When we started the van, we realized we were on empty. And it felt like it was going to die. The engine light came on. Darrell insisted that we were fine, so we got gas, and headed out. I think I prayed the whole way that the van wouldn't die. We got there about 15 minutes late.
Things for this delivery went relatively smoothly. The hiccups we had were not all THAT major - they made Darrell leave the room for the epidural, and I freaked out a little. Got through it, but it would have been better if he was allowed to hold me. I have bad pain in my back if you touch it, but it is still worth it to get the epidural. ANYWAY, the nurse(who was great, and fun to talk to)had me lay down so she could check me, and that turned chaotic. I felt like I couldn't breath. Turns out that the epidural works with gravity, and because I was laying down, it started to creep up and effect my lungs a little. What they told me is that it feels like you can't breath, but you still can. Strange. Anyway, along with all of this, I have low blood pressure as well, and apparently the epidural lowers blood pressure as well. I think I got as low as 79/40 at one point, so they gave me ephedrine I think, to get my blood pressure higher. This all sounds crazy, but really it was not all that big of a deal.
When the time came to have the baby, it only took about four pushes. He was 7 lbs 3 oz, 18 inches long. His apgar was 8 and 9. There are no picture of this time because I didn't check the batteries on the camera, and they chose that exact moment to die. Silly things. Anyway, there was a nurse watching him this whole time. She was kind enough to let me hold him for a minute before they took my new baby to the nursery. Apparently when a new baby's nostrils flair that is a bad sign, as we learned VERY well in the next few hours. I did try to nurse him, but he was very NOT interested. Later they told me that it was because he was concentrating too hard on breathing.
About an hour later they let Darrell go and see him in the nursery. They said that an hour after that they would let me come and see him. They were very nice about it, because normally they do not let parents come into that nursery. When I did get to see him, he was on monitors, checking his breathing rate, temp, heart rate, and oxygen rate.
We went back to the delivery room, and got our stuff to move to postpartum. On the way there we passed the nursery, and noticed a tube going down his throat. They had decided to put a feeding tube in to see if he could tolerate food. Which he could not. His oxygen levels dropped and breathing increased. So, they moved him to the level 2 nursery, or NICU. We got to go visit him in the NICU whenever we wanted except for shift changes, or if there was a new admission.
That first night he was in an open bed (omnibed I think?). We got to touch him, but not hold him. The next morning we went to see him and they had him enclosed and we couldn't touch him. Apparently anytime anyone tried to do anything to him, his oxygen levels would drop. And the same was true of the noise in the NICU. There are alarms that go off every once in a while, and his oxygen alarm would go off as well, because it upset him. They also put a cannula on him to give him a small amount of oxygen.Eventually they put a sound machine in with him to help with the sound problems. That afternoon my parents came to see him and took these pictures and video.
This is how he was breathing, and why they kept him.
We also received this cake from the hospital. I thought that that was really cool. We ended up saving it and having it with the kids when they got home from Grandma's house.
We finally named him Eric David Autry late Sunday/early Monday.I think the nurses were having fun with seeing our process. We kept on coming in with lists of names and just staring at him trying to decide. It was REALLY hard for us to name him because we couldn't hold him. He was ALMOST Collin. In fact, later that week we had a nurse confused because she thought for sure that was what we were going to name him.
On Monday morning they started letting us touch him, as long as we didn't budge. No caressing and stroking his skin. That was really hard, but better than not being able to touch him at all.
I was released that day. I can not tell you how difficult it was to leave without my baby. It was really hard when we got home and I had to walk by the empty bassinet. I do not know how mothers do it for months at a time!
One of the nurses took this picture of Eric with her phone.
On Wednesday we were finally able to start holding him. I jumped for joy and then cried.
On Thursday they had him off of the oxygen and had the bed open. We we told that he had to be good for 24 hours before he could be released. He was a little bit jaundice so they kept an eye on that. They even put him under the lights.
On Friday in the afternoon we got to bring him home. We were so happy!
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