On Sunday, May 6, I wasn’t able to feel Jack move the whole day. D and I grew increasingly concerned as I tried a variety of different things to get him to move: drinking cold water, eating, throwing up, taking a bath, going on a walk, changing positions a lot (standing, sitting, laying down). Nothing worked so I asked D to give me a blessing. In the blessing I was told that Jack was safe but we needed to go to the hospital. We grabbed the small hospital bag that I had packed and left immediately for Kaiser. Once at the hospital, I was hooked up to monitors to check Jack’s heart rate and to see if I was contracting. Jack’s heart was reading normal - hearing his heart beat was so comforting! The doctor came in and did an ultrasound to be sure that Jack was moving, that he was breathing and his heart was beating, and that his umbilical cord wasn’t wrapped around his neck or anything. Everything looked great on the ultrasound and I felt Jack move a couple of times so the doctor sent us home. The doctor suggested that I increase my IV hydration to keep the amniotic fluid levels up so that Jack could move around. Before we left the hospital, the doctor made us promise to come back if my water broke, I was bleeding, if I was having contractions or if I couldn’t feel Jack move again. D and I went home grateful that Jack was fine.
Monday, May 7, I had my 36-week doctors appointment. I hadn’t gained any weight still. We talked about increasing my hydration frequency - my doctor ordered a IV pump to be delivered to my home so that I could hydrate daily at home. The other problems that I was encountering (chest pains, restless leg, heartburn) and the fact that I was going to Labor and Delivery frequently for various issues seemed unimportant to my doctor and he wanted me to carry Jack to full term. We went over pre-term labor signs, all of which I’d been experiencing for months. I left feeling incredibly frustrated and like I would be pregnant forever. D and went on a short walk that night and I told D that with everything that had happened during this pregnancy, I was going to need my water to break in order to know if I was in labor! I was also grumpy because I was so overwhelmed and done with being pregnant. I was frustrated with being sick, the heartburn, restless legs, chest pains, and everything. It seemed like something was going wrong at every turn.
On Tuesday, May 8, I woke up around 8 am, much earlier than usual. I didn’t want to get up and rolled over to my other side to try and go back to sleep. I felt some warmth between my legs and thought I was peeing my pants a little. I had read about bladder incontinence during pregnancy but had never experienced it. I felt the same warm sensation a second time and decided I needed to get up and go to the bathroom. I stood up and felt a rush of warm fluid. I hurried to the bathroom and discovered I was soaked in a ton blood. The toilet bowl quickly filled up with bright red blood as well. I was extremely worried, to say the least! I ran back to the bedroom to get my phone and called D. I said something along the lines of, “I’m bleeding, come home right now.” I was still bleeding a great deal and was sitting on the toilet when D got home. I wrapped myself in a towel and D and I drove to Labor and Delivery (without anything - no hospital bag, nothing). D drove very,
very quickly in order to get my there. Once there, we hustled into L&D and the nurse rushed me back into a triage room and hooked me up to monitors to check on Jack and to see if I was contracting. I made the nurse promise that she wouldn't send me home from L&D this time without a baby! While I was laying there, I was freaking out. Suddenly, a wave of peace came over me and I very clearly and strongly felt the presence of my Grandpa Taylor and Dustin’s Grandpa Jack (the two men Jackson LaMar is named after). I knew that they would take care of me and Jack through this whole thing and that everything would be ok.
A doctor came in very quickly to see me in my triage room and when she checked me, a new wave of fresh blood came pouring out. I was not dilated at all and was not contracting. The doctor rushed me in to a labor and delivery room as my placenta was pulling away from my uterus and my water had broken and I was hemorrhaging. Once in the delivery room, I was re-hooked up to monitors for Jackson and for my contractions. The nurse also hooked me up to additional IV’s to prepare for pitocin and IV hydration and any possible additional drugs that would be needed (little did I know that every single lead would be used by the end of the night). The anesthesiologist also came in and hooked up an epidural line, but did not hook up any drugs. The doctor and nurse wanted to be sure that I had an additional line if needed to put me under for a C-section. I continued to bleed and leak amniotic fluid, but Jack’s heartbeat was strong. The high risk OB came to see me and told me that it could take several days for the labor to progress and Jack to be born. But, because of the very real possibility of a C-section, I was not allowed to eat or drink anything.
Once hooked up to pitocin, I started to progress a little bit. My nurse told me that the most difficult part would be to get me dilated to a 4, and that is what we spent the next few hours doing - waiting for me to dilate to a 4. At one point my OB/GYN walked in - he was one of the OB’s on shift that night! When he walked in, he said, “What are you doing here? I just saw you yesterday at your 36 week appointment!” I told him that I just couldn’t wait anymore and Jack wanted to come now. And he was able to get assigned to me to be able to deliver Jack.
D’s mom stopped by around 5 pm to check on how we were doing. D hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, so G took him to eat at Costa Vida. While he was gone, very painful contractions started in my back. I couldn’t get ahold of D or G. I was messaging my brother on Facebook and asked him and Mom to also try and call D and G and tell him to come back to L&D. I was in so much pain, I had one leg hanging off each side of the bed and was gripping a tray table and rocking back and forth. D finally showed up and when he walked in the room I said, “I am going to kill you!” He started laughing as he walked over to my bedside. I said, “Stop laughing, you are seriously a dead man!” He kept on smiling as my nurse, Candi, was giggling a the two of us. Just then, my anesthesiologist walked in the room to hook up my epidural line. My back was killing me and I told my anesthesiologist, “It’s a good thing that you placed this line earlier because if you were trying to put the line in my back now, I would probably turn around and deck you!” I could feel my anesthesiologist’s hands shaking because she was laughing as she hooked me up - my nurse and D were also laughing. Before the anesthesiologist left, she made sure to do push the epidural button a couple of times for me. Once the drugs kicked in, I apologized to Dustin for wanting to kill him. I said something along the lines of, “I’m so sorry for wanting to kill you. I don’t want to kill you. I don’t want to be a single parent. I’ll just beat you with one of your limbs.” My nurse also got a kick out of me while drugged. The epidural helped a lot and I was able to relax some. Jackson kept on squirming away from the monitors and during contractions his heart rate was dropping quite low. A midwife came in and placed a monitor on Jackson’s head so that they could more accurately check his heart rate. A catheter line was also placed to put fluid back into my uterus so try and help keep Jack’s heart rate elevated - the thought being that because there was no amniotic fluid, every time I contracted, it was putting a lot of stress on him. This entire time, I'd been throwing up off and on, as well.
My contractions started coming more regularly and I was able to dilate to a 6 when my nurse turned off the pitocin to let me progress on my own. At this point, the nurses switched and my new nurse Julie started helping me through the progression and contractions. I progressed very quickly from a 6 to a 9. It was quite late in the evening and I hadn’t eaten or drank anything all day and was feeling quite weak and exhausted. I got to a 10 and my nurse started having me push some. Jackson’s heart was still dropping during contractions and while I was pushing and it made me nervous to hear the beep patterns of his heart change so much. A couple of other nurses came into the room to get the baby basinet and delivery table ready. Meanwhile, my nurse was on my right side and D was on my left side coaching me through each contraction. Because I’d had nothing to eat and drink, each time I went to push, I got close to blacking out. As I pushed harder and made more progress, my nurse hooked me up to oxygen because I was blacking out between contractions. Julie had me change positions to try and get the most out of each contraction and push. The harder I pushed, the more Jack’s heart rate fell and it the longer it stayed low. I got to the point where I was so exhausted I couldn’t push anymore so Julie had me take a half hour break. I stayed on oxygen the whole half hour and tried to gather as much strength as I could. When I was ready to start pushing again, Julie kept looking for the Jack’s head and to see the color of his hair to help motivate me. I wasn’t able to make any progress. Jack’s head was stuck under my pelvic bone. I was able to make some progress while I was pushing, but then he would slip back between pushes. After trying to get Jack’s head under my pelvic bone for twenty minutes, I was beyond exhausted. Julie went to get Dr. Wong to have him use a vacuum on Jack’s head. He came in, put on scrubs, and watched me push once before quickly whipping out the vacuum to get Jack’s head out from under my pelvic bone. I hadn’t pushed the epidural button in a while, so I could feel Jack’s head and it was incredibly painful! Dr. Wong had me push a few more times to get Jack out - slow pushes with long, deep breaths. After 19 hours of labor, and 4 hours of pushing, Jack came right out! He was plopped on my belly, but I could tell from Dr. Wong’s response that something was wrong. Jack was totally grey, not breathing, not moving, and completely wrapped in his umbilical cord (which was only 2 veins instead of 3). Dr. Wong was very quick to clamp and cut the cord. As he did so, he told a nurse to call a code. Immediately, a rapid response team was called to my room for Jackson. D and I stared at each other in shock as a swarm of people swooped in and took Jack over to the baby bassinet area. One of my nurses came quickly over to me and told me that everything would be ok. She told me that Jack wasn’t moving or breathing and his color wasn’t good, but that all of the doctors and nurses were going to get him taken care of. I was in disbelief - we had worked so hard for so long to get Jackson here and he was in an extremely scary situation. I immediately started thinking worse case scenarios. D and I watched anxiously as everyone worked on Jack. His color got better and I could see him starting to breath more quickly. He also started kicking and moving his arms. His little hands and feet were purple, almost black, from his circulation not working super well yet. He also had a bruise on his head from the vacuum and from the uterine monitor that was on his head. Jack’s nurse, Misty, and D stood close to Jack and watched him closely.
Things started to calm down and it seemed that Jack was doing well and would be able to come with us to our room instead of going to the NICU. D asked Misty under what circumstances would things change and Jack would have to go to the NICU and she said if he started grunting while he was breathing then he would have to go to the NICU because the grunting would mean that his lungs weren’t staying expanded while he was breathing. Shortly after, Jackson started grunting and the decision was made to send Jackson to the NICU. Misty let me hold Jackson while they were getting things ready to transport Jack to the NICU. He was so sweet and precious - it broke my heart to hear him struggling to breath! It was also heartbreaking to have to give him to a nurse and watch them take Jackson away. D went with Jack to the NICU leaving me and Julie in the delivery room - I felt so alone after all the commotion from the day. Julie brought me some french toast as we waited for D to return and for my bleeding to slow. D returned and looked exhausted and so worried - I don’t know how long he was gone as my concept of time was completely screwed at this point. Julie got us ready to go upstairs to our recovery room. Kaiser plays a lullaby when a baby is born and the mom and baby go up to their room on the third floor. As she wheeled me upstairs, Julie had a lullaby played for us even though our baby wasn’t with us. It was another sad moment, going upstairs without my baby.
We got into our room and said goodbye to Julie - she asked if she could go see Jack in the NICU and we of course said yes. Julie was so wonderful to us and we were so grateful! Our new nurse, Linda, got all my vitals and oriented us to the recovery floor a little bit. She encouraged me to get some rest, but I couldn’t rest without seeing my baby boy. D went and got a wheelchair and took me down to the first floor where the NICU unit was. We went into Jack’s NICU pod and his little bed was the first one on the left. He was hooked up to a breathing machine, had an IV in his left hand with 5 IV leads coming out of it, a tube coming out of his mouth, and three leads stuck to his chest monitoring his heart and respiration. He was hooked up to a IV’s getting D-10 and antibiotics. His stomach had been pumped twice because it was full of bloody amniotic fluid. His left hand was all taped up, like a club, so that he couldn’t mess up the IV line. It was the saddest thing I’d ever seen. I asked the nurse if I could touch him and she said that I could place my hand on him and that was it. All I wanted was to hold my baby, but he was hooked up to so many things to help him that all I could do was place my hand on him.
Honestly, the next little bit is a blur. I know that Dustin and I went back to our room. We ate more, cried, tried to sleep some, and made more trips to the NICU. We talked to one of Jack’s nurses or his doctor and asked what was needed for Jack to be released from the NICU. They told us that he needed to breathing on his own, eating on his own, off the IV’s, and not jaundiced. We had no time frame for how long this would take or anything. Jack was on a 3 hour eating schedule, so we made trips down to the NICU every 3 hours. Every time we went down, there was something new. One time, Jack pulled out the tube going down to his stomach. One time we went down there and the breathing machine had been removed. One time we went down there and his bilirubin numbers were up. It was a roller coaster day! We were so exhausted and were not getting much sleep because of having to go down to the NICU every 3 hours. On top of that, I was in pain from giving birth so I was moving quite slowly. Additionally, my nurses had to take my vitals every 8 hours. We were missing meals, missing shift changes, our schedule was all over the place. And we were tired, emotionally frazzled, and running on fumes.
Spending time in the NICU with J was so precious. Watching him sleep, eat, move - he was such a miracle. I had to check out of the hospital after 2 nights, but they kept J in the NICU for a few more days. That was the weirdest thing - leaving the hospital without my baby. We went home, showered, grabbed everything that we hadn't taken with us to the hospital, and then turned around and went right back. Kaiser has an awesome program called the Boarder Program that allows parents to stay in empty L&D rooms for an additional few days if their babies are in the NICU. We were able to stay at the hospital for 2 more nights to be close to J. He had a couple of visitors - his Aunt S and Uncle C, Mema (D's Mom) and our friend E. And J charmed everyone in the NICU - all of his nurses just adored him and loved telling us how sweet he was. And we had the most wonderful nurses caring for J. They were all so attentive, sweet, and helpful.
We brought J home from the hospital on Mother's Day and it was the sweetest Mother's Day gift I could ever receive. My heart was bursting with love and pride as I carried my sweet baby boy into our home. D and I sat and watched him sleep for hours, so grateful for our miracle boy.
And I am more and more grateful for him every day.
