It’s taken me almost six months to finally muster up the courage to re-live Pierce’s birth story. I think I’m finally ready, emotionally, to share his amazing journey so far. From a planned c-section, to a scary NICU stay, flight for life ride and a roller coaster first month of life we’ve been though a lot in six months.
Birth Story and Delivery Day:
Pierce’s birth was a planned c-section at 37 weeks. It was planned for 37 weeks for my health and to ensure he was in turn safe. See, my last baby Jon, was a big boy at birth. Almost 9 1/2 pounds at 39 weeks gestation. He was stuck in a c-section and after using a vacuum, making larger incisions including a T on my belly and uterus and literally having nurses press down on my belly to wedge him out. After about 45 min he was delivered and I was beat up! It took me 2 weeks to be able to walk normal after his birth due to the trauma my body went though. Thanks to the T on my uterus, the Doctors that oversaw my pregnancy for Pierce didn’t want him getting “too big” which put my body at risk for uterine rupture. Hence the 37 week delivery.
On delivery day I woke up feeling ready….but also not feeling sure of my day. For some reason I had a bad feeling in the back of my mind. I chucked it up to fear of the impending delivery and tried to think positive. For weeks though, I just didn’t feel right. Maybe it was mother’s intuition, maybe it was fear, either way I was right and my day turned out to be the beginning of the scariest week of my life.
I’ve been though a lot of loss in my life. I’ve experienced trying times losing loved ones and most recently my father. But nothing can compare or prepare you for the risk of possibly losing your own child. That’s where I was.
C-sections are never easy, I don’t care what anyone says. After having 3 now, I feel I can attest to the sheer terror you feel when your body is opened up and you’re awake listening to it all. And of course for me, being a nurse, I stare at the monitors and watch for cue’s that everything is going status quo. It’s not how I’d chose to have a child if I had choice. Nonetheless it’s how I had all my babies.
The delivery went as expected, aside for me being worried that something was wrong or would go wrong. A soon as Pierce was taken from my body, I began to panic because he didn’t cry. What felt like a lifetime later he let out a faint tiny cry. Not what I wanted to hear but hey….at least he cried! His APGAR’s were good, 8, 9, 9. Healthy! Or so I thought. Then as I laid on the operating table being pulled and pushed against while the Dr’s finished up my procedure….waiting to hold my baby. After what felt like forever, they finally brought him over with an oxygen mask blowing oxygen above him. He wasn’t breathing good. His lungs weren’t ready, he wasn’t ready.
The NICU:
Next they took Pierce, and my husband followed, to the NICU. I saw him for a quick second, heard them yell out his birth weight and then everything gets kind of fuzzy. I’m pretty sure the anesthesiologist gave me something to help calm me down, because like most mom’s would do, I was crying and freaking on the table. My baby wasn’t breathing, I was all alone in the OR, scared.
I remember being in recovery and crying that I didn’t have my baby with me. I remember shaking, coming off all the drugs from the surgery. I remember crying…a lot.
Finally they let me go into the NICU to see him and hold him. He was under an oxygen tent now. He wasn’t getting better like they had hoped. It had been about an hour by now. In the NICU I was able to hold him for about five minutes where I desperately tried to get him to nurse/breastfeed. All he did was grunt (which is a symptom and sign of breathing concerns in a newborn). I knew it was bad…I just didn’t know how bad it was about to get.
This was the last time for 5 days that I was able to hold my baby. He stayed in the NICU alone, with amazing nurses and doctors but no mommy and not breathing normal. I was being forced to go to my room to rest from the c-section. That didn’t last long and I spent the next day going between the NICU and my room. There’s something so very wrong with putting a mom on one floor and her newborn baby on another. Looking at that empty bassinet in my room, hearing all the other babies crying between the walls was torture and still heart wrenching to think about. I just wanted my baby. I just wanted to nurse him in my arms and listen to him breath.
Back to the NICU.
The next 24 hours were incredibly hard. Pierce was getting worse. He went for being on a oxygen hood, to a nasal cannula, to a CPap machine and to finally being put a vent. (i.e. more and more breathing support and life support). He was given artificial surfactant to help his lungs mature, twice. It didn’t help. I was panicking. My baby was on life support.
PPHN
On day 2, around 2am in the morning the phone rang in my hospital room, I had just fallen into a medicated sleep. It was the NICU nurse practitioner telling us that they were going to transport my baby via Flight for life. He was “failing” as she said. He had developed Pulmonary Hypertension in a newborn (PPHN). Google it…it’s incredibly scary. The next 5 hours were a blur. I remember being hysterical, I remember pleading with God to save my baby. I remember praying with the hospital Chaplin….as I watched the NICU team ambu bag my baby to breath for him. Once the flight for life team arrived he was taken away on the helicopter to a level 4 NICU near downtown Denver. I was transported on an ambulance since I was less then 24 hours post-op. Initially the hospital said they wouldn’t transfer me. Then I asked to get the paperwork to sign myself out against medial advice. Within a few minutes my room was packed up and I was en route to the new hospital.
St. Joseph Hospital and the NICU
The ambulance ride was horrible. I was in a foggy haze that I now realize was a coping mechanism my body was doing. I don’t recall a ton of it…and I wasn’t asleep. I was alone, 1 day after major abdominal surgery, and I just watched my newborn baby get ambu bagged and taken away on a helicopter in the middle of the night. His body was still…I didn’t know what was going to happen.
All I could think about was his little body, laying so still as they worked on him. He was too sick to cry, too sick to move.. but he was hanging on.
When I arrived to St. Joseph’s hospital I was taken to my room. My husband and mother-in-law were already there. They had seen the baby and he was already more stable on the new gas the level 4 NICU had. (This gas, nitrus oxide helps the blood vessels in the lungs to begin opening back up).
The new few days were some of the most intense days of my life.
I went from my new hospital room to the NICU every chance I had. Any procedure Pierce had done, I was there holding his hand, pumping milk or singing to him in the background. I was desperate to do ANYTHING to help my baby know I was there, I was fighting with him and I wasn’t going to leave his side.
Being in the NICU is never easy, but add two young siblings that are at home with Grandparents into the mix, and you’re talking one incredibly stressful experience. My other babies (ages 6 and 4) were missing mom, were waiting to see their new brother and were scared. I cried with them many times in the hospital, because I saw how their hearts were hurting too.
Recovery
On day 4 of being in the new NICU, Pierce had a huge day. Up until this time he was on a lot of support. A vent, a oscillator for more breathing support. A feeding tube (NG tube), a PICC line, as well as an IV coming off the top of his head. (IV’s in the scalp are common in infants). He was also on bili lights for jaundice and a continuous pulse ox monitor. Lastly, was on a fentanyl drip to keep him mildly sedated due to all the breathing tube down his throat.
But on day 4, he began to make huge strides. His oscillator was turned off the day before. He was on a vent that provided less support and he was starting to wake up. All nurses in the NICU are amazing, but that day he had an nurse that was ready to advocate and work for him! She saw how he was struggling with the tubes in his mouth. He was vomiting from gagging non-stop. He was also breathing over the vent. She saw all the signs that he was ready to come off the vent.
So early that morning, after another vomiting episode, she pulled out his NG tube and grabbed the Dr. She gave permission to remove him from the vent and to put him on a cpap machine again. I have the moment it happened recorded on my phone. It still makes me cry (it probably always will). It’s was the first time I really heard my babies voice, the first time in 5 days that I could breath.
Over the next few days I didn’t put Pierce down. I slept in a chair, holding him skin to skin. I took breaks to eat, but ran right back to the room. I wasn’t able to hold him for 5 days…I wasn’t going to put him down now!
Every day we saw amazing improvements from Pierce. To this day, I still attribute it to all our skin to skin contact and hands on touch. Our human touch heals….and this was a testament to it!
On the day of his NICU arrival the neonatologist said to expect a 3-4 week NICU stay. Little did they know that my boy was one strong cookie.
On day 7 the doctors doing rounds mentioned “he’s doing so well….we might be able to go home tomorrow!” This was such amazing news and such a surprise. We were expecting another week or so in the hospital.
On that Monday morning, we were given the green light to go home! (On oxygen of course). After failing his carseat test, but eating like a champ we were discharged from the NICU!!
Here he is on the way home:
Pierce kept his oxygen for 3 months at home…which was a struggle all it’s own. Going from 2-3 isn’t hard…it was the oxygen that was hard!
This summer we had some amazing strides and after going though 4 night tests to get his off oxygen, he finally was ready in July. If we lived at sea level it would’ve been off sooner, but thanks to our altitude (around 6,000 feet where I live) it took his lungs a little longer.
Next week he turns six months and this weekend we’re baptizing him. Two huge milestones that we’re all looking forward to celebrating!
Not a day goes by that I’m not eternally grateful for my miracle boy and all the care that each NICU team put into him. To any families with a NICU baby, never give up hope! Theses babies are strong, and there are some amazing healthcare providers in our hospitals that work with them! <3