Brief Birth Story
I actually had written my birth story while pumping in the middle of the night when Caleb was a baby. About 9 months later, my computer got a virus and I lost that document. I tried everything to recover it, but then I realized the benefits of having that story documented had already been realized when I went through the writing process.
However, as we go through these medical challenges, that birth story becomes more relevant than I ever thought it would be. So here is my attempt to capture that story in a summarized version.
It was Monday morning on October 28, 2013 and I was going through my Monday morning routine at work which usually entailed the following:
Enter my time from the previous week (any consultant or lawyer can appreciate this).
Respond to the emails that I definitely read over the weekend, but chose not to reply to for fear it would turn into work that needed to be done before Monday came.
Briefly chat with my sister who lives in Seattle. With both of us working and having families, this was often our time to just make sure each other was doing okay. She would call on her way to work and I could usually chat for a few minutes.
The Monday morning chat with my sister was typical except when she asked me how I was feeling (my due date was November 1, 2013), it took me a second to respond. I’m not the type of person that asks a question for a token response, nor answers with a token response when asked a question. If someone asks me how I’m doing, they will get the real answer. So after a few seconds I responded, “We had a busy weekend and now that I’ve actually sat down for a period of time, I don’t think I’ve felt my baby move in quite a few days." I almost didn’t want to tell her for fear her response would be what I didn’t have time to do. But I took her response ("call your doctor”) to heart and did just that.
Of course the triage nurse told me to come in and that was easy enough since my OB/GYN clinic was just a quick walk through the skyway. It was during this time, that I knew something wasn’t quite right. The third person that was trying to detect an accurate heart rate told me they were picking up both mine and the babies heart rate. But when about the seventh person came into my room to try to detect an accurate heart rate, I started to panic a bit but was able to remain somewhat calm. I even had a few say “maybe our machine is broken." The next person through the door told me I needed to head to the hospital and asked if I needed an ambulance. Of course my answer was "No, I can’t leave my car in my expensive work parking ramp, I’ll just drive myself.”
I left breathing a little heavier, but still attempted to remain calm. I called Dan before jumping on the elevator to let him know he needed to head to the hospital. Well wouldn’t you know, he had just arrived at a PGA meeting in a very northern Minneapolis suburb, WITHOUT his car. Yes, his wife was within 5 days of delivering a baby, and he chose to have his buddy drive them to their all day meeting.
I arrived at the Mother Baby Center at Abbott and there were people waiting for me to walk off that elevator. From this moment on, it is somewhat of a blurred memory, but the main points to note are this:
Dr. Mainguy (physician at Women’s Health Consultants) and the rest of the Children’s staff was wonderful to me and our baby.
Dan made it to the hospital, just before they were going to wheel me into surgery.
I gave birth to a miracle baby, Caleb, who is still with us today.
Dr. Mainguy explained to me that she was very concerned about my baby and there was no time for a vaginal delivery. I thought I would be devastated if I couldn’t have a normal delivery, but in that moment, all I wanted was the baby to be safe and healthy, even at the expense of a future six-pack (vain, I know). It was less than two hours after I called my OB/GYN clinic that an emergency C-section was performed after detecting a heart rate of the baby at 288 beats per minute (bpm). That machine wasn’t broken at the clinic, nor were they detecting both of our heart rates, it was just one little guy with a heartbeat going that fast.
This is the first picture we have of him.
He was ventilated immediately as he wasn’t able to breathe on his own.
And here is our first photo with our baby. It isn’t what we envisioned as our first photo, but we were happy nonetheless. I remember when I was pregnant thinking I should attend a birthing class and should have a birth plan, but I didn’t do any of that. I was happy at this moment that I didn't make time for either of those as this was clearly God’s plan, and any plans I would have made wouldn’t have mattered.
That pink robe makes me smile. It was a gift from the Marquardt wedding and was intended to be worn while we beautified ourselves for their wedding. I brought it for lounging in my hospital room after giving birth. What I didn’t know was that multiple times a day I would be walking through the hospital to the NICU at the Children’s hospital. I wore that and neon green Lulu leg warmers for days and didn’t realize how silly I probably looked.
Caleb was born at 8 lbs and 9 oz with severe hydrops (accumulation of fluid) most likely due to his sustained SVT while in utero unbeknownst to us. This caused him to be swollen all over his body so he wasn’t able to open his eye(s) right away like most babies. Below is a capture of our “one-eyed willy”. We caught him opening his eye (not eyes) for the first time.
And that is my birth story. This is not intended to encapsulate our time in the NICU, nor the emotions of finding out our son was born with a heart condition. Rather it is meant to portray in brevity the traumatic entrance that Caleb had into this world, that is possibly playing a role in some of the findings that we are discovering today.