One Sweet World: One month later…

Oh my gracious, can you believe a month has gone by?!?

Just look at my sweet boy :)

Better get used to this pictures, kid ;)

Well, it’s been about six weeks since I last updated this blog. Last time I checked in was at Week 40 in my pregnancy with Dean. We (Dean and I) actually went into Week 41 of pregnancy. I thought about doing a Week 41 update…but it would have sounded something like this:

“Yes, I’m still pregnant, and I don’t think he’s ever coming out!!! Leave me alone!!!”

You get the idea.

I’d like to use this entry to discuss what’s transpired in the last few weeks. If you don’t want to hear “the birth story,” then the beginning of this entry is not for you (don't worry, I'm not going to get graphic or anything). I do encourage you then to skip down to once Dean is born, so you’ll be caught up on him (that is, if you want to).

Let’s get started: my team and I (team being my doula Ellen and my husband John) did everything we could think of to get labor moving. Everything short of castor oil (even I have my limits). I didn’t want an induction. Truth be told, I was a bit scared of it. Even its name sounded ominous to me: induction. But I was so beyond ready to have Dean in this world (and to no longer be pregnant!), so I sucked it up and set up an induction for March 20.

John and I get to the hospital at 5:30am (yes, in the morning!) to get ready for the induction. After Ellen arrives, we learn from the nurse that they are short staffed and that it would take a while to get to me. The nurse even said we could go home and come back another time. I wasn’t having that! I ever so politely informed her I was staying for however long it took. Sometime around 7am the doctor on-call met with me to say he would be back to break my water around 10am. Imagine my surprise when he showed up at my room at 10am ready to go! Unfortunately, the nurses who had shown up a few minutes before could not get an IV in me, and without an IV the doctor wouldn’t proceed :( So then we waited until around 2pm, then the show got started.

The induction really wasn’t as bad as I had it built up in my head. No, it didn’t feel great to have my water broken, but it wasn’t the horrendous pain I had thought it would be. Labor started around 2pm. I feel I did pretty well laboring on my own for a while, but the contractions weren’t as strong or frequent as the doctor liked, so we went forward with medication to make them stronger and more frequent (doesn’t that sound like fun :P ). Once those meds got into my system, it took until the second contraction for me to scream for my epidural. And thank goodness for the epidural!

That all occurred during the evening/night hours. Midnight comes and goes, so it’s been at least 24 hours since I had anything to eat or drink. I’m dilating, but not as quick as I would like. It wasn’t until around 4:30am THE NEXT DAY that I got to start pushing. Thankfully at this point the epidural is still in effect. Until around 5am. Oh no!!! I started getting feeling back in my left hip. At first I thought it was from the way I was laying down, so Ellen tried to massage it out. Then we all realized I was able to feel the contractions in my hip. Oh my gracious! Looking back now I’m thankful I had feeling in my hip (at the time it hurt like nothing else, so I wasn’t able to see the positive in it). Pushing made the pain lessen, so that made me feel a little more in control.

Finally, at 6:15am on Thursday, March 21, Dean Edward Martin was born. All 8 pounds, 11 ounces, and 23 inches of him. He was (and still is) absolutely perfect. I can’t describe how I felt the moment John brought him over for me to hold. I was so proud of Dean for finally making it into this world, and filled with so much love and joy for this precious little person. He was healthy and alert and I couldn’t wait to just hold him all day (and finally eat!)! After he had his bath, the nurse took Dean back to have his exam by the doctor.

That was when things went downhill.

To make a long story short, Dean had to be transported to the NICU of another hospital. His breathing was irregular and his blood sugar level plummeted to 6, when it should have been in the 80 range. I wanted so much to be discharged from the hospital so I could go be with my newborn son. Seeing as I had just given birth 4 hours earlier, the doctor nicely and politely told me that wasn’t happening. Once Dean was in the NICU and settled, John got to go over to be with him.

I was discharged the following morning. John and I spent most of that day, and the subsequent days, in the NICU with Dean. It absolutely broke my heart to see him there. I had imagined leaving the hospital with my son in my arms, going home to spend quality time with my new family. Instead, I had only held him for a matter of minutes, and now I got to look at him, in an open incubator. The NICU staff did everything they could to figure out what was going on with my son. MRI, EEG, blood work, and several other tests were run to determine the cause of his issues. Everything came back normal, so they worked on stabilizing his breathing and glucose.

After 7 days in the NICU, Dean’s breathing and glucose were finally stabilized and he was able to go home! We were so happy to finally have our son home, so we could start bonding and become a family.

The “honeymoon” was short-lived. The hospital didn’t do Dean’s newborn screen until the day he was discharged from the NICU. A week later, on a Wednesday, I received a call with the results of his screen (yes, a week later). The resident in the NICU sent the information to the wrong pediatrician’s office (that’s another story all together). The screen showed that Dean was in adrenal crisis (adrenal glands were not functioning properly). Our pediatrician told us to go have more blood work done to make sure. We did, and within a couple of hours we found ourselves on the way to the Children’s Hospital in Knoxville.

Upon arrival, the emergency room staff immediately took Dean back and started getting him on an IV and taking blood to check his levels. Dean was diagnosed with Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) and admitted to the hospital’s PICU so they could give him medication to monitor his sodium, potassium, and glucose levels. It took a couple of days for the medication to work, and those were the longest 2 days of my life. John came back home after dropping Dean and I off in Knoxville (he had to work the next couple of days). So there we were, Dean and I and the wonderful nurses in the PICU. John came back Friday after work, and Dean was released to come home Saturday afternoon.

We’ve now been home for 2 straight weeks, and we couldn’t be happier to be together as a family!

Several of you called, emailed, and/or texted during the time we were figuring out about Dean’s CAH. I was not in a place to respond to communication, therefore I thank you for understanding why I didn’t respond. I also want to thank everyone for their support, thoughts, prayers, visits, and meals for us. I wish I could express in words just how much they meant to us and how much we love and appreciate all of you!

For anyone interested in learning more about CAH (and I highly encourage you to be), the website the hospital directed us to is http://www.caresfoundation.org/productcart/pc/index.html. This is a condition Dean will have for the rest of his life, and will have to take medication every day to balance himself. As long as he takes his medication, he can still live a normal life.

Alright, now for some pictures of our little man!