Baby Robin, our Miracle Baby

Early in this pregnancy, I knew that this pregnancy would be different than the others. I really had no idea how much different though!

In between my pregnancy with Emmy and my pregnancy with Robin, I had an early miscarriage. Before I got pregnant I was seeing a hematologist and then in early pregnancy, I was also diagnosed with an unnamed platelet aggregation disorder.  Basically my blood takes 8x the normal time to clot and behaves as if I'm on high dose aspirin. I knew because of this that I wanted to birth in a hospital. This wasn't my plan, but it was God's. I had appointments with a few recommended ob practices around town, and ultimately wound up at the same one that I was with for Joey's pregnancy. One particular doctor there was highly recommended and had knowledge of my specific medical issues. Plus, with a history of precipitous labors combined with the bleeding disorder, I needed to be at the nearest hospital or I'd likely wind up there anyway in an emergency.

Early pregnancy didn't bring too many surprises for me.  I had moderate to severe hyperemesis gravidarum, depending on who you ask.  I was on home health with a Zofran pump until I developed an allergy to Zofran out of no where. Hives.  Constant hives and itching.  So then I went on Reglan, which caused some abnormalities with my heart on EEG, and I was cautioned to only take it as little as possible. I was also on Diclegis from early on, which really did help take the edge off the HG.

I made it to the third trimester and both the abnormalities on my heart and the baby's heart were gone.  Not gone forever, I was cautioned, but appeared to be gone on testing.  Shortly after the third trimester began, my HG started to increase again and I'd have a few days a week with all day cyclical vomiting.  Most days I only puked 2-3 times and forced myself to eat and drink anything that I could.  I still continued to lose weight.

Then at 29 weeks, I thought I had a cold. My kids all had a cold. The vomiting increased and I was quickly dehydrated enough to need the hospital.  I was seen in L&D, treated for dehydration, and discharged.  The nurse kept telling me to see my doctor as soon as possible because it was likely I had an infection.  Two days later I saw my family doctor, had an xray, and found out I had pneumonia. I often woke up with vomit in my mouth, especially the last week with being so sick so it wasn't that surprising.  It didn't go away with treatment at home, so I was admitted to the hospital for aspiration pneoumonia and stayed there for 8 days. I was very sick.  The respiratory therapist who also worked in the NICU thought that I'd end up having the baby then. Thankfully he stayed in my belly, the pneumonia improved enough to go home and continue treatment at home.  I tried to wean off of the medications for the pneumonia/ asthma symptoms many times but I was not able to. I'd get close and then I'd nearly have to go back to the hospital. Ultimately I had to stay on many medications at low doses. - I had to breathe. 

Since about 33 weeks, I showed signs of preeclampsia many times and did many 24 hour urine and lab work.  My liver numbers were getting worse and worse. My blood pressure was getting higher. At 35.5 weeks, I was officially diagnosed with preeclampsia and was told my liver appeared to be in failure from the lab values. - the liver issues could be from the severe HG, could be from the meds from the pneumonia, or it could be a component of the preeclampsia. I also had gained 9 pounds in a week - with at least 3 days in that week being near constant violent vomiting.  There was no way that weight gain was anything but fluid retention. We discussed induction at this point at 37 weeks.  I was a bit sad, but felt it was completely medically necessary, felt horribly sick, and knew my body could not continue on being pregnant much longer. 

On the day of 36 weeks 1 day, I woke up feeling very very sick.  I had a headache. My vision was blurred and had spots in it.  I chocked it up to exhaustion and convinced the girls to nap with me.  After a very long nap, I felt worse.  My body was heavy and it was hard to walk through the house. For a few hours, I started to feel as if my water had broken. Not a full rupture, but enough that it concerned me, a nice steady slow trickle. I waited for hubby to get home and then took my blood pressure, which was very high. I called my ob and they wanted me to come into the hospital, not surprisingly.

Arriving at the hospital around 7pm, they ran tests on my urine and blood, monitored the baby, and tested for fluid. We waited on the results. Since I had a slow leak of amniotic fluid, and my lab work had gotten worse, so I was being admitted, given medication for my blood pressure and hooked up to pitocin. I had three sweet friends join me, one to take photos and the other two for support as my doulas. They were all able to come, which made me very happy.  :)

I was 3 cm dilated, and the doctor broke my water the rest of the way. She tried to get internal monitoring leads, but was unsuccessful. The nurse continued to try to track Robin with the monitoring on my belly, but he has always been very active, and kept moving away.  After about 20 minutes, she said she knew I wasn't supposed to be checked yet but she wanted to check me. She checked me and my umbilical cord had prolapsed. She immediately paged the doctor, and kept repeating, "I can't reach his head. I can't reach the head." I knew at this moment I'd be getting a csection, but by God's grace, I felt very very calm and at peace about it.  I really felt like, this is how it was supposed to happen and how it would have happened regardless of preceding events. Many nurses came into my room, every single one of them trying to get his head off his cord without success. The anesthesiologist came in and had a brief discussion with me and it was quickly decided that I'd be put under general because of my medical history and she said, "there's no time anyway" in reference for there being time for a spinal. Another very tall nurse tried to reach the head and she couldn't, at which point they said we needed to go and quickly headed to the OR. As they were taking me my hubby asked if the baby was in distress and he was told yes. Surrounded by many nurses, they were trying to push me quickly down the hall, but the nurse with her hand up my cervix wasn't moving fast enough. Another nurse suggested she stand on the wheel.  As she did this, climbing on the wheel gave her enough leverage that she yelled that she got the head - he was finally no longer compressing his umbilical cord. Everyone sighed big signs of relief and they ran the rest of the way to the OR.

I was very quickly prepped for surgery, got moved onto the OR table, and through all this the nurse stood on top of me, holding Robin's head up so he wouldn't compress his cord further.  I felt the ob ready to cut, and the anesthesiologist said three times "just don't forget she doesn't have a spinal!" - and I giggled in my head and thanked her for reminding them that, said a hail mary, and the next thing I knew I was waking up a few hours later in recovery. While I was out, I dreamt about being at adoration - which was likely because we were just having a conversation about adoration with my friends in the room while I was in labor, but it made for a very peaceful "rest" while everyone took care of me and baby

I was told that 2 mins after I was knocked out, my baby Robin arrived screaming with 9 and 9 apgars. The nurse who had gotten his head off his cord had saved his life.  Looking at his umbilical cord blood work later, he was very close to having no oxygen. He was born at 3:15 am on 10-23-15, 36 weeks 2 days,  6 lbs 0 oz and 18.7 inches. Rob got to love on him in the nursery while they finished my surgery.  Robin had some problems with his blood sugar right after birth, but my friends and hubby insisted I'd want to nurse him, so they kept testing and waiting.

When my csection was done, my dr first was going to try to do a low transverse incision, because she felt there was time since his head was being held up off the cord, but after cutting part way noted that my abdomen had fluid from my liver in it.  She then cut me with a classical incision, vertically, and got baby out quickly so that she could save me.  I really feel like this is how I was meant to birth this time, even though it's so far from what we expected.  I can't even imagine if I had birthed vaginally, and then my body had to find a way to heal my liver.  I was given platelets as a precaution, and an amazing precaution at that.  My blood work immediately after the surgery was nearly the same as before surgery, and at 24 hours my liver values were normal again.  I woke up in recovery and looked down and saw my bandages and immediately thought, "no! My henna!" :) haha...

My hubby came to me and told me what pain meds they wanted to give me and expressed concern over using it while nursing.  I told him to look it up in Lactmed on my phone.  The anesthesiologist was like, "we support whatever choice you make, but you've had no pain meds, you are going to be in lots of pain!" While we were deciding about that they called and said I needed to nurse now or the baby needed formula.  I said to bring me my baby.  The nurse explained to me that I was going to be in alot of pain if I moved at all and I said if he needs to nurse bring him here.  They helped me sit the bed up and I got to meet and nurse my sweet baby.  <3 We figured out which pain med we felt most comfortable with and waited for them to bring the pain pump.  I was also still getting a magnesium drip for the preeclampsia which made me feel pretty weak, but I just sat there and nursed Robin as much as he would nurse. After a couple hours, I was brought back to my room holding and nursing baby. 

My OB was so sweet and compassionate and really felt bad that my fourth birth went this way.  She didn't need to be, but it was very sweet. I joked to her that I had almost every birth experience possible now - induced vaginal birth, two out of hospital vaginal births (one a water birth, one not), and now an emergency csection. Ha!

Rob started to feel sick a few hours after I was back in the room.  Ina had been sick with a bug a couple days before and I didn't want him to get me or the baby sick - that's the last thing we needed after all of this! I sent him home.  The nurse told me that since I'm on magnesium for a minimum of 24 hours, if someone else was not present in the room with me they would take my baby to the nursery and bring him to me to eat.  Noooo... you aren't taking my baby! My awesome friends and family quickly worked to help line up a rotation of guests so that baby Robin and I weren't left alone. The nurses all said I was the most popular patient they've ever had, and baby Robin and I were surrounded with love and care. Poor daddy was at home and very sick. It was hard to not have him with me but I'm glad he went home so we didn't get sick.  

I tried so hard to keep him on just breastmilk, mine and others, but ultimately had to supplement with some formula for his blood sugar and also bilirubin. Despite this, my milk started transitioning from colostrum within 24 hours and by 48 hours i had full blown milk.  The hospital had a great pump that had a premie chip in it that helped alot too. One of the tests they required my baby to pass was a 90 minute car seat test. This ended up being the test nightmares were made of.  The nurses weren't putting my convertible seat at the same angle it would be in the car and I couldn't get anyone to listen to me.  They kept telling me to get the base.  It doesn't have a base, but it was a proper seat. When he failed, I was told to buy a new seat without any recommendations or info.  We brought in an infant seat. He actually fit better in my convertible.  But he failed again.  The neonatalogist then admitted him to the nicu, insisting that he must be desating the rest of the time and that I just "wasn't noticing" for the 4 days he was in my room.  I've had a baby with desating issues before, I would have known if my baby was having breathing problems.  Still, we really had no choice. Anytime we questioned the doctor and expected to participate in our child's medical decisions, she threw out "you don't want a DEAD BABY" and talked to us like we were idiots. He stayed in the nicu for 3 days, with every test coming back normal and one excuse after another to keep him there. On the second day she said his body temp ran lower and that this was a "premie thing" and put him in the isolet. That day the nurses who spoke to us were very rude. I wasn't allowed to hold him skin to skin, even though that obviously was why he had no temp regulation problems with me in room, because he was being held and loved by all! Finally on the third day they repeated the test with me at his side and passed. It took them 5 hours after that to discharge us, but we were happy, home with our baby and our other sweet kids. Four weeks earlier than we had planned, but perfect nonetheless. <3 <3 <3 <3