For those of you who don't know the story, my youngest was born in the car on Christmas morning. Labor was putzing along, going nowhere, and I asked Gary to take me to the hospital so I'd be out of the way for Christmas morning Services. I figured the baby wouldn't be born until afternoon or evening. We got in the car to leave for the hospital, and she was born about 10 minutes later. Surprise! We stopped in town to see the family doctor, and were back home in bed only two hours after we left. (No hospital bill. Just a bill for an "extended office visit" at the clinic!)
Maggie's heart problems weren't discovered for two more weeks. It wasn't definitively diagnosed for over three weeks. She was admitted to the hospital for her first heart surgery at 5 1/2 weeks. During those weeks, we lived a rather unexciting life at home with a new baby, the way it's supposed to be: diapers, baths, naps, cord care, nursing, burping, more naps, etc.
During her time in ICU after surgery, we saw brand new parents arriving to meet their newborns who'd been medi-flighted there. I was so thankful that God spared us that trauma. We had the comforts of home. We had time with all the siblings together, just reading stories, holding baby, eating supper. After weeks of that, we were finally whopped with the realities of her heart defect. But there was the nice lull before the storm.
Today I was catching up on reading my VCFS email list. Today I discovered that those early hospitalizations are often a cause of feeding disorders. Babies are medicated so heavily, and they're given IV nutrition, and they don't learn to suck, and they aren't cuddled and held because of all the tubes and wires and monitors. So when God caused that baby to be born in less than an hour, we were not only spared the shock and the upset of the hospitalization and surgery for a days-old baby, but Maggie also avoided a lot of the medical complications that are often part of VCFS.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Amazing story Susan. I am happy for you and Maggie that you were granted this peaceful birth experience.
ReplyDeleteI'm always left in awe of events that don't go as planned but turn out to be such blessings.
ReplyDeleteHi Susan,
ReplyDeleteI came across your blog today. I am one of those moms who was rushed to the NICU with their baby right away and sure enough Dillon cannot eat or suck at all. He can't even swallow his own saliva. I am pretty sure this is due to his brain damge from lack of oxgyen at birth - but I never thought of it as a possibility that it could be from how medicated they had him and the fact that I didn't get to hold him for the first full week.
What type of heart condition does your little one have? Is it something that will be life long or is it correctable?
Hi Tiffany. My youngest was born with Tetralogy of Fallot. She had a stop-gap surgery, then her repairs. And just recently she had another surgery which should hopefully be the last (except for failing valves and things like that).
ReplyDeleteI hope things are improving for your son.