Labour and Delivery (May 24

Labour and Delivery (May 24 - 25)

By the time we got to the hospital, I was already at 7 cm. My midwife thought we would be in and out of the hospital, going home with a healthy baby within a few hours.

The hours passed, and by 6 PM, my water had broken but I was still at 7 cm. At that point, I decided to get an epidural, and my midwife had to get the OB team involved because baby was showing signs of distress: his heart rate dropping and not recovering well with each contraction. I don’t want to get into the details of the labour and delivery; quite frankly it was traumatic for me and us.

By the time baby Beckett was born, at 2:52 AM on May 25, there were two OBs, one resident, two or three labour and delivery nurses, a full respiratory/resuscitation team, and my midwife (looking concerned) all crammed in the room. Beckett was breathing on his own, but he did not cry and was not moving much. I heard someone (maybe my midwife?) suggest skin to skin time with mom and baby and someone came and put Becket on my chest.

He was so beautiful, with chubby cheeks and the most precious little round lips, but something felt wrong.

My midwife kept coming and checking on Beckett, lifting his floppy arms with a worried look on her face. I remember panicking each time as the arm quickly flopped onto my chest without any resistance and without any response from Beckett. One of the more experienced OBs was wrapping up his work, said something along the lines of “I think he’s just shocked from the stressful delivery. He’ll be fine” and then left. A few minutes later, the others remaining in the room did not agree, and they called the NICU to do an assessment. The doctor from the NICU took a look at Beckett, said something about signs of “hypoxia” and “cooling for 72 hours”. Beckett was quickly taken away to the NICU with Keith following behind while I was getting stitched and cleaned up. I remember feeling numb, like none of this could actually be happening. How could everything have gone so well for over 9 months to have it all crumble in a matter of hours?

When you make it past the 36 week mark in pregnancy and everything seems healthy and normal, I don’t think your mind ever even considers the fact that your baby could end up in the NICU fighting for his life. That reality was incredibly difficult to acknowledge, let alone accept.

Comments

Aunty Mommy Guest Post

For those who don't know me, I'm Melanie 👋 - Chantale's twin sister, and known to Little Bee as Aunty Mommy 💕 Little Bee and Aunty Mommy I've been thinking about writing a guest post for a long time. I have so many thoughts, emotions, unsolicited advice, rants, stories, etc. etc. etc. that I want to share, but don't know where to begin. So, what follows is a little bit of all the above, but mostly just Auntie Mommy's stream of thoughts. There's lots more where this came from, so I expect you'll be hearing from me again soon. Little Bee Beckett is my fave guy. Seriously, I just can't get enough of his sweet little face. But he's so much more than just a cute face (he does have the cutest face though). Just cute It has been such a joy to watch Beckett grow and learn new things. Yes, he is behind, but I could not be more proud. His usual day is filled with more exercise and physio than a professional athlete (probably. I actually have no idea wha

In the NICU - Week 1

May 25 When I joined Keith and Beckett in the NICU a little while later, the NICU nurses were connecting Beckett to an aEEG to monitor his brain waves. The doctors were deciding whether Beckett met the criteria for cooling (currently the only treatment for hypoxic ischemic encephalopothy), and we were told this decision would be made quickly, since the treatment had to start within 6 hours of birth if it were to happen at all. The NICU staff suggested we both go to the postpartum ward to get some rest since we had been up for well over 24 hours and the EEG would take time to set up. When we returned to the NICU, not at all rested, we were told that Beckett did not meet the criteria for cooling. Something about his cord blood test results. To this day, I still wonder if cooling would have helped him in his initial recovery. But as with much of Beckett’s and our story, there’s not a lot of point in thinking about the “what ifs” and the “whys”. We could only move forward. Later that da

Introduction

This blog is intended to provide information and updates on Beckett’s (and our) journey with hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) and Currarino’s Syndrome and how we are doing as a family of three. More than that, it is a way for us, Beckett’s parents, to share and process what we’ve been through as a family. Honest feelings and emotions will be shared. We think and hope that it will be therapeutic in some ways for us, and perhaps for others. Originally, we wanted to start a blog as a way to keep family and close friends up to date, but have decided to allow the site to be public. Maybe it will bring someone going through a similar situation some comfort in the future. Feel free to share the site or my contact info with others you may know going through something similar, if it might bring them comfort. I guess it's probably also worth noting that we often call Beckett "Little Bee", hence the name of the blog! This blog is written by Mom (Chantale). It is edited and rev

Little Bee and Me

Search This Blog