Heidi

Well it's time to brush the dust off the old blog. At least for one post about my sweet Heidi Kamille. I need to get her birth story written down. So here goes.

My pregnancy with Heidi was fairly easy. I was pretty sick with her and never gained much weight. I initially lost 15 pounds and slowly gained that back, and stopped there. At about 35 weeks I started losing weight again, so we set an induction date for exactly 39 weeks along- knowing from my last pregnancy that Heidi's growth would most likely stop which it did. I must admit, I was happy to have an end in sight! A summer pregnancy was not so much fun, I’m thinking Spring baby next time!


The week of my induction rolled around, I was having Braxton hick’s contractions all week. The night before my induction my contractions were getting strong and close together. We thought maybe we should go in, just in case. We were told that your second labor progresses much quicker than your first, so we really didn't want to wait too long. We got to the triage and I was only at a one, but 90%. They watched me for a few hours while my contractions stayed consistent. Ultimately they decided to send me home to relax, labor, and progress some more. I was OK with that; I desperately wanted a shower and one more good night's sleep in my own bed!


The next morning, bright and early we checked in at the hospital. They got me settled in with Pitocin by 8 AM. My doctor broke my water at 9:00. Things got pretty crazy after that. I hung in there for about 30 minutes before I gave in and got the epidural. I immediately felt the relief of the epidural...along with all the yucky side effects. My blood pressure bottomed out, I got nauseous, tired, light headed, loopy etc. By about noon I was at an 8. Tage went to grab a quick snack, but I was feeling really awful. My blood pressure was extremely low, and then Heidi's heart rate started dropping. Tage called to let me know the lines were long, I told him to get his butt back up here. While he was gone, Heidi was still a bit distressed and so was I. For some reason, (I don't remember clearly) the nurse decided to put some epinephrine into my IV to help with my blood pressure. By the time Tage got back to the room, I was basically hyperventilating; the shot of adrenaline she gave me was NOT going over well with me. I was given an oxygen mask and finally was able to calm down although I still felt pretty terrible and I was very out of it. They weren't super concerned, but agreed we needed to get moving, Heidi wasn't thriving very well anymore. They checked me again around 12:45 and I was almost ready. My doctor was hustling as quickly as she could from a hospital across town. I started pushing around 1:00. My doctor arrived shortly after. She's such a great lady. She knew I was upset and sick, but her presence and calmness helped me realize we would be ok. I just couldn't stop focusing on Heidi's heart rate though; I knew she needed to be delivered. At 1:23 Heidi arrived! She came out screaming mad and with an adorable pouty lip. They took all her measurements and said she was just great at 7 pounds 2 ounces and 19 inches long. We later discovered that they were WAY wrong on her length; she was actually 20 ½ inches long!


We finally got settled into our room, Heidi got her bath, we got a quick nap and some food and then had the grandparents visit. My parents brought Lila who was SO EXCITED to meet Heidi. Tage took her to the nursery to get Heidi and bring her to me. She was so proud and interested in everything. She even got to hold Heidi and kept saying, "aw, she's cute!" and "It's Lila's turn!" It was a great first meeting for them, I was just overflowing with love for my family...I was also really exhausted and still felt like crap from the epidural, so after our visitors left we sent Heidi off to the nursery so we could get some rest.


At about 2 AM we were woken by the nurses doing their rounds, checking my blood pressure and giving medication. The nursery nurse also popped into our room and delivered some devastating news. Heidi's color was not good. An NICU nurse happened to walk past her bassinet and noticed that she had some "Duskiness" around her lips and eyes.  Usually babies’ lips are bright pink or red- that’s a good sign they’re getting adequate oxygen. Heidi’s lips were a little greyish blue. They moved her over to TLC care ,which is sort of the middle ground between the NICU and the regular nursery, to monitor her and found that her oxygen saturation levels were not good. She'd be fine for a while then have an episode where her levels would just drop. She would pull herself out of it, but it was making her lethargic. After a few more hours she was having a harder time recovering from these spells and needed a little bit of oxygen to come out of it. Needing the help from the oxygen tank was a sure answer that she needed to be taken care of in the NICU.


This isn't news you expect to receive at 2 in the morning... my mind was so groggy and clouded with fear and sadness...when I walked into the TLC care room and saw her little body all hooked up to cords and wires I just burst into tears. It was real, it wasn't a dream, and it was as bad as they said it was. You never think something like this will happen to you, and when it does it leaves you completely at a loss.  The sweet nurse hugged me and told me everything would be fine, I kept trying to downplay it in my mind, saying it was not a big deal and she'd snap out of it. Reality really hit me hard seeing my 12 hour old baby hooked up to machines. Tage and I just sat there and took it all in...We held her, and we cried...we stared at the clock...we stared at each other. All we could do was wait.


In a moment of pure fear, devastation, and confusion, all I could think to do was pray, and then we simultaneously agreed that a priesthood blessing was definitely needed. Tage called his Dad to come up to the hospital to help him give Heidi a blessing. It seemed like Tage's parents were there within minutes. The blessing was beautiful, Tage's dad gave it and it provided the comfort I needed. It gave me strength to get through that night and the horrible days to come.  I certainly didn’t feel strong, but that blessing helped me find courage deep within myself, I may not have felt like I could hand the situation, but I knew I needed to try. After that night Tage became the rock he knew I needed him to be. I was still crying at every turn, but he was being so strong for me. He really held me together. At one point after getting checked into the NICU I had a moment of real hopelessness, weakness, and selfishness. I looked at Tage and said, "WHY aren't the prayers working? Why us? Where's our blessings that we so desperately need right now?" Tage sat for a moment and said, "Look around you, you're surrounded by blessings. Those computers are letting us know what Heidi needs, the oxygen is keeping her strong, the sweet nurses and doctors are taking excellent care of her. We're able to be here with our baby, you're able to feed her and give her the nutrients she needs. Lila is being taken care of by our family. That's a lot of blessings." He was right. In a very unfortunate situation, we really were blessed; I just needed to see the silver linings in the grey clouds surrounding us.


After being transferred to the NICU, we watched and waited. Heidi continued having "episodes" that drained her of her energy. She developed a fever and wasn't wetting any diapers. So she was put on a feeding tube. Then the oxygen tubes came next. It all felt like such a huge set back, I just wanted her to get better.  By this time I had been discharged from the hospital. Luckily we were able to “board” in our hospital room for a few more days, which was such a relief! There was still no definite end in sight for Heidi’s stay in the NICU, it was all up to this sweet little baby and when she’d pull through. So Tage came up with the idea of towing the trailer up to the hospital parking lot so we could stay close to our baby. I remember crying tears of joy and relief knowing that I wouldn’t have to leave my baby. We were fortunate enough not to have to do that, but I’m so glad it was an option!!


After a day of being on the feeding tube, Heidi started feeling better, she started nursing wonderfully again. (She was a pro at nursing at 5 minutes old!) The problem I was facing now was being able to boogey down to the NICU quickly enough to feed her. She would get VERY hungry in the wee hours of the morning; the nurses wanted us to get sleep, so they fed her my pumped milk or formula. This broke my heart. For some reason it just killed me that I wasn’t always able to do the ONE THING I could do to help Heidi get stronger. I wanted to be able to nurse her, and with my milk coming in and hormones raging, missing a feeding with Heidi really just about broke me down. After that I rarely left Heidi’s side. It seemed like the few breaks we took to eat or shower we’d miss something. Like her having a little breathing episode, getting hungry, or needing a change of clothes. That was one of the hardest parts. I know she was under great care, but it was hard to hand over the reins and have other people take care of her.


One of the most comforting things that the NICU offered was the web cam. Tage and I could sign in and watch Heidi from our room. It was nice to check in on her. But it also was a way to see her getting bottle fed, and waking up to find that they had put her on oxygen overnight. Still, the web cam helped me be able to leave her bedside and get some rest. The level of exhaustion Tage and I felt over those 5 days is indescribable. I felt like I was inside some crazy bubble, or on some awful vacation. I forgot about the world outside, my life consisted of walking back and forth to the NICU countless times a day, trying to remember to eat, and trying to sleep. It’s such a strange feeling to be trapped in a world of confusion and worry. My body switched into survival mode, and now 8 weeks later, a lot of our NICU stay is already becoming blurry.


On Heidi’s fourth day in the NICU she was doing great with help of the oxygen. Tage and I were getting antsy, we wanted answers, we wanted to make a plan and find a way to get our baby home. We were told that since it was Monday, the doctor’s would be arriving and making their rounds. If all went well that day we would possibly be able to go home the next day as long has Heidi didn’t need any help from the IV or feeding tube. We also had to wait until Tuesday when the staff had a big “pow wow” with the nurses and discussed Heidi’s case. We were allowed to go to that meeting and it was so interesting. Literally a room full of a dozen doctors discussing the well-being of our daughter. They really cared, they were so kind. It was also a little bit intimidating! The nurse that took us to the meeting had been taking care of Heidi since 3 AM. It was her job to give all the doctors the rundown on Heidi. She was so helpful, and ironically her name was Heidi too! She said she had been working there for 20 years and never taken care of another Heidi. She made sure to take extras special care of her, and made sure we got the consideration and attention we needed from the doctors. She also made sure we got the ball rolling for discharge later that day. She was really amazing.


The meeting with the doctors went great. They all agreed Heidi just needed to go home and grow. She needed to be fed and cared for and simply grow out of her little problem, especially since we could manage it ourselves with the right equipment. So it was decided that we would have a practice night with Heidi’s medical equipment in the NICU family room. The next day we could need to go to a CPR class, and pass a few more tests. If all went well we would be going home! The relief mixed with anxiety was a little overwhelming. It was time though, we needed to get our family back together, and we were missing Lila terribly.


The stay in the NICU family room went very well. We only had one little issue which is kind of funny now. As we were preparing to move her into our room, a specialist came in to show us how to use Heidi’s oxygen tanks. She had Tage hook her up and sent us on our way down the hall. Heidi immediately started “d-satting” her oxygen levels were low. I was so worried they would send us back to her pod and tell us she wasn’t ready! She kept having issues; Tage and I were so confused. We checked all her cords and everything seemed fine. Tage went to fetch the nurse and after a few confusing and anxious minutes we figured out that Tage- while under the supervision of the specialist- had hooked Heidi’s oxygen tube onto a piece of the tank that was not even the proper valve for the air to flow. It was on the opposite side of the air valve and from an aerial view looked correct, but upon closer examination was very wrong. Heidi was getting absolutely no oxygen assistance. We were relieved to find the problem, Tage was feeling a little embarrassed though, even though it wasn’t his fault, he hooked Heidi up incorrectly in front of 3 or 4 people that knew what they were doing! We were just so happy we found the problem, and it helped us to always remember the correct placing of the oxygen tube. :)

 
The next morning Heidi had to pass her car seat test, and a few other minor things. It went by so quickly! There was another couple across from us in our pod that was also going home that day. I remember the nurse walking in a cheerfully saying, “What a happy day for pod 3!” It was a very happy day indeed! It was a big show getting Heidi loaded up, we had acquired so much stuff over our stay, and she now came along with an o2 monitor, and a portable oxygen tank that weighed about 20 pounds. We finally got loaded up though with a great sendoff from one of the many amazing NICU nurses, set off for home!


We’d made it out of the NICU! Adjusting to life at home was very difficult for me. I felt like Heidi’s oxygen tank was a chain that kept us in the house. It was so hard to go anywhere, even on a stroller ride or out into the backyard. We managed to get through those days though. Lila was as good as you can expect a two year old to be. She loves her baby sister so much. I felt bad that she had to be trapped in the house with us, but she was still able to have fun thanks to daddy and her grandparents. Those days crawled by with various doctor visits trying to gauge when Heidi could be removed from the oxygen. Our pediatrician was all for getting her off of it ASAP and had us turn her oxygen down to the lowest setting at her 5 day appointment. I was happy with relying on it for a while longer though, it made me feel safe.

Although I hated the oxygen tubes on her face, I remember taking them off for just a moment to clean them…seeing Heidi’s beautiful face with no tubes in the way made me burst in to tears. I hugged her and kissed her, I told her she was a beautiful, strong baby girl, and that she could get through this. I cuddled her close and quietly cried as I admired her little face that was so often hidden by tubes and stickers to hold them in place. Lila walked up to me and said, “Mommy’s sad?” I said, “Yes Lila , mommy is sad.” She then climbed up onto my lap and let me cuddle her and her baby sister. This was huge- if you know Lila at all, you know she never sits still. I thanked Heavenly Father then for the little tender mercies.


At Heidi’s two week check-up the doctor convinced me to take the tubes off, and just watch Heidi closely. I did so reluctantly and sure enough, Heidi was fine. We said goodbye to the oxygen tubes, but kept the monitor on her foot. She still had a hard time here and there, especially in her car seat, but that also went away with time.



Now Heidi is thriving and growing just like a sweet baby should. She is constantly eating! At her last follow up appointment she had gained a whole pound in 3 ½ weeks! She’s a happy, sweet, and best of all SNUGGLY baby. We just love her so much and are so thankful that her little “episode” was pretty minor. We are truly blessed. This was an amazing learning experience. I learned the power of prayer is immense, I learned that humans can be very kind, and I learned that family will always be there for you. I wouldn’t wish this experience on anyone, but looking back I’m so grateful for everything. It was certainly scary, but I’m so glad I had my sweet husband by my side, and I’m so thankful that I had our Heavenly Father watching over us. Heidi is an amazing little blessing, I can’t wait to watch her grow and thrive. What a great little addition to our family!