Birthday - 9/3/07

This post was originally posted on myspace on 9/3/2007. I have transferred it over here for those of you that were not able to view it there. This is where the journey begins...

I hate pumping. Just for the record, I want that out there. I hate it.

I've been meaning to post this for a while. I tried to post it last week, but myspace glitched and ate my blog, and I really didn't have the energy to type it all out again. But, I have the time for right now, so I figured I would give it another shot. So, make yourself comfortable, we have a lot of ground to cover. If you make it all the way through, congratulations and thanks for reading.

Last week, I checked into the hospital on Monday, August 27 at 5:00pm to be induced at 37 weeks because I was an insulin dependent mother. At 6:00pm, I began a cocktail of labor inducing drugs that appeared to have no effect whatsoever. By 1:30pm on Tuesday, August 28, I still had not made any progress and I will admit that I was begging for a c-section. While my OB was relaying the instructions to watch me for the next 2 hours and if I still had not made progress, then we would go in, my water broke on its own. And, wouldn't you know, all of my cares were forgotten. :)

By 7:30pm, I still had not made any significant progress, and life was sucking pretty hard. But, around 8:30, I began to dilate significantly and we became hopeful. By 11pm my OB wanted to do a push test that didn't go well, so she was going to let me sit for an hour to see if we could get Everett to come a little further down on his own, but by 11:30, I couldn't stand it anymore, so push time began. (By the way, did I mention that I received an epidural at 1pm, and that it had been refilled a few times throughout the day, and then it failed around 11:15? So, unexpected natural childbirth...I told you, didn't I?)

Everett Alexander was born at 12:13am on Wednesday, August 29, 2007, weighing in at 6lb 0.3oz, 19 3/4" long, looking like a little sausage. :)

And now the real fun begins.

Because of my failed epidural, my OB gave me a hefty dose of Demerol to ease the pain of her manually removing my placenta and doing all of that other housekeeping stuff. So, this part begins to get a bit hazy, and for that I am sad.

NICU was called in as Everett was coming out. Since I was insulin dependent, they needed to see him asap to make sure his sugars were okay. While they were checking him out, they noticed some abnormalities that they informed me of in the delivery room. They wrapped him up like a little burrito and I got to hold him for about 0.5 seconds.

Then they rushed him off to the NICU at Trinity.

After that, I promptly passed out for a little over an hour while Dylan went with him to the NICU.

Everett was diagnosed with VACTERL association and was transported at 3am to the NICU at Medical City.

By 7am he was in surgery.

VACTERL is an association of birth defects that affect different areas of the body. Each letter stands for a particular part of the body that is affected. We have been extremely fortunate. Everett has avoided some of the more serious parts of the associations, and while we originally thought he only filled the ATE requirement, they are now adding the C and the L, but in very minor degrees only.

V - Vertebrae -- not an issue for us

A - Anus - Everett has an imperforated anus and has had surgery to reroute his bowels to a colostomy bag. We will have to revisit this area for surgery when he is between 3-9 months old depending on his size, and then 6 weeks after his surgery is complete, the colostomy bag will be removed. What this means is that we get a reprieve from poopy diapers for a while. :)

C - Cardiac - originally, we thought we had bypassed this one, but it is looking like we have not. However, the complications at this point are minimal. There is a vein/artery that all babies are born with that bypasses the lungs while the baby is in utero. This vein/artery is supposed to disappear on its own once the baby is born, but it appears that Everett's has not. We will know more about this tomorrow (Tuesday) when they will do another echo cardiogram to check the progress. There is a possibility that he will have to have heart surgery next week or sometime in the future dependent upon the result.

T - Trachea - Everett's trachea was routed into his stomach. This was repaired during the surgery on 8/29 and all is looking well.

E - Esophagus - Everett's esophagus just stopped. It went down about 10cm and then hit a dead end. This was also repaired during the surgery on 8/29 and all is looking well.

R - Renal - not an issue for us

L - Limb - we originally thought we had bypassed this one as well, but it appears that his right thumb has digitized. What this means is that the joint is a bit low and his right thumb resembles more of a finger than a thumb. This should not interfere with functionality, and may correct itself with time.

So, the baby layaway program has begun. Everett will be in the NICU for at least 3 weeks. But, his prognosis is looking good. Every hour they take another tube away or lessen his medications because he is progressing so well.

On September 1, 2007, Everett woke up...and showed us his beautiful eyes. :)

They started feeding him through his feeding tube on Friday and have been steadily upping the amount at every feeding. They are making it very hard for me to keep up, so he is on a steady diet of my breast milk with some formula to fill in the gaps. Every time I think I am ahead of the game, they increase his feeding. :) But, because he is doing so well, yesterday (Sunday) they stopped his lipids and IV fluids.

They are removing his ventilator this morning, and removing his arterial line this afternoon. Tomorrow is the echo. Then tomorrow or Wednesday, they will be doing a contrast study to see how he is healing. If all looks well, then they will remove his chest tube, and a week after his birth, I will get to hold my son.

I cannot express to you how amazing Everett is doing. Every day he changes and becomes more alert. While they are still giving him pain medication as needed, he is no longer under constant sedation. He is beginning to look around and he is trying to cry. Which, I have to admit, I am a horrible mother, because I find myself laughing at him when he tries to cry. Don't get me wrong, I feel bad for him, but with the ventilator in, he can't make noise, so he gets himself all worked up and his mouth is all open for a full blown tantrum, but no sound comes out. It is incredibly adorable, and I figure I should enjoy the lack of sound while I can...because the noisemaker begins today. :)

Anyhow, if you made it this far, congratulations. This is probably more than I should be sharing online, but I know that if I were to see you in person, I would try to explain this, and it just makes more sense this way.

Thank you to everyone that has sent their prayers and well wishes. I will try to update here more often. They have Internet in the lobby of the NICU, so every once in a while I will try to pop out and update.

xoxo

Margot