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www.evan-jes-ad.blogspot.com
The story begins:
Our son was born on his third trip to the hospital; in a way neither his mother nor I (nor him I'm sure) wanted or expected. Jes was afflicted with a condition called "acute fatty liver of pregnancy" and hydronephrosis, to that end it was necessary to deliver him by emergency C-Section.
We went to one of Jes's normally scheduled appointments with her midwife where she was placed on a fetal monitor due a couple of troubling symptoms (i.e. extreme thirst, contractions, etc). We were then sent to the hospital so that Jes could be hydrated via IV. This was the third time this had happened during the pregnancy so neither one of us thought much of it. However, my mother showed up and this point to give some welcomed support. Jes had also been having extremely bad heartburn over the last couple of weeks of the pregnancy. We didn't think much of that either except that she was going to birth a Chewbacca.
After Jes had had a liter of fluid she was still extremely thirsty and the contractions were still continuing (although she never technically entered "active labour"). Her heartburn was also "kickin' something fierce," so she was given something like Bicitra (super Maalox). This caused her to vomit like a champ and Evan's heartbeat to drop to 30bpm and then slowly rise back to normal (~140bpm) after about eight minutes. They were both admitted to the hospital for 23hrs of observation at this point.
We were moved to a Labour and Delivery Room around the corner, Jes and Evan were hooked up to a fetal monitor again, and we all settled in for a long night. After about an hour or two of monitoring, it became obvious to Rachel (midwife), Lauren (OB doc), and me (once it was explained what to look for) that Evan was having what are called "Late Decelerations" or drops in heart rate just after the peak of a contraction. Evan was no longer tolerating being cooped up, and, according to Rachel and Lauren, probably would not do well in a vaginal delivery. The only option left to us was a Cesarean Section. Evan was rudely yanked into the world at 12:42am on June 27.
At 6lbs 6.6ozs and 38.5 weeks he was a full term baby. However, due to the nature of his entrance into this world, he was transferred to the NICU. Evan had released meconium (or shit himself in utero), and also had a small pneumothorax (or had some air in his chest).
Jes had her own issues as well. In recovery, her blood pressure shot up to around 225/176 and was given magnesium sulfate to counteract. However, as we later found out, she had impaired liver function so the mag sulfate was not being cleared out of her system and caused her to go toxic. She was transferred to the big people ICU about 2:30pm on June 27. It was at this point that Jes's mom came down from Georgia to lend more much needed and warmly welcomed support. Enough strings were pulled so that Jes finally got to see and hold Evan for the first time on June 29 ... and the heavens rejoiced. She stayed in the ICU until about 1:00pm on June 30 when she was moved back to L&D. Jes was finally released on July 1 after her labs had returned to a semblance of normalcy.
I won't go into the cavalcade of nurses, doctors and specialists she had. Suffice it to say that the good outweighed the bad and although there was at least one overt attempt (in the ICU no less) she still refuses to acknowledge "Christ as the only path to the One True God." No, I am not kidding.
The two of them made continuous improvements with nary a setback, and Evan came home today (July 2) after getting his feeding issues sorted out. Now we're on to the next great adventure ... breastfeeding. There will be no videos of that.
~Adam
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