An Unexpected Delivery, Part 3 March 12, 2013

Baby Persnickety was born at 10:26am.  He was taken to the NICU so they could monitor him and was in my room that evening.  I remember being in shock when they called to my room and told me he weighed 4lb 2oz and was 17 1/2 inches.  I had never held, nor even seen, a baby that tiny.  I was overwhelmed.  As I said, he spent one whole day with me. Nursing was a challenge so I the nurse told me that I would have to supplement with formula. On our second day he developed jaundice. Because he was so small he wound up back in NICU after losing almost 10% of his body weight trying to stay warm and eat. He was a whole 3lb 120z and getting lethargic.  He wasn’t getting enough calories I had to go to pumping breastmilk to add to the high calorie formula.  I felt so useless and helpless.  Mr. Persnickety asked if I needed a sedative.  The big thing this meant is that I would be leaving the hospital without my newborn baby.  Those that have endured this, my heart is with you and you understand.  This was almost traumatic for me.  I was in the NICU every moment I could be even though my legs were still swelling and my blood pressure was borderline. Baby Persnickety did have a feeding tube for all of 24 hours and after the increase in calories the jaundice started to leave.  He was tested for everything and was found perfectly healthy.  He just needed to gain weight.  Once his bilirubin levels got into a more normal range he woke up before it was time to eat which is exceptional for his gestational age.  He started off taking 15mL of formula. That is 1/2oz!!  He spent exactly 1 week in NICU when they released him. I was ecstatic!   I couldn’t believe it.  We had seen a few babies that had been there for a while and the parents had no clue when they would bring them home.  I will share with you that to get my baby discharged I had to view an infant CPR video, prepare his feedings, give him a bath and spend one night in the hospital without a nurse checking on me.  I wish those had been the rules when I had my first child!  I was so relieved to bring him home.  He was so tiny and perfect.  Of course we were cautioned to keep him away from crowds and germs until he gained more weight, but I just knew if I could get him home everything would be fine.

Now Baby Persnickety is 10 months old and perfectly beautiful.  He has had no physical delays ( he started crawling just before 7 months).  He has also been the picture of perfect health.  Knock on wood.  No colds, ear infections,etc.  No, he has never been to daycare of any kind, but he has been exposed to lots of loving girls at the ballet and two active siblings.

Why did I take 3 posts to tell you about my 3rd pregnancy?  Why was it so special or am I just a bragging Mama?  Yes, I am a proud Mama, and count my blessings everyday. The main reason I had in writing about my experience is because I thought maybe there is someone else out there like I was who is going through a similar experience.  I wanted to present a success story because there are so many sad stories out there.  Baby Persnickety was the biggest reason I decided to start this blog and commit myself and my family to a cleaner, greener lifestyle and to see the difference that it would make.  I think because of the small changes I have made to clean up our lives and get away from a lot of the chemicals and toxic elements this is the reason that my baby is a healthy preemie success story. If this inspires some to adopt a cleaner lifestyle, that’s great.  If it soothes a worried new mom whose dealing with pre-eclampsia or a preemie in NICU even better.  I also wanted to share that sometimes medical intervention is a good thing and that listening to your body is VERY important.  My doctor said that I probably averted a horrible situation by just having my blood pressure checked.  Often times we ignore those little feelings that are so very important.  I felt badly because I wanted to use a midwife, but in the end, because of pre-eclampsia, I would have been in the hospital in the same situation.  I no longer feel guilty.  I felt guilty for having to use formula supplements, but they helped my baby gain weight so that I could nurse him and he could be healthy.  We must accept that life throws curveballs.  It’s how we deal with them that matters most.  Do we choose to feel guilty or do we accept it and move on?  I would have loved to have the perfectly natural pregnancy and solely breastfed my son for 12 months, but that wasn’t in the cards.  Instead I have a wonderfully healthy baby that knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that his mommy will do what is best for him and that is what truly matters!

An Unexpected Delivery, Part 2 March 5, 2013

Let me just interject that with the Persnickety Adventurer (my middle son) I was a regular in labor and delivery because I had awful Braxton Hicks so I was determined not to do that.  I said this time I was not going to labor and delivery until I knew without a doubt that I was in labor.  The labor and delivery nurses hooked me up to the monitors (baby was doing great!) and drew blood.  Reassuring me the whole time that everything was fine and I could even take blood pressure medicine to keep it down if need be.  After the blood work came back the doctor came in to check on me and told me that my  blood pressure was increasing and they were going to keep me for more observation and there was a good chance that I would have the baby early, but she thought she could buy me another week because the baby didn’t seem distressed, but she was ordering a specialist to come in and do some sort of super duper ultrasound to check on him.  Ten minutes later my doctor comes in and says the specialist looked at my labs and says that the baby will be in jeopardy soon and he is safer out than inside me.  I was terrified.  I had read all the information on all kinds of different labor scenarios, but not anything on premature babies.  I was overwhelmed to say the least.  So many things were going through my mind at that time visions of sick babies and emergency C-sections being the biggest ones.  My doctor was great at explaining that they were going to give me IV magnesium to keep me from having a seizure (eclampsia) and some medicine to encourage my body to begin the labor process.  They were going to give me 48 hours to have him naturally and then they would have to take the baby via C-section.   The next 24 hours were a blur.  The magnesium is not a fun drug.  I had these great plans for how I wanted to labor (mostly at home) and walking the halls and moving to ease discomfort.  Magnesium squashed them all. You are confined to the bed.  I wasn’t going to do a lot of pain meds or anything like that (although I was open to an epidural when the time came), but I was so anxious and uncomfortable I didn’t put up a fight when they asked me.  I just wanted to have a healthy baby. At 8am the next morning the doctor came by and declared we were having a baby.  Despite the magnesium IV, which is also used to slow labor, everything had gone well over night, my water was broken, and the fun part began.  I was able to roll on my side to help with labor pains, but that was about it.  I remember the nurse kept telling me not to push.  The anesthesiologist came in and gave me the epidural and before it had time to take effect Baby Persnickety was there on my stomach crying.  The NICU nurses were onsite and took him pretty quickly to make sure he was okay.  I was just relieved to hear him cry,  I knew that was a good sign. Up next, how well did Baby Persnickety do being 5 almost 6 weeks early and having such a low birthweight?

An Unexpected Delivery, Part 1

I know I mentioned in my cloth diaper post that we brought home Baby Persnickety weighing a whopping 4lb 2oz. Some of you may be wondering how that could be.  I want to share with you how I believe my return to a more natural lifestyle and learning to listen to my body averted disaster.  Baby Persnickety is what some people call a “bonus baby” or a surprise, a baby that you didn’t think you would have, but God blessed you with.  Because of that I wanted to have “the perfect pregnancy”.  I wanted to do all those things that I intended to do with the other 2, but couldn’t for various reasons.  From the get go I was exhausted, of course, I was older and busier now. I didn’t even get that 2nd trimester energy that one usually gets. I started swelling some around month 6, but not nearly as bad as I had with my 2nd pregnancy. I was a picture of perfect health gaining exactly the right amount of weight and measurements. While I had quite a few Braxton-Hicks contractions, everything was progressing very normally. My hands started swelling at around 28 weeks, but still very normal. My 34 week check up was on a Thursday. I had been having more contractions, but they were still false. That Saturday I felt strange, but my time was coming and there were still preparations.  So I took note of my symptoms and pressed on.  That evening I was so exhausted.  Sunday I spent resting.  Sunday afternoon I noticed that I had a dull nagging headache and my eyes looked puffy. Not real good, but could still be OK.  I had just been to the doctor.  Mr. Persnickety was a little concerned and I promised that I would call the doctor if I wasn’t better on Monday.  Monday morning my eyes were still puffy and my head still had that dull ache, so I made good on my promise and called the doctor.  The nurse suggested that I get a blood pressure reading at the drugstore.  Well, we do live outside of town so I called my dad who lives close by and has one of those home blood pressure monitors. I took it twice over a period of 2 hours and the numbers weren’t very good and they were increasing so the nurse suggested I come in.  My dad was a good sport and volunteered to drive me he must have seen something I didn’t because I was going to drive myself.  We get to the doctor’s office and the nurse takes my blood pressure, looks at it and arches her eyebrow and then takes it again.  My bottom number was like 100.  She walks out and immediately grabs the doctor who of course sent me to labor and delivery for a little monitoring.  Again my dad was a good sport and drove me and then I called Mr. Persnickety.  I was getting a little concerned at this point, but my doctor was great at reassuring me that baby was good and  it was a preventive measure. Read on to see the adventure that ensued once I got to labor and delivery.