NICU

Right after the babies were born they were taken to a stabilization room right across the hall from the operating room. There the babies were intubated and hooked up to every monitor and tube you could think of. The room is best described as being controlled chaos as people were working very quickly and loudly but with purpose and team work.

The babies stayed in the stabilization room for about an hour before they were taken upstairs to the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit.) Adam was allowed to go with the doctors and nurses as they went upstairs. As the babies would arrive the nurses would ask for the names, “Baby A Daddy? Charlie! Baby B? Dorothy! Baby C? No clue.” One of the nurses taking care of the eventual Benjamin was not very happy that he didn’t have a name so she and the other nurses took a paper towel and made a makeshift chart of their favorite names. Two nights later that same nurse was at the front security door and wouldn’t let us in until we gave her a name. She was happy to hear we finally chose Benjamin David.

The nurses quickly told us that we needed to prepare for a bumpy road where two days the babies would be doing great and the next there would be some complications.

By the time I was able to see the babies the next day the babies were hooked up to a large, bulky nasal cannula called a Bubble C PAP which helped to keep the lungs open and moist. They were no longer being intubated about 2 hours after birth and were breathing the same air as the rest of us. Each baby had to get “pick lines” put in shortly after and this was easy for both Dorothy and Charlie but Benjamin struggled with this for a few days and we were very relieved when the pick line finally took. We would find that this would be a common theme for Benjamin and would have to fight a lot more than the others in many different circumstances. The pick lines basically just delivered medication and lipids into their body.

A couple days after their birth we were allowed to take Dorothy out of her isolate and hold her for about 20 -30 minutes. The following days we were able to hold them doing Kangaroo Care (skin to skin) where I would stuff them in my shirt and cleavage while Adam would have to take his shirt off and cover them in blankets. This started to make everything feel so much better.

After about a week the babies were taken off the Bubble C PAP’s one day after the other and put on high flow nasal cannulas which allowed us to see much more of their faces. That was a wonderful day and we were able to start seeing resemblances in William and them.

Happy Birthday

The morning of Tuesday, March 29, started out similar to all the other mornings in the hospital. Around lunch time I decided to try to take a shower (which was the highlight of most of my days). I noticed afterward that I was feeling a little different so I let the nurse know and she began checking on me more regularly. I started having more and more contractions; but for some reason I didn’t put together that I was in labor and should call Adam. As the day went on, my contractions became very close together. Around 7:00p.m Adam had just gotten to the hospital from work and brought Will to say “hi” to mommy. My parents and Adam’s parents were also there to just visit. The next part went very fast and seems like a blur to me.

My doctor came in around 7:30p.m, checked me, and then said, “OK, I want to have these babies out in 30 min.” “Wait, what did he just say?” This ran through my mind and I freaked out. Adam who is the best husband calmed me down the best he could and we were ready to go. I had a C-section and at 8:03 I heard the first cry of our first little baby boy Charlie Patrick weighing in at 2lbs 11 oz. and 15 ¾” long. At 8:04 we heard our little girl Dorothy Mae weighing in at 2lb. 14 oz. and 15 ¾” long. And lastly at 8:05 we heard our last little boy Benjamin David weighing in at 2lbs. 12oz. and 15” long.

God is truly amazing! In that short period he had given us 3 healthy new babies and a team of doctors who were waiting and ready to go. All three babies were breathing on their own and they seemed to be very healthy. With more updates to come I will post about how our family is doing and post some pictures for you guys to see.

Hospital Stay

On Wednesday March 23, 2011 I had my weekly doctor’s appointment to check on the pregnancy and babies. Earlier that morning Adam and I were talking about what and how to tell the doctor that I had been feeling uncomfortable the past few days and explain it so that he wouldn’t check me into labor and delivery. (This had happened before, and I had a lot of errands to run that day) That morning I did the usual--attended BSF, got lunch with my parents and Will, and did a little shopping before my appointment.

When the time came, I told my doctor about how I was feeling and he told me I was in labor and needed to go straight to Labor and Delivery to get checked in. After I told him multiple times that I was not in labor he said, “Well if your not and I’m wrong, then at least I’ll feel better about knowing for sure, so just go get checked out for an hour.” Feeling a little discouraged my mom and I headed over to the hospital. After about 2 hours, I was told that I was dilated 1cm and that Dr. Helm wanted me officially admitted to the hospital. This was very hard news for me to take in because I had been doing so great throughout the pregnancy.

After many tears and a long afternoon, labor really did set in. I was contracting every 2-4 min and had dilated to 3cm. This started to make me very nervous because William’s delivery had happened so fast and I was not ready that day. Adam showed up right away at the hospital, and I was given magnesium sulfate to try to stop labor. At this point I felt like everyone was in the room getting ready for a delivery that I was not ready for. NICU doctors were in talking to us about what to expect with 28-week babies. People were talking about c-sections and what other drugs I should be taking to help stop everything. I was feeling beyond overwhelmed!

After a long night, they were able to stop labor but I knew that this was just the beginning. I was put on bed rest, and was hooked up to continuous monitoring of the babies. This means I had four different monitors on my belly and every time I moved or they moved, they would need to be readjusted. I had I.V.’s in my arm, a permanent blood pressure machine that would go off about every hour, as well has many other wires that gave other information. All of this lasted about three days and nights before I broke down and asked for some it to be removed. Over the next few days my labor slowed and I was just trying to be the best incubator for my little babies. I was still continuing to have contractions but they were about every 20-30 min. The doctors told me that this would be normal until the babies arrived. I was, however, still on Magnesium Sulfate, and I would stay on it for the remainder of the time as well. For those of you who don’t know, it’s the worst. It comes with severe side effects of dizziness, nausea, headaches, weakness, hot flashes, and extreme overheating. As hard as this all was I knew that I could and would go through whatever God gave me so that he could give me the opportunity to be a mommy to 3 healthy babies.