We pulled into the driveway. The midwife, and both assistants, my husband and I tiptoe into the house. My mom is asleep on the couch. She doesn't stir as the women sneak back into my bedroom and my husband crawls into bed with our four year old, barely fitting on the twin sized bottom bunk. They snuggle up and he's asleep within seconds.
I am exhausted but my mind is racing. I just put one foot in front of the other. I step into the bathroom and remove the hospital robes and socks. I am cautioned not to shower too hot or I will get queasy. The cool water feels good, and I shake from adrenaline as I quickly cleanse my body. I am all too aware of every second ticking by now. The time warp of labor has faded. I think of where on the freeway my little boy is, riding in the back of an ambulance. He's hours old, in the hands of strangers on a fast road, going to a hospital that I don't even know the location of. Talk about feeling powerless. I don't dwell on those thoughts, I try to think of what I need to get to him. What will I need? I step out of the shower and begin the process of dressing a body that isn't pregnant anymore, but isn't what it used to be either. I don't want to fuss over clothes, yet things aren't fitting right. I don't care how I look. After a couple tries I find a shirt that's manageable and pants that are comfy.
One of the assistants has packed a bag for me. She has made me snacks in a small cooler. She instructs me on personal care. She tells me to grab things that she doesn't know the location of: my toothbrush, and hairbrush, extra underclothes and a sweatshirt. I just follow directions. Soon I am zipped up and ready. We decide to let my husband sleep. Someone arranges with my mom to wake my husband at 830am and send him to the hospital. The other kids will miss school. I leave with the assistants and the main midwife heads for home to send off her family for the day so she can return to us after a couple hours.
The drive is long, and the sun is rising. I realize all to well what time of day it is. I'm cold. They wrap me snuggly in a blanket and pillow and I lay over my duffel bag in the back seat. I can hear myself snoring but can't wake enough to quiet myself. I am slightly embarrassed even in my sleep, but the car is so warm and the gentle hum of the freeway reassures my heart that my baby is closer with every moment. I awake as the feel of the road changes. We are turning left and right, starts and stops. I know we are downtown. I open my eyes and see out the windows the large maple trees of downtown that make arches over nearly any street you drive down. More trees. The light shining down through the leaves catches my eyes and I find a moment of peace from those beautiful strong tall trees.
The main assistant (K) and I are dropped off. I am mad at my body that feels unable to carry my frame. I want to run to my son, and I can barely undo my seat belt. I wish I had energy. That intense energy of birth, I wish I had that now. She brings a wheelchair and we pile my belongings on top of my lap. I still am clinging to his blankets. The spot of baby smell. I have a bracelet on my wrist that I know matches one on his ankle. I look down at his name on my wrist. I just cry. It's all I can do. We find a front desk and the lady takes a long time finding my son's name in her computer. She seems to read information, make a grim face and type some more. My brain is screaming what? Did he make the trip? Is he okay? Is he here? I am about to ask her what's wrong when she asks if he was transferred here. Oh yeah, it's not making sense to people, because I didn't birth in the hospital. Yes. That's him, she found him. She gives directions and I am wheeled away.
Soon we enter an area called The Special Care Nursery. Fancy name for NICU. We go to the nurses station and ask about the baby. He made the trip safely, they are replacing his breathing tube as it was too small and air was leaking out. He needed the right size. I think to myself how I don't even know what he weighs or how long he is. Just his time of birth. And his dark brown hair. I hold onto what I do know. So, we have to wait half an hour. We go downstairs to find a lactation room and I am instructed how to use the hospital grade pumps, and given a schedule of every 3 hours. I sit there pumping. K feeds me strawberries by hand from my cooler she had packed. She is a genius for doing that. I can't believe how raving hungry I am. I can smell the food from the cafeteria across the hall and my tummy growls.
It's such a blur and all I can think of is how the pumping makes the pain of contractions come back-a normal body reaction, but more pain. I just don't have any energy to deal with pain. I take some tylenol and use the bathroom, realizing we forgot a huge necessity of any woman postpartum...a squirt bottle. I am taught some fancy midwife trick that makes the pain much less, that I end up using over the next 3 days. It involves leaning so far forward that you nearly lay on the floor so things run more uphill than down, avoiding areas that are torn and will burn. I think of my husband. He got the better end of that deal too. He'd so laugh if he saw me peeing like I'm a frog.
We get back upstairs to finally see my baby and are told again that we'll have to wait. Shift change is coming-thirty more minutes. The assistant explains how I haven't seen my baby since birth but a mere glimpse in a crowded isolette. The woman has mercy and I am shown how to scrub in and get a sticker that verifies I'm not sick and have washed my hands. I am wheeled into the room. I see a baby that is only 11 inches long. It looks like a plastic doll. My baby was so much bigger than that. I see the women who had met him in the other hospital and taken the trip with him. They tell me themselves that his is okay and made the trip well.
I see my baby. My blue and purple baby. He looks...like crap. He's mostly limp, he's still. His head is so swollen that you can barely make out facial features. His nose looks like a tiny button in the middle of a huge balloon head. The ventilator breathes for him. Someone begins telling me numbers and medications but none of it sticks. All I see is this pale body and this big blue head. It's like it belongs to the wrong kid. Like a barbie doll you switched heads on. I don't know how else to explain it. I feel so horrible for him and my mind races to answer why and how. There is no answer. There's just Oliver. The only numbers that matter are his blood sugar which is now too high, and his oxygen which is stable. I leave to a family waiting room, my baby blankets in tow. I saw him for a minute. I was satisfied for now. He had many tests to undergo. An ultrasound of his heart, an EEG of his brain, and blood work. He has so many things terribly wrong that the doctors and nurses will work throughout the morning to balance. Blood chemical levels like pH and sodium/potassium balances, gases, acids and bases. It's all coming back to me from my pre-nursing courses but none of it makes sense because it's too real. It's too personal. I'm too tired. I just want to know his weight and height. Like a normal baby...a nurse writes it down for me. Eight pounds and six ounces. Twenty and a half inches. Baby Boy.
The sun is higher in the sky now and I stretch out on a couch in the waiting room. She sits next to me in a chair. We are so exhausted. We both fall into a gentle warm sleep. I awake to my husband, looking much better than I feel and full of questions about the baby. He is updated. He has food. I peek in the bag but nothing looks satisfying. We meet a social worker. She tells us about a program that happens once a week and it happens to be that day. It involves helping siblings cope with a little one in ICU. I had been stressing on how to explain to my other boys what was going on. After all, I hadn't held good on my promise to Ryan that he'd see his baby when it's "head stuck out." We plan to coordinate bringing the other kids down for that in the afternoon. My husband goes in to see the baby. The midwife takes a peek. We all sit together and try to negotiate what happened and what it could be. My theory is a bleeding disorder of some sort. Hopefully one we can treat. It would explain the blood that had dripped from his nose, the coloration, the huge bruised head, the broken blood vessels in his arms and legs, and the now mushy umbilical cord they had tried to poke lines through to avoid IV's.
Soon we are called aside, my husband and I, to meet with a doctor. The social worker sits next to me on the couch. She rubs my back and holds my hand. My husband is on my right. The doctor sits across from us. She looks young, but not too young. I wonder if she's an optimist, a pessimist, or maybe a realist. A woman sits behind the doctor at a table with a notepad and jots down everything being said. I begin to cry in anticipation. I brace my heart as best I can to hear the worst.
The best we can come up with as to what happened she begins...is the cord was too tight. I shrug my shoulders down. I don't want to argue this again. She sees my frustration and explains further. She says how she knows and believes us that his cord was not too tight at birth, and there are signs that it was not his labor and delivery that caused this trauma, but that he was in trouble in the days perhaps weeks before birth. She thinks he had a long cord and was tangled in it strangling himself long before my water ever broke. He has a special type of red blood cell that the body makes when it is low on oxygen. Red blood cells carry oxygen all over the body. So if oxygen is low, it will make more of these cells to try to carry more oxygen. It's the same thing an adults body does after 5 days or more at a high elevation. Once at a lower elevation again, the body will rid itself off all those red blood cells. Oliver needed oxygen to his head, because of his cord being too tight around his neck in the womb. He made those cells, and they all traveled to his head giving him the oxygen he needed. Because of the compression of the cord on the outside of his neck, the cells and swelling could not drain from his brain. Thus, the swelling of the face and neck. The body responds to the lack of oxygen and the dilemma now going on by using up all it's glucose trying to save the brain. All other body systems are shut down so they don't require glucose and any glucose is diverted to the brain. What we don't know is how long Oliver went with no oxygen or no glucose. These things cause brain damage. And depending on what area's of his brain were damaged, he may die, he may be severely handicapped, mentally or physically, or he may land close to normal and healthy. She has never seen a child come in with a blood glucose of 0. The ones she has seen with low blood glucose have always had long term effects. So we wait on what the tests say. His ultrasound on his heart show a murmur but that's pretty normal for a newborn, there is much transition that must occur in the heart after birth. It's also swollen. The rest we wait on. We wait on tests. We wait on Oliver.
The charge nurse that had been taking notes reserves the room we had met in for us to "stay" in the rest of Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. We feel so blessed by that simple gesture. There's a bathroom, and a breast pump. I don't have to run all over the hospital to take care of my needs. Just downstairs to eat, and other than that our little guy is right next door. We take up camp and wait for our older kids to arrive and meet with the social workers.
The midwife and assistant are exhausted. We have a kindof theory answer and it's good enough for now. They leave me with directions, assure me they will return the next day and head for home, and some sleep.
It's not long before my mom and brother arrive. The older kids are read a story and shown pictures of babies in the NICU. They get to ask questions, and have their fears understood, validated and be reassured. It's hard to reassure a kid when you don't know if your newborn, their little brother is even going to live. They get to see Oliver one at a time. Each boy has chosen a little tiny stuffed animal (we call them lovies) to put by his brothers bed. Jacob chose a funky colored crazy chicken. Bradley chose a multicolored dragon with metallic colored wings. Ryan chose a black and white cow. They each place their lovey in the tiny crib that holds their brother. They stare. They point out wires and identify what each one is with the child worker. They smile. But I see the fear. We are all just shell shocked. Soon they leave with my mom again but Ryan stays, as he doesn't have school. And since we have a room he can snuggle with us and be a somewhat normal family.
Person after person arrives to see the baby and Will and I. I'm slightly uncomfortable with all the traffic. My son is newborn, and very sick. I don't want him getting sick. I don't want other people touching him. I don't want to lose control of being his mom. My husband has a different view. That the exposure will strengthen him, and that people deserve to see him just in case he doesn't survive. I don't feel it's fair. I feel hopeless and powerless. Eventually it's quiet and I can see my son alone to say goodnight. I still can't see him without crying and sputtering so I don't say much. I don't want my touch to disturb him. I just stand silently with a still hand on his knee. I have yet to see him with my husband by my side. There's just too many people.
I go pump yet again, snuggle into my Ryan, my heart aches for my other kids, older and younger. I drift off to restless sleep waking every three hours to pump milk and bring it to his nurse. She gives me updates. He's stable and slightly improving on every level...but things still look very grim. I snuggle my lil man. I miss my trains rumbling outside the window. I have phantom kicks of the baby no longer inside me. Everything is a mess. Everything feels wrong. Everything is hard and even though we have so much support, it's exhausting trying to keep up with it all. The baby, the kids, the family, the arrangements, the never ending phone ringing. I pray for something better tomorrow. Everything is just so surreal. I hold the blankets that smell of him, and the tiny hat the midwife had knit during my labor, and I pray until I drift back to sleep after each pumping.
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