PART 1: I never thought I would experience such a traumatic birth experience in a million years. It was a long roller coaster ride, but so worth it. It was worth it because I got to meet my miracle baby, Aiden. It’s also worth it because I can educate people about what can happen while giving birth. This blog post is not meant to scare anyone, but it is meant to teach you about trusting God, your gut, and advocating for your loved one. This post is also about advocating for yourself. Not only was Aiden hospitalized, I was as well. I told y’all that there’s more to the story than y’all know.
Although I was scheduled to be induced on November 17th, on November 6th, around 11 pm, I experienced vaginal bleeding. Hubby, Ava, and I immediately rushed to the hospital, and doctor could not confirm where the bleeding was coming from. However, she wanted to monitor me for a day. A day turned into two days, and then my OB/GYN said that we could go ahead and induce labor. I was scheduled to be induced the following week anyway. We successfully had Aiden at 2:17 pm on November 8th. He was 7 lbs 7 oz, healthy, very sweet, and loved to eat. The first day was heavenly. The hospital staff seemed very eager to discharge us, but I’m not a big fan of being rushed. I didn’t mind staying for the standard two days, and I let them know that. I’m so glad that I did. We discovered that Aiden had jaundice, which kept us from being discharged on day one. I’m telling you this was all orchestrated by God. If we had left the hospital, we could have lost Aiden.
Aiden was required to remain under a lamp (phototherapy) to treat his jaundice by my bedside. He was calm and napped most of the time. However, the next day at 2 am, I noticed a drastic change. Aiden became inconsolable, you could literally see his tiny heart rapidly beating through his chest, and he refused to eat. I knew in my gut that something was wrong. I called the nurse, who had been working in healthcare for 20+ years. I told her my concerns, and she said, “Oh, don’t worry. Babies become more active each day. He is fine”. Before I could say anything else, she was already out the door. I waited a little longer, rocked Aiden, tried to feed him, but I couldn’t get him to calm down. I called the nurse again. I told her something was wrong, and she sent in the charge nurse.
The charge nurse, who also was a nurse for several years, came in asked me a few questions. She said that he may have been uncomfortable due to the warm lamp above him. She tried to burp him, dipped his pacifier into a sweet substance, gave it to him to see if that would calm him down. She told me, “In order for you to rush this process and get out of here, you should give him formula.” I said I didn’t want to do that because I was breastfeeding him. She urged me to do so and said that it would help in this situation. I did not want to do that, but anything to help, I guess. She left the room, came back with the formula, and fed him 20 mL. Aiden slightly calmed down. She put him back under the lamp and said that eventually, he would calm down. I monitored Aiden closely, and it seemed like his heart rate increased. I called the nurse again. The nurse came in and told me that it would be ok and try to rest.
At this point, it was 7 am, shift change. Jamaar noticed that it sounded like Aiden was gurgling something. I told him to call the nurse. Our angel nurse came in. I told her about the night, how I was concerned, and no one seemed to be helping. She asked a few questions and determined that he should go to the NICU. As she was wheeling him out of the room, another nurse came in and asked where Aiden was going. Our angel nurse told her that she was taking him to the NICU, and the nurse told her to leave him in the room. That he was fine, this was the 4th nurse to dismiss my concerns. I looked our angel nurse dead in the eye, and without saying it, I gave her the “don’t you fold” look. She said, “better safe than sorry!” and rushed Aiden to the NICU. Not much later, she came back and said that Aiden did have fluid in his lungs, and they needed to do a blood test to confirm some other things. Again, she returned and told us that there was an emergency and that we needed to head to the NICU to speak to the neonatologist immediately. My concerns were valid.
The neonatologist asked me what had happened the previous night. I told him, and he said that he knew for sure that Aiden had a blood infection and that it was surrounding his brain and spine. He was not going to wait to get the rest results that determined the specific infection because he needed to act quickly. He got our permission to give him antibiotics and transfer Aiden to Texas Children’s Hospital (TCH) to provide the resources and staff that Aiden would need to recover. We had a few hours to act, or we would have lost him. While Jamaar signed documents, the staff allowed me to hold Aiden alone in the NICU room. I instantly put my trust in God’s hands and began to sing See a Victory and It’s Happening Now and pray over him. I was concerned about Aiden’s condition, but I was very calm. God was in that room. This was not an attack of the enemy but a way to get my attention and test to confirm that I trusted God. I had to have Crazy Faith. We will talk more about that later.
When Aiden was transferred to TCH, the clinicians immediately began to work. They noticed that he stopped breathing, revived him, and hooked him to the ventilator. He had a few seizures; they gave him medication to stop the seizures and hooked him up to the EEG machine to monitor if he had any additional ones. He had a very high heart rate, low white and red blood cell count, blood in his stomach, and jaundice. He had multiple plasma transfusions and blood tests. It was determined that he had Group B Streptococcus (GBS), a bacterial infection. They gave Aiden the appropriate antibiotics and told me all the possible adverse outcomes that could happen to him due to medication (hearing loss, not curing the infection, etc.), but I rebuked it.
While Aiden was going through his obstacle, I dealt with one as well. One day after I came home from visiting Aiden in the hospital, I started shivering uncontrollably for 20 minutes. I called my OB/GYN, and she told me to take a warm bath and call back if the shivering hadn’t stopped after the bath. Shortly after that, I became very hot. I checked my temp and the thermometer showed that I had a 102 degrees F temp!
Can you guess what was going on with me? What are your thoughts about this story so far? Let me now in the comments below and find out the rest of this crazy story in part 2!
A very scary time. Glad you had an angel nurse to get him help.