A December Surprise

So most of you know by now that I had the baby early.  His name is Silas Aaron Cooper and he weighed 2 pounds even and was 14 1/2 inches long.  He was born at 25 weeks, 3 days which is 15 weeks early.  I expected him early but not this early.

So here is what happened:  (For those of you who don't want the details of HOW he got here, just skip ahead a few paragraphs.)  All day on Saturday I had a really bad lower backache.  I thought I was just out of whack and needed to go to the chiropractor again on Monday.  I kept putting heating pads on my back all day and finally went and took a hot shower and went to bed around 9 p.m.  I couldn't get comfortable in bed, kept tossing around, and finally fell into a sort-of-sleep.  It was one of those sleeps where you feel like you're pretty much still awake but you also have this ongoing dream that you're sort of in and out of.  It wasn't a good sleep.  And my dream was that I was in labor.  More specifically, my dream was that I at some sort of Utopian town.  The U.S. had a become a bunch of small towns and you lived wherever others that thought like you lived.  Our town was still called Flora but it had some sort of Utopian feel to it and we all believed in gun control and the Constitution.  In support of this, we had all given up electricity and every other modern convenience and even changed our town buildings into what they looked like 200 years ago.  Donna Mason was in charge of the restaurant that I was eating at when I went into labor.  It was a very strange dream and I was in a lot of pain in it.  I finally came to enough to realize that I really was in pain and was having contractions every 2 minutes.

I laid there debating about drinking a big glass of water and seeing if they would go away.  But first I had to pee.  After my trip to the bathroom I decided that I needed to wake up Jason and head to the hospital because I was bleeding.  Because I am high-risk, I have had all of my kids at St. John's Mercy in St. Louis.  The first time (with Maleah) I was taken in an ambulance and I vowed that would never happen again.  So we went in the car with Carissa and then again this time.  My Mom came over to stay with the kids and we high-tailed it to STL.  It's not that bad of a drive at all on a clear morning at 4 a.m.  There was zero traffic and it didn't take us long to get there.

I really just thought that I had a bad urinary tract infection.  That would explain the backache and I thought possibly the blood in the toilet.  I know that UTI's can cause pre-term labor and that I would get to the hospital, they would give me an antibiotic, stop the contractions and send me on my way.  That is not what happened.  The first thing they did was rule out a UTI.  My heart sank.

Next they checked to see if my water had broken.  It had but was only a slow leak.  My contractions were every two minutes and getting stronger.  They told me that I wasn't leaving until I had the baby and that they were going to try to keep him in until 34 weeks.  That meant spending the next 9 weeks in the hospital on strict bedrest.  I lost it and cried.  My thoughts were not only consumed by Silas' health but by missing Christmas with my two girls. 

They gave me the maximum dose of an evil drug called Magnesium.  It has lots of side effects like making you feel flushed, hotter than you've ever been, nausea, dizzyness, weakness, unable to keep your eyes open, not wanting to breathe or talk.  Seriously.  It was a rough day and the good that came out of it is that it kept me from delivering long enough for the first shot of steroids for Silas' lungs that they gave me had time to absorb.  The dr's goal was to keep me on that for at least 48 hours so that Silas could get two steroid shots through me but that didn't happen.  The problem was that I began bleeding more and more and the contractions never stopped.

Silas has also been breech since day one too.  I wasn't too worried about that because he still had plenty of time to flip before a full-term delivery.  He was what they call a double footling breech which meant that his feet were going to come out first, not his butt.  It was too dangerous to try to deliver him vaginally so I had my very first c-section.  After they finally decided that he was just going to have to be born because my labor was getting advanced, they did an emergency c-section.  I was physically sick, had no muscle control and couldn't even hold myself up for the spinal because of the crazy concoction of drugs that had been pumped into me all day.  I couldn't focus on anything really, not even my very pieced, confused, and highly effective prayers.  The doctors chose to do a spinal because it is faster and I was suddenly bleeding more than what I even realized at the time.  During the operation, Silas was out before I even realized that they had started (due in part to the fact, that I couldn't keep my eyes open).  They soon discovered that my placenta had begun separating from my uterus.  This is called Placental Abruption and can be very dangerous for the baby.  Thankfully, I was in the right place with a whole bunch of highly trained Maternal Fetal Medicine Doctors around me.  Thank you God for sending me to the right place and blessing me with such an awesome staff to help me through this!  As a side note, Placental Abruption happens to about 1% of patients.  For those of you that know me well, know that this is the story of my life!

They had estimated by ultrasound that Silas weighed 1 pound 6 ounces.  I was so thankful when I heard that he actually weighed a full two pounds at birth.  Another answered prayer.  He is a beautiful baby and has a beautiful skin tone and some dark brown hair.  He looks a lot like my two girls did, only so much smaller.  We all thought Maleah was so tiny when she was born at 4 lb. 11 oz.  He is less than half that size.  It's a whole different ballgame this time.  He tried to cry when he was born.  It wasn't exactly a cry but more of a noise.  My heart melted and I was able to focus on him for a few minutes.  They brought him to me and held him up by my face for me to see him.  It was love at first sight.  I was amazed by his perfect yet oh so tiny hands, fingers, and eyes.  I kept thinking of Psalm 139:14 and being "fearfully and wonderfully made."

They took him to the NICU from there while I went to recovery.  I loved recovery, let me tell  you.  It was like a little slice of heaven after a day in hell.  They let me have all of the ice chips I wanted (I had been allowed no food or drink all day in anticipaton of a possible c-section.).  I got to see my girls and my parents.  I was the only patient in there.  The nurses were fantastic.  I left there and they wheeled me in to see my tiny little man.  I got to touch him through the isolette (which they call a giraffe these days, I don't remember that from Maleah's nicu stay).  He was stable and sleeping so they took me upstairs to get me settled into a very comfortable bed that I am truly enjoying.  Jason and I are in our own little corner room.  It is very quiet.  He has a fold out couch to sleep on and got some much needed sleep there.  I think we will be here for a few days before I am released. 

This morning I am anxious to get unhooked from my tubes and iv's so that I can go see the baby again.  In the meantime, I have kept up with what's going on with him by phone with his nicu nurse.  He is still doing good.  She has warned me that this a "honeymoon period" and that 25 weekers will have a roller-coaster ride through the nicu.  I am prepared for that as much as I can be I guess.  Right now, I am just asking for all the prayers I can get for our little guy.  Please pray that his roller-coaster ride won't be too hilly and that he will just flourish and grow.  He is our miracle, that's for sure.

I will try to update this as often as I can, even if it's just a short paragraph here or there...

Thank you all for the prayers and outpouring of support!  You're the best!