every time they left too. But we made it. Abner kept getting stronger and stronger. His heart seemed to be fine. He was NOT Coombs positive (less fight with bilirubin issues). But his lungs just needed time to “dry out” and he needed to get stronger. By 48 hours of age, they finally let me nurse him. He had been given NOTHING but IV fluids up to this point but he really wasn’t complaining either. He was very tired. I don’t know how else to put it. He wouldn’t get fussy. He just slept. Probably acted much like he would in utero. He was still recovering from his ordeal. But day by day, he showed massive improvements. We were a very short stay for the NICU. The average stay for an infant in the NICU is 1 month. My jaw hit the floor. I have NO idea how we would have handled that! Usually they keep most pre-term babies until their original due date…which means Abner wouldn’t have been released until 11/14/14. YIKES!

Our homecoming was the BEST!!! I had gotten word on Saturday that we would most likely be sent home on Sunday as long as Abner did well during Saturday night. He did pretty good. He had a big day on Saturday. He got his Hep B vaccine and was circumcised. He ran a small fever but thankfully they didn’t revoke our release! My family came running as soon as we were given the green light to go home! We got some adorable videos of our kids all meeting Abner for the first time and it was so precious. Our nurse, who walked us out, thought the homecoming was pretty precious. She even commented on how all of the kids looked alike!

Anyway…

Abner was born on 10/27 at 2:29 pm weighing 8 pounds 3 ounces and he was 20 inches long. His head measured 14.5 inches in circumference. He was a big baby for his age!! Everyone says had he gone full term he would have been well over 10 pounds. Abner is the sweetest thing. He loves his family. He is starting to act like a normal newborn. He nurses about every 3 hours and does great. He hangs out with us throughout the day (sleeps through anything) but does like to be held a bunch during the night after feeds (stinker).

Today we had an echo done on his heart (which showed a tiny ASD and mild peripheral branch pulmonary stenosis) and it was clear with normal variants. His new chest x-ray from today was also clear and completely normal. On Tuesday, he weighed 8# 5 oz which exceeds his birth weight!! YAY!!! Other than the nurse noting his tachypnic episode on Tuesday, he is doing awesome! We shall see what Pulmonary wants to do…but I think Abner is still just learning to breathe normally. He is intermittently tachypnic. Nothing major in my book especially since he is becoming more and more like a regular newborn!

Aaron and I have declared to Abner that his “drama” cup has been filled for the REST OF HIS LIFE. He is not allowed to have any more drama in his life PERIOD. He just wanted to out do all of his siblings and make this final birth one for the record books. I most certainly could have done without all the drama! From start to finish this was tough. God has shown me so much grace through all of this and I am just so glad that we are fine. I am sad that we won’t be having any more children but the risks do NOT outweigh the benefits at this point. There are other options if we REALLY feel we need more kids.

Anyway, on to pictures!!!