Welcome to the world little one!
Thomas James Alan Wilcox
December 29th 2015
3730g and 51cm long
Unknown to family and friends, Thomas's birthday had already
been tentatively decided as December 31st, 2015 because he was presenting as breech. This decision was made after careful thought. My wonderful midwife was comfortable with breech births and was supportive encouraging us to do research on both vaginal breech birth and cesarean sections. Jaz, our midwife, was ready to support us in the path we chose and had no bias in her conversations with us. Once we were refereed to the hospital, Jaz attempted to come to all visits and continued to support us by helping to advocate for us and answering any questions we had after the appointment was over, as well as directing us to resources to help us make our decision. In short: she is awesome.
Jaz booked us to see a specialist at the hospital to try an ECV, a procedure where they try to push on the baby from the outside to turn the baby head down. We were booked in and the procedure was unsuccessful. Stubborn already! The next step was to meet with a surgeon who would discuss the pros and cons of birthing via cesarean. We did that at 38 weeks. We were then scheduled for a follow up appointment that included another ultrasound to see if baby had turned on it's own. The ultrasound and doctors appointment were scheduled for the 30th, and a cesarean was scheduled on the 31st. The pre-surgery appointment was scheduled for the afternoon of the 29th. Yes, we had to go to pre-surgery consultation, before we had decided about the surgery as that was the only appointment available. When you are having a baby between Christmas and New Years, the scheduling doesn't always work out due to staff holidays. We had decided that if the baby had not turned itself around, we would go the route of the cesarean.
Thomas, it turns out, had
other plans.
Thomas has never been a big
mover and kicker while "on the inside" but he was predictable.
Usually within 20 minutes of eating, I would feel Thomas twirl and stretch but
on the morning of the 29th, there was no movement after breakfast. I tried a
few other known strategies to get him to move such as poking, laying on my back
and eating something full of sugar, but the baby would have none of it. No movements. Something was not right.
Finally
at 10:30 I called our midwife and explained all I had done and that the baby was not moving in response. She asked us to meet her at the hospital for a fetal assessment, and assured us that usually by the time you get to the hospital the baby is well and moving and it was all just a scare.
We
arrived close to 11 and I was hooked up to a fetal monitor. They were able to
find a heartbeat, but they were unable to detect any movements. After a ten
minute stretch, the doctors were called in and it was decided that our baby
would be born, today, and right now.
Mark and I were ushered into a room where
I was instructed to change. Once that was done, an IV was placed while Mark and
I were listening to possible complications and signing papers. Next thing we know
we were moving down the hall towards the operating theater where things moved
very fast. Doctors are still explaining the cesarean procedure what I would hear and how things would happen while the epidural was being placed.
Thomas was born very quickly, and it felt like it took forever to
hear him cry and when he did cry it was so weak and tiny. He was placed on
oxygen right away and moved directly to NICU to receive help with his
breathing.
Thomas started in Level 2 in an incubator on CPAP but it was quickly
determined he needed more help with his breathing and he was moved to level 3
NICU where he was intubated and placed on morphine to sedate him so he wouldn't
knock out any of the IV lines with baby wiggles and squirms.
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| Thomas at one week old (on his original due date) once most of the monitors were off and the worst of it was over. |
Upon further testing, it was found his glucose was
really low. His glucose level was 0.1 at birth. The lowest the nurses had seen
before Thomas was 0.3. He had IV's placed to receive medications and glucose
and then his heart became confused and kept reverting back to gestational
circulation, and on top of it all he was
treated for an infection in his lungs - which is what the doctors think caused
the whole thing. Gestational pneumonia.
With all the blood tests, his blood
stopped clotting properly and he was offered medications to help with
clotting. The doctors had no idea how
long Thomas was in distress in the womb, and were worried that there could be
seizures due to lack of oxygen to the brain so Thomas was hooked up to the
BRAINZ monitors as well to watch for seizures. Over the three day monitoring
period, there were no seizures. It was such a relief to hear.
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| Thomas and mummy snuggles in Level 1 NICU, once most of our tubes, IV lines and BRAINZ monitors were removed |
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Daddy snuggles are the best
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In addition to all of this, Thomas was given a feeding tube to receive nutrition as he had too many sensitive lines to be held to feed and he was too lethargic to feed on all the medications. His feeding tube was the last thing to be removed as it took Thomas a while to figure out how to eat on his own and to have the energy to do so after such a traumatic start in life. Thomas spent 21 days in NICU before coming home.
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| Thomas being fed via tube |
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| Finally going home! |
