Mothers intuition is always right

So I wasn't wrong it was a big deal, it was a very big deal. My nurse kept the baby on the monitor all night and he was doing okay although he was having quite a few dips in his heart rate which I knew wasn't normal for him. In the morning I got a new nurse and she was very concerned by my bleeding and the fact I was in pain. She called the doctor who was in the hospital and said she had to come see me. The doctor came in at 7 am. She felt my abdomen and saw it was painful to the touch so she said she needed to see if I was dilated. She tried to do a visual exam but there was too much blood, so she did a hand check and found I was 1 1/2 centimeters dilated. Based on that and how much very dark blood I had she said we needed to deliver the baby as there was either an infection or my placenta had abrupted. She did a quick sonogram to see if he was still heads down like he had been for several weeks. However in the course of one night he had turned completely around and was breach, so that meant a C-Section. I was rushed into emergency surgery and at 8:29 am Ryan James Sentell was born. He was only 2 lbs. 14.2 ozs. and 14 1/2 inches long. He was whisked away by the NICU team and I never even saw him, all I saw was an isolette full of blankets go by.

After surgery, Doug went to check on Ryan and then move all of my collected stuff from the past month out of my room. I laid in the recovery room coming out of anesthesia and getting my first taste of pain. After an hour I was put in another room where I laid in bed waiting for my next pain pill to come. Doug showed me pictures of my little tiny boy on his camera-phone. It was hard to tell from that little picture what kind of shock I was in for. He didn't seem that small and he didn't have a lot of stuff happening at that time. After about 8 hours the nurses asked if I was ready to get out of bed. Based on my pain level just trying to adjust in the bed I thought they surely must be kidding. They weren't!!! They told me in order to see my baby I had to get out of bed and walk. To this I cringed, walk to the NICU did they know how far that was!!! Thankfully they didn't mean I actually had to walk to the NICU just a few feet to my bathroom. If I could do that and get cleaned up then I could use a wheelchair to see my baby. Despite the excruciating pain I did as they asked and Doug got to wheel me to the NICU.

Here is where things went down hill. I found a tiny, tiny baby with tubes and wires come out of every part of his body. He was on a respirator that blows 300 tiny breaths into his lungs and causes his chest to quiver. Now while I was aware that this would probably happen and thought I was somewhat prepared, I was not! I started to cry, which made my incision hurt because I had to take deep breaths. I couldn't see my baby's face because it was facing the big respirator machine and I was on the other side. I was afraid to touch him, as I didn't want to get him sick or cause him any problems. To top it all off he was in crisis, his blood pressure was dropping, his oxygen level was low and they were doing a sonogram of his heart and lungs to try and determine what the problem was. I was having a hard time dealing with all I was seeing and then they said they needed us to wait by the desk so they could put another IV in. An IV in his head no less. The only good thing was one of the nurses came by and told the nurse who wanted us to leave that I probably just wanted to see his face. She told her to just let me look at his face before she put in the IV. She agreed and let Doug wheel me to the other side to see Ryan's sweet tiny face.

We sat by and waited while they put in his IV and the Cardiologist checked the sonogram of his heart and lungs. When they were done they let us come back at which time the Cardiologist told us his lungs weren't developed, which was a shock to us as everyone so far was saying his lungs looked really good for his age. They then started giving him a transfusion and drugs to bring up his blood pressure. While these things seemed to be helping his blood pressure and oxygen level, it was causing his heart to slow to dangerous levels. I had to leave when they ordered a sonogram of his brain. My biggest fear above all else is brain damage. I went back to my room filled with fear and worry.

They told Doug to come back just before 6 to check on his progress. Thankfully Ryan had responded well to the treatment. His oxygen level, blood pressure and heart rate were all up. The sonogram of his brain showed a very small bleed that was most likely causing his heart rate to drop and they said it should correct itself in the next few days and not cause any lasting problems. I was able to stop worrying and get some sleep.