NICU

This is the not so fun post of Leeland's start to life so I will try to make it short.  I'm still struggling a bit to process his time in the NICU but writing is supposed to be therapeutic right?  Leeland was born with very low blood sugar that all the doctors we spoke with blamed on the medication I was taking for gestational diabetes.  I knew with having GD that low blood sugar was always a possibility and that was why I worked so hard to try and keep my sugars in line.  Eli had spent his first week of life in the NICU with breathing problems and this was a place I hoped to never see again. 

Leeland spent roughly 18 hours at our local hospital before it was determined that they were going to be unable to stabilize his sugars and he would need to be transported.  I handled this all really well because I knew what to expect and knew that he needed better care than he was receiving at our local hospital. The transport team was amazing and I felt so much better once I knew he was in their care and on his way to where he needed to be.

I delivered Leeland at 4:30 in the morning on Thursday, Leeland was transported around 11PM on Thursday and I was discharged after midnight Friday morning, when we rushed home to change out clothes and such and get up to the NICU around 3 in the morning.  At this point I hadn't slept since Wednesday night, but we had to keep pressing on for our boy.  The NICU would only let one of us in at a time, so I proceeded inside while Peter slept in the car with the intention of me going home in the morning and then he would hang out with Leeland during the day while I rested.  

Immediately after I got into the NICU I could hear him crying in his room.  The whole thing still makes me sick because he was so uncomfortable and in pain from a crappy IV done at our local hospital. Fortunately by the time we got to the NICU they had removed the IV and were trying to help ease his pains.  They immediately let me scoop him up for a bit which helped comfort him. Eventually they made him go back in the warmer for torturous hours while he just didn't rest easy.  All the energy he was burning crying did not help his blood sugars. Finally after I kept begging, they let me snuggle him again and he settled right down for hours. But that first 24 hours was ROUGH! 

Essentially we just had to wait until his body kicked into gear making the correct amount of insulin. We were told it could take anywhere from a couple hours to 10 days for this to happen. They had him on a dextrose IV for the first day or so in the NICU and then his IV failed and they decided to do something different than protocol and let him stay off the IV and let him feed on demand. Typically they would slowly wean from the IV and only allow feeds every 3 hours. Letting him do his thing and eat when he wanted really helped him we think. 

They did decide to put in an NG tube that way he got complete feedings because he was really struggling to want to eat from a bottle. But he only used that for a short time before he decided he wanted to eat and then it was off to the races.  He would have been discharged earlier but he had one wonky blood sugar in a 24 hour period that made them want to keep him another day for monitoring.  This was good though because in those 24 hours his blood sugar went from the 40's to the 70's so we had complete confidence that his little body was working well before we left the hospital! 

It was a complete whirlwind 4 days in the NICU. I'm so thankful our time there was short but only one parent being allowed in at a time and getting very little sleep as we rotated back and forth to care for this little guy was rough.  I am thankful that he only needed care for something simple like blood sugar but I still feel so bad for him that he was in pain and there wasn't much I could do for him.  As any parent with a child in the NICU knows, it is so hard to come and go and have to walk out of that room without your baby.  It is just an emotionally draining experience no matter how long or short the stay is.  I am so thankful for Peter and the rock he is for our family. He was my rock when we walked through the NICU experience with Eli and he was again this time. Post partum recovery kicked my butt at times and when I couldn't keep going he was right there to pick it up and take over so our boy always had one of us there for him!  

 The good news is that our little guy is home now and doing great. He is getting all the extra snuggles as we have barely put him down.  He deserves all the love and snuggles after such a rough start! He has been so resilient and gone with the flow so well.  In general he has a very calm disposition and only fusses when he's hungry.  We are so grateful that he is here and healthy and hope that it will be nothing but smooth sailing for his life from here on out! 

Leeland's Birth Story

     The last couple weeks of pregnancy had been pretty rough.  SPD was something I had never experienced in pregnancy before and it made walking and rolling over in bed very painful.  At my 36 week check up I was told baby was low and I was 2cm.  Her estimate is that baby would be a little over 8 lbs at a 39 week induction so she felt like baby was already a pretty good size.  The day of my 37 week check up I was up with contractions from 4AM until my appointment time at 2:30.  Unfortunately they didn't seem to be doing much and my doctor said I was 3cm and baby's head was not engaged yet.  She told me that I might have a week or so left and might have to suffer through the week with prodromal labor.  I had contractions all that evening that got more and more painful and thought maybe labor was starting. Then all of  sudden at 5AM they just stopped.  It was definitely frustrating after 2 nights of very little sleep.  Fortunately, I was pretty contraction free that whole week just still had lots of pelvis pain.

My next appointment was at 38 weeks 2 days.  I was having some contractions but very sporadic that day.  They ended up calling and cancelling that appointment because my doctor had an incident with a fire on her property and had been burned.  But they said they could see me the next day. So I went to the doctor at 38 weeks 3 days.  Still contractions here and there but they weren't consistent and they weren't strong.  My doctor said I was still 3cm (always a bummer to hear no progress) and also informed me that because of staffing shortages I could not be induced at 39 weeks like I was supposed to be.  This was a bit discouraging but not really surprising to me considering what I've been hearing about staffing shortages.  She told me she thought I might go within the week on my own but I assumed she was just being nice because I've never gone into labor on my own even when my water broke.  

 That night was pretty relaxed.  We went and got the kids from my parents and had dinner over there.  Came home, I did the Miles Circuit to help encourage baby into the right position.  I couldn't really do any walking because of the pelvis pain but Miles Circuit was good. We went to bed and around 12:30 in the morning I started being woken up with pretty painful contractions. After a little bit and realizing I wasn't going to be able to sleep through them I decided to get up and get into the first Miles Circuit position and see what that did. They were already less than 5 minutes apart but I wanted to make sure they were real before calling my doctor and waking her up.  I didn't want to go to the hospital that is 30-40 minutes away just to be sent home with prodromal labor. After about 30 minutes I went and got my exercise ball hoping that would be more comfortable for me and woke Peter up. He said "I was just dreaming you were in labor."  I asked him to help and do a little picking up of the house, dishes and such just in case this was the real deal.  After maybe 20 minutes of breathing through contractions on the ball, I decided to try a bath knowing that may slow things down if it wasn't real. It didn't take long in the bath for me to realize that these were very painful and getting closer together. I think they were around 3 minutes apart by the time I got out of the bath. Somehow I still didn't believe this was the real deal even though it was super painful.  I thought I was being a wuss, but I also felt like I should at least get checked out at this point.  So at 3AM we checked in with my doctor who said the hospital was on divert because and I would have to go to our local hospital.  I was bummed because that meant my doctor would not be delivering me. We even contemplated trying to wait and see if the hospital would open back up but my doctor said no to that and that I needed to get seen.

  

We called my parents to come be with the kids and then were on our way by 3:15.  The car ride was so uncomfortable and even though it was only a short drive and I had contemplated wanting to go natural, I told Peter in the car that I needed an epidural asap.  We got to the hospital and I had 2 contractions in the parking lot, then a couple more in the ER as I waited for the nurses to come get me. Standing or walking made the contractions pretty much constant. I had 2 more on the way up to the room. I wasn't putting together how close these things were. I was told that our hospital was also on divert but because I seemed like I was in active labor they weren't going to try and find another hospital for me.  I got into the bed and the pain becamse so bad. I thought it was because I was sitting in bed and in general sitting had been painful for me.  I was hoping they'd get things rolling FAST so I could either change positions or get an epidural. They checked me and I was 4cm so not really much progress but they were happy enough knowing I was 3cm earlier and was now 4 to say I was in active labor. I felt like a wuss again.  They were trying to draw blood and get vitals and get the IV going but I was contracting so close together that they had to keep stopping to let me breathe through them.  They promised an epidural just as soon as they got an IV going.  As they're working on getting the IV in, they notice that I'm getting a little bit grunty. I told them that it just felt like a lot of pressure. So she asked if she could check me again because I sounded like I was getting close. After being checked she said I was 7cm and that I wasn't going to be getting an epidural, I was going to be having a baby!

I knew I didn't have a choice but man these things hurt. I tried to maintain control as best as I could.  My nurse was amazing telling me I was doing great and giving me breathing tips.  They still were working on the IV and more people were coming into the room, knowing I was getting close.  A doctor I'd never met showed up and in that moment I didn't even care who was there or what their names were, it was all a blur. I don't even think they fully got the room set up. I know someone asked if there was a supply table ready.  They got the IV in at some point and I remember starting to feel like I really needed to push. They told me to just listen to my body and do what it was telling me to do.  I still felt very out of control about the whole situation, and I was.  I hadn't even had time to process that I was in labor and this baby was on the way out. They checked me as soon as I told them I had the urge to push and they said I was close to complete with a little lip and bulging bag of water. Instantly my water broke and they said "the lip is gone". I pushed with the next contraction and our newest little family member was out.  It was a rocket delivery! I helped to lift him up to my chest and noticed it was a boy! I honestly couldn't even believe we had a boy! 

 

The whole experience was just so shocking. I tried my best to soak it all in but the intensity of the situation made it a bit hard.  I have since read others stories about fast labors like that and my feelings and emotions seem to be shared.  Unfortunately that is not the end of the hardships of the day but that is where I will end this post because I want to remember the good and focus on the special memories, the first snuggles, the happiness and contentment we felt adding this sweet little boy to our family and how our family just feels like perfection with 3 boys and 3 girls! God has been so good to us! We feel so blessed to have sweet baby Leeland in our lives!