Sherri81
Mom to Greg and Angel Bab
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I know there is a forum for this, technically. But there have been so many people following this pregnancy, I wasn't really sure where to post for everyone to see. So I'll do it here.
Finally, we have a happy outcome! After 8 pregnancies, and 2 micro preemie births, with one resulting in Greg, and one resulting in the death of my daughter Devon, I finally went pretty damn close to term!
Colby Grayson was born 13 days ago, on June 21st at 2:17AM. He was 36 weeks, 1 day gestation. And already, I am broody again!
I'll try to make this brief.
On Friday, June something or other, I went in for my thrice weekly NST. They were extremely busy there and so no one was really paying much attention to my results. I could see the contraction monitor hadn't been set up properly, as it was reading 0 consistently despite me having contractions every few minutes. I also noted that his heartrate was dipping to the low 90's when I was having contractions. The nurse, of course, refused to believe I was having contractions as the monitor was registering 0. I told the Dr when she came in that there had been some bleeding the prior evening as well. She wasn't too worried, but had just heard that I was no longer a candidate for any sort of anesthetic up north, as no one had mentioned my heart function had decreased by over 10% in the prior month.
I don't know what the implications between anesthetic and reduced heart function was, but I only knew that I was being told I should probably get on a flight out to Vancouver that night, in case something happened.
I didn't really listen to this Dr as I thought it was pretty crappy of her to wipe her hands of me at the last minute, and tell me to hop on a plane at almost 36 weeks pregnant. So I decided to give my OB a call. I explained about the bleeding, as well as the cotractions, and the reduction in fetal movement, and she asked me to drive down to see her.
I drove down to see her with the cheif complaints of reduced fetal movement and bleeding. She did a bio-physical profile. I failed. A bio-physical profile is a points system based out of 10. 2 points are given for a good NST strip, 2 are given for adequate fluid levels, 2 are given for movement on ultrasound (flexion and tone, so I believe you get 4 points altogether there), and 2 are given if the baby is making breathing motions on the ultrasound. The will run the ultrasound for 30 minutes if neccessary. I failed. It took 28 minutes to notice movement, or breathing motions, and my fluid levels had dropped from 10.42cm on Wednesday, to 5cm on the Friday. My water had NOT broken.
She decided to redo the test in the morning. So I stayed in hospital overnight with the monitor on constantly to make sure he wasn't in distress. The next morning, she found that my fluid level had dropped another cm, and this time it took 26 minutes to notice movement or breathing motions. She told me she was calling an anesthetist in to do an assessment on me, and if he approved, then she would do the c-section on June 18, at 35+5 I believe.
The anesthetist came in and assessed me. Said he was confident he could anesthetise me. Decided he wanted to see copies of all of my echoes and ECGs etc. Came back 2 hours later and said he refused to do it as the risk for complications to me, were too high, and the only center that should do it, was one from a bigger hospital. So my OB and the anesthetist did the call to Bedline and found a spot for me at St Paul's hospital in Vancouver. The plan was that they would perform a repeat Echo as soon as I got there, to see if my heart function had dropped any lower, and then to perform the c-section that day. My OB had said I had no cervix left, and that the only thing keeping him in was the Sharodkur cerclage, and that was under stress. She believed labour was imminent, and to preserve my cervical integrity, delivery had to be that day.
I was flown out on the air ambulance 2 hours later. I arrived, was assessed by the OB on call, and she said I wasn't in labour, and there was nothing to worry about. I wasn't going to get the echo until Monday, and they would do an ultrasound to check fluid levels then as well. She said I was to just wait it out in the hospital, and if everything was okay on Monday, June 20, I could drive the 8 hours north to go home, to proceed with the scheduled section on June 27.
So we stuck around, not knowing what was happening really. Finally, on Monday, the OB on call did an internal check and realized that my cervix was dilated and effaced, and that the stitch was pulling. She ordered the Echo and ultrasound emergently. The Echo turned out alright, from what I gather, but then again, no one had told me the results of the the other Echo. The ultrasound showed I had just over 2cm of fluid, and that was now in the danger zone for fluid levels. Since I wasn't leaking, it was assumed that the placenta was not working efficiently anymore.
The OB decided it was my call, and that we could either stay on monitors all day, every day, for another 48 hours or so, just to make sure he was safe, or she could put me on the OR list for that day. We decided to go on the OR list. We were told it could be anytime, but more than likely 3PM ish. Enter the longest wait of my life. We were bumped time after time. Emergency c-sections, (what was I??), apendectomy, and finally, at 10PM that night, we were told someone had come in with their arm ripped off and they were doing surgery to reattach it, plus the apendectomy was still waiting, as was another c-section. After not eating or drinking all day, without an IV in, I was getting some pissed off, and I ripped off my heart monitor and told my husband I wanted to go home. Enter the worst case of Drs and nurses ever.
They started bitching at me telling me I was being nasty etc etc... I'm sorry, but I was pregnant, hormonal, had been told not to eat or drink basically since Friday, had been told different stories about whether or not I was in labour by every Dr I'd seen, and I'd been bumped from the surgery list for hours. I think I had a right to get angry. They could have been a little more understanding!! But whatever. They said my options were to eat and drink, and get taken off the list for surgery until Tuesday afternoon, or to suck it up, and whenever they could get me in, they'd do it. I decided to suck it up and stay on the list, as I could see the exact same thing happening the next day.
So finally, at 2:00am, they came to roll me into surgery. NOT what I was expecting, lol. In fact, I told them this was not what they had shown on tv. I did the spinal, which was I was told previously I couldn't do because of the heparin and aspirin I had been on throughout the pregnancy. So I was worried about paralysis. I got paralyzed from my boobs down and couldn't breathe for a bit there. They noticed my blood pressure and heart rate were tanking, and I was pretty explicit in telling them that I was 'f-ing dying,' so they gave me some meds to bring that back up. By the time my husband was allowed in, after I had calmed down and realized I wasn't going to die, they were already half way through the surgery. There was blood all over the floor apparently, and my husband couldn't get the little slippers over his shoes, so he'd taken them off, not realizing the booties were only paper. So that was interesting.... him trying to step around the pools of blood.
Colby was born screaming, something I'd never heard before. He scored 10 on the Apgar both times. The one thing that no one had told me about c-sections, which I wish they had, was that babies are born with fluid in their lungs. Colby was born with a lot of fluid in his lungs. He tried to clear it, but he couldn't get it all out. He was sent to the NICU, which I knew was it. Once you go in, you don't get out. And I was right.
I recovered alright. Still alot of pain in my inside incision. The outside incision healed well, and is just really numb. It took days to be able to move comfortably, which I still can't do, actually. I won't be working out for a while, let me tell you, lol.
My heart, well that's another story. I guess it was stretched a bit from the extra blood volume, so it has to shrink back and become less sloppy. That has led to more PVCs, and couplets etc... I am pretty weak, I get tired easily, get winded and have chest pains. But apparently I will live.
Colby was sent to NICU and put on oxygen to help him until he could clear the fluid. He did clear the fluid after 48 hours, but Oxygen is a drug, and he did get 'addicted' to it. It was easier to breathe, so weaning him off of it took a bit. So that lengthened his stay. Then, since it was a c-section, my milk didn't come in til day 3, so they started him on Formula by a naso-gastric tube. He didn't tolerate it, so he needed his Oxygen upped again... Basically it was just one thing after another. Here he was, a very healthy newborn, who just had fluid in his lungs, and everytime the NICU staff did one thing to help him, it caused a ripple effect where other things happened that they had to fix.
It was a very frustrating journey to see this healthy baby stuck inside, when there wasn't a need for it really. He was off Oxygen by about 5 days old, maybe 6. But then, of course, he needed to take what they considered to be a full feed, orally, before he could go. That was between 46-60mls. Thats alot of fluid for a newborn! But he did it. He wouldn't do it on the breast though, since I wasn't able to try til he was 4 days old. So he is getting expressed breast milk, and probably never will breast feed.
Then there was the jaundice. His level was 252, and for him, jaundice was 253, so they put him in anyways. Then they decided to put him back on Oxygen just to help while he was clearing the Bilirubin. Then they had to wean him off that again. Then we got transferred, at 7 days old, back to a facility closer to home. So that was June 28th, and they declared that he had to gain at least 25 grams a day before going home. Well, he finally gained 30 grams in one night, so yesterday, we finally got to come home, when he was 12 days old.
So, unfortunate that he had to do a NICU stay, just like Greg did. But thankfully it was a shorter stay than him. So we are home now, and doing good, although Colby has gotten cranky with the driving and new environment.
So that's that! After a rough 8 years, we finally have a 'normal' newborn, and a 'normal' newborn experience!
Finally, we have a happy outcome! After 8 pregnancies, and 2 micro preemie births, with one resulting in Greg, and one resulting in the death of my daughter Devon, I finally went pretty damn close to term!
Colby Grayson was born 13 days ago, on June 21st at 2:17AM. He was 36 weeks, 1 day gestation. And already, I am broody again!
I'll try to make this brief.
On Friday, June something or other, I went in for my thrice weekly NST. They were extremely busy there and so no one was really paying much attention to my results. I could see the contraction monitor hadn't been set up properly, as it was reading 0 consistently despite me having contractions every few minutes. I also noted that his heartrate was dipping to the low 90's when I was having contractions. The nurse, of course, refused to believe I was having contractions as the monitor was registering 0. I told the Dr when she came in that there had been some bleeding the prior evening as well. She wasn't too worried, but had just heard that I was no longer a candidate for any sort of anesthetic up north, as no one had mentioned my heart function had decreased by over 10% in the prior month.
I don't know what the implications between anesthetic and reduced heart function was, but I only knew that I was being told I should probably get on a flight out to Vancouver that night, in case something happened.
I didn't really listen to this Dr as I thought it was pretty crappy of her to wipe her hands of me at the last minute, and tell me to hop on a plane at almost 36 weeks pregnant. So I decided to give my OB a call. I explained about the bleeding, as well as the cotractions, and the reduction in fetal movement, and she asked me to drive down to see her.
I drove down to see her with the cheif complaints of reduced fetal movement and bleeding. She did a bio-physical profile. I failed. A bio-physical profile is a points system based out of 10. 2 points are given for a good NST strip, 2 are given for adequate fluid levels, 2 are given for movement on ultrasound (flexion and tone, so I believe you get 4 points altogether there), and 2 are given if the baby is making breathing motions on the ultrasound. The will run the ultrasound for 30 minutes if neccessary. I failed. It took 28 minutes to notice movement, or breathing motions, and my fluid levels had dropped from 10.42cm on Wednesday, to 5cm on the Friday. My water had NOT broken.
She decided to redo the test in the morning. So I stayed in hospital overnight with the monitor on constantly to make sure he wasn't in distress. The next morning, she found that my fluid level had dropped another cm, and this time it took 26 minutes to notice movement or breathing motions. She told me she was calling an anesthetist in to do an assessment on me, and if he approved, then she would do the c-section on June 18, at 35+5 I believe.
The anesthetist came in and assessed me. Said he was confident he could anesthetise me. Decided he wanted to see copies of all of my echoes and ECGs etc. Came back 2 hours later and said he refused to do it as the risk for complications to me, were too high, and the only center that should do it, was one from a bigger hospital. So my OB and the anesthetist did the call to Bedline and found a spot for me at St Paul's hospital in Vancouver. The plan was that they would perform a repeat Echo as soon as I got there, to see if my heart function had dropped any lower, and then to perform the c-section that day. My OB had said I had no cervix left, and that the only thing keeping him in was the Sharodkur cerclage, and that was under stress. She believed labour was imminent, and to preserve my cervical integrity, delivery had to be that day.
I was flown out on the air ambulance 2 hours later. I arrived, was assessed by the OB on call, and she said I wasn't in labour, and there was nothing to worry about. I wasn't going to get the echo until Monday, and they would do an ultrasound to check fluid levels then as well. She said I was to just wait it out in the hospital, and if everything was okay on Monday, June 20, I could drive the 8 hours north to go home, to proceed with the scheduled section on June 27.
So we stuck around, not knowing what was happening really. Finally, on Monday, the OB on call did an internal check and realized that my cervix was dilated and effaced, and that the stitch was pulling. She ordered the Echo and ultrasound emergently. The Echo turned out alright, from what I gather, but then again, no one had told me the results of the the other Echo. The ultrasound showed I had just over 2cm of fluid, and that was now in the danger zone for fluid levels. Since I wasn't leaking, it was assumed that the placenta was not working efficiently anymore.
The OB decided it was my call, and that we could either stay on monitors all day, every day, for another 48 hours or so, just to make sure he was safe, or she could put me on the OR list for that day. We decided to go on the OR list. We were told it could be anytime, but more than likely 3PM ish. Enter the longest wait of my life. We were bumped time after time. Emergency c-sections, (what was I??), apendectomy, and finally, at 10PM that night, we were told someone had come in with their arm ripped off and they were doing surgery to reattach it, plus the apendectomy was still waiting, as was another c-section. After not eating or drinking all day, without an IV in, I was getting some pissed off, and I ripped off my heart monitor and told my husband I wanted to go home. Enter the worst case of Drs and nurses ever.
They started bitching at me telling me I was being nasty etc etc... I'm sorry, but I was pregnant, hormonal, had been told not to eat or drink basically since Friday, had been told different stories about whether or not I was in labour by every Dr I'd seen, and I'd been bumped from the surgery list for hours. I think I had a right to get angry. They could have been a little more understanding!! But whatever. They said my options were to eat and drink, and get taken off the list for surgery until Tuesday afternoon, or to suck it up, and whenever they could get me in, they'd do it. I decided to suck it up and stay on the list, as I could see the exact same thing happening the next day.
So finally, at 2:00am, they came to roll me into surgery. NOT what I was expecting, lol. In fact, I told them this was not what they had shown on tv. I did the spinal, which was I was told previously I couldn't do because of the heparin and aspirin I had been on throughout the pregnancy. So I was worried about paralysis. I got paralyzed from my boobs down and couldn't breathe for a bit there. They noticed my blood pressure and heart rate were tanking, and I was pretty explicit in telling them that I was 'f-ing dying,' so they gave me some meds to bring that back up. By the time my husband was allowed in, after I had calmed down and realized I wasn't going to die, they were already half way through the surgery. There was blood all over the floor apparently, and my husband couldn't get the little slippers over his shoes, so he'd taken them off, not realizing the booties were only paper. So that was interesting.... him trying to step around the pools of blood.
Colby was born screaming, something I'd never heard before. He scored 10 on the Apgar both times. The one thing that no one had told me about c-sections, which I wish they had, was that babies are born with fluid in their lungs. Colby was born with a lot of fluid in his lungs. He tried to clear it, but he couldn't get it all out. He was sent to the NICU, which I knew was it. Once you go in, you don't get out. And I was right.
I recovered alright. Still alot of pain in my inside incision. The outside incision healed well, and is just really numb. It took days to be able to move comfortably, which I still can't do, actually. I won't be working out for a while, let me tell you, lol.
My heart, well that's another story. I guess it was stretched a bit from the extra blood volume, so it has to shrink back and become less sloppy. That has led to more PVCs, and couplets etc... I am pretty weak, I get tired easily, get winded and have chest pains. But apparently I will live.
Colby was sent to NICU and put on oxygen to help him until he could clear the fluid. He did clear the fluid after 48 hours, but Oxygen is a drug, and he did get 'addicted' to it. It was easier to breathe, so weaning him off of it took a bit. So that lengthened his stay. Then, since it was a c-section, my milk didn't come in til day 3, so they started him on Formula by a naso-gastric tube. He didn't tolerate it, so he needed his Oxygen upped again... Basically it was just one thing after another. Here he was, a very healthy newborn, who just had fluid in his lungs, and everytime the NICU staff did one thing to help him, it caused a ripple effect where other things happened that they had to fix.
It was a very frustrating journey to see this healthy baby stuck inside, when there wasn't a need for it really. He was off Oxygen by about 5 days old, maybe 6. But then, of course, he needed to take what they considered to be a full feed, orally, before he could go. That was between 46-60mls. Thats alot of fluid for a newborn! But he did it. He wouldn't do it on the breast though, since I wasn't able to try til he was 4 days old. So he is getting expressed breast milk, and probably never will breast feed.
Then there was the jaundice. His level was 252, and for him, jaundice was 253, so they put him in anyways. Then they decided to put him back on Oxygen just to help while he was clearing the Bilirubin. Then they had to wean him off that again. Then we got transferred, at 7 days old, back to a facility closer to home. So that was June 28th, and they declared that he had to gain at least 25 grams a day before going home. Well, he finally gained 30 grams in one night, so yesterday, we finally got to come home, when he was 12 days old.
So, unfortunate that he had to do a NICU stay, just like Greg did. But thankfully it was a shorter stay than him. So we are home now, and doing good, although Colby has gotten cranky with the driving and new environment.
So that's that! After a rough 8 years, we finally have a 'normal' newborn, and a 'normal' newborn experience!
I would have lost my temper too. 
