Sunday, March 9, 2014

Deja Vu Roller Coaster - The Grand Finale

I debated for several days about how to approach this post, and in the end decided that honesty is always the best policy.   A blog, by definition, is an online journal, and journals are where you can freely state your thoughts.  Though the ending is a happy one, this post comes with a very different side of my life, which includes rare glimpses into a difficult few days.

Before I began we are happy to announce that our beautiful second son was born at 9:20 am on Friday, February 21st, weighing 6 lbs and 11 oz, and stretching 19 inches long.  Welcome, with love, Cameron James.




Now I know some of you are searching your memory right now to figure out why these pics seem familiar.  Well as many of you know our oldest son, Little Pope, was born at 33 weeks due to preeclampsia, and spent 3 weeks in the NICU getting healthy enough to come home.  When I blogged about his arrival the posts included many of these same pics.  The day he came home was one of the happiest days of my life.  We were so thankful for the wonderful care he received and said good-bye to the wonderful NICU staff, or so we thought.


With my second pregnancy there was so much more monitoring to make sure that the previous issues were headed off, including seeing a perinatal specialist.  In January it was discovered that the baby had low amniotic fluid, and it continued to decrease until delivery.  At my last appointment I was told that the baby had a 1% chance of any breathing issues by the perinatal specialist, and my OB told me that they were not having the neonatology group attend the delivery because they were hoping for a normal delivery.



So Friday comes and we are so excited to meet our new little one.  Everything seems to be going really well and I was super excited to get to hold Cameron.  I wasn't sure how long it would take because Brady's delivery was not normal.  The Nutrition Nazi was going between the baby and myself giving updates, and then about twenty minutes in I heard the words that broke my heart.  My OB had been giving direction on how to help the baby because he was having some breathing issues, but when she asked the nurses to call the neonatologists my heart sank.  Though everyone assured me the neonatologists were just going to try and suction him a little deeper and they would only have him for a few hours, I knew better.  Unfortunately I, as well as our family, had been here before.


I was basically inconsolable for the next couple of hours because I knew the battle that lie ahead in getting him home, and honestly did not want to re-live the experience, especially with a toddler at home.  A few months ago I promised myself if I had to face the NICU ever again that I would be a force to be reckoned with, and I spent the days after Cameron's arrival making sure that everyone in the NICU was working for my son and not just going through the motions of their job each day. Cameron spent six days in the NICU while he worked on getting the excess fluid off of his lungs and learning to feed.


I am not sure how many people go through the NICU more than once, but it is definitely a club I could have skipped joining.


We did, however, get a chance to re-connect with some of Little Pope's nurses.  He apparently left an impression judging by the number of people that remembered him.  Cameron was fortunate enough to have Tanya as his primary nurse as well, which was a ray of sunshine at a very difficult time.


Little Pope was excited when we finally did get to bring Cameron home.


We will see if he still feels this way in a few months!


The family could not be happier that the Littlest Pope is home and doing well!


Like I said in the beginning the ending was ultimately happy, but the journey was not as smooth as we had hoped.  We find closure in knowing that we will never be faced with the NICU again since Cameron is lovingly referred to as our Grand Finale. We feel very blessed to have our sweet little one home and thriving.  All's well that ends well.