My Little (actually big) E, is 8 and we never thought he'd be here...

E’s 8th birthday is tomorrow. Every year around this time I think back to what we went through in the days before and after his birth. I really am not one to journal, but I did on this occasion (at least a couple of days after, I was a bit too drugged up to do it during the events). I thought it might be interesting to share the journal to show how good God has been to E. I know without a shadow of a doubt that E has a purpose here. I only hope to be able to figure out what that purpose is. This is long, but well worth the read. Enjoy…

11/16/99 – We went to Dr. Whittaker for a sonogram today to see how big you were, they found that your heart rate was 220. Dr. Whittaker immediately called Dr. Trimmer, a perinatologist, and they sent me to Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas. Dr. Trimmer did another sonogram, he found lots of fluid in your abdomen and some around your lungs.

11/17/99 – I met with Dr. Wright, a neat Christian Pediatric Cardiologist. She did an echocardiogram and decided the best thing to do would be to put me on digoxin to lower your heart rate.

11/18/99 – Dr. Wright did another echocardiogram and saw that the left atrium was swelling a little bit and your heart rate had not decreased, so she put me on flecainide.

11/19/99 – Dr. Wright did a third echocardiogram and found that your heart valve was leaking a little bit and the medicine was lowering my heart rate a lot but not doing anything to yours, so Dr Wr suggested we deliver you. Dr Patton (Dr. Trimmer’s partner) though we should try to give you a shot in the thigh of digoxin through my tummy. Daddy and I asked to talk to a neonatologist. Dr. Prieto (another really neat Christian) talked t us about what would happen if I delivered you today. She said you would have a 50% chance of surviving. We though giving you the shot was too risky, so we decided to deliver you. (Side note – the doctors said that if we gave E the shot he would be carried to term and be “fine,” but we just knew that we couldn’t do that.) They prepared me for a c-section and got e to the operating room. Here were several nurses and doctors around, most of them were for you. You were delivered at 2:XX p.m. (another side note – things were so crazy that I still don’t know to this day exactly what time E was born). I heard you let out one little cry before they stuck the breathing tube in, it was the best sound I ever heard! Daddy went with you to the NICU while the doctor’s sewed me up. After I had been back in my room for about 45 minutes, Daddy came to tell me that they were having problems lowering your heart rate. They tried several medicines, had to shock you with the paddles a couple of times and even had to perform CPR on you once. They then wheeled me, in my hospital bed, into the NICU so I could see you in case you didn’t make it. I wasn’t too upset, I don’t know if I was in shock or what. God just gave me a real peace about everything, I knew you would make it. It ended up taking Dr. Wright and Dr. Preito, another cardiologist and several nurses five hours to lower your heart rate. You were 8lbs 2 oz and 19 ½” long at six weeks early. You had lots of fluid absorbed in your skin and your belly was huge. The doctors told us it was because of your high heart rate so the doctor’s gave you lasix to get rid of the fluid.

11/22/99 – I was sent home from the hospital and it was so hard to leave you. Dr. Prieto told us you probably wouldn’t be released until around you original due date, which was December 27. Dr. Wright did another echo on you and it showed your heart pumping like normal.

11/25/99 (Thanksgiving) – Daddy and I have been making the 45 minute trip to the hospital twice a day. It’s really had not having you home and not having our family together, but we’re so thankful that you are here!
11/26/99 – Dr. Green (another neonatologist) called us at 3:45 a.m. to tell us that your heart rate had gone up and you had been in SVT for about an hour. Daddy and I were so scared we wouldn’t make it to the hospital in time. Dr. Newfield (Dr. Wright’s partner) was there with Dr. Green and several nurses. We walked in right after they shocked you with the paddles. Over the course of the next couple of hours they tried several medicines on you and shocked you several times. Dr. Newfield came up to us twice telling us you would die in the next couple of minutes. Your heart rate finally decreased, but so did your blood pressure. The doctor’s figured out if they did a couple of chest compressions then your blood pressure would go up and reamin normal for about 10 minutes they they would begin with the ches compressions again. This continued for about 6 hours until they were having to give you chest compressions every 15 seconds. We didn’t think there was anything else they could do, but Dr. Newfeld decided to transfer you to Children’s Hospital to see about putting a pace maker in. Daddy and I were so excited that there was another chance to do something. By this time it was about noon and daddy was starving so he went to get something to eat and I had to go pump my milk. Daddy came to see me about 10 minutes later and said that they hadn’t done chest compressions on you since we left! God must have stepped in when we both left because that was the last time they had to do chest compressions on you! About 45 minutes later they loaded you up in a baby blue ambulance with a bid teddy bear painted on it (it was so cute!), then they drove off with their lights and sirens on. It was about an hour or two before they let us in to see you. We were very impressed with the NICU, it looked so much more high tech then Presby’s (side note: J was in the NICU at Presby when he was born in 2003 and they had a brand new NICU that was amazing!) There were only 3 other babies in the room with you instead of 30! They did another echo on you and were surprised to find that your heart rate looked fairly normal (at least normal for you!). The only thing wrong was that it was a little swollen due to all the stress it had been under and your kidney’s weren’t functioning very well because of all the medicine and shocking you.

11/30/99 – You were doing much better and they decided to take your ventilator out late that night after mommy and daddy had already gone home. Daddy was sick so he couldn’t come to see you, but I came and that’s the first time I saw you without your ventilator. I was so excited! It was the first time I saw your lips and only the second time I heard you cry, although it wasn’t very loud because of the ventilator. But the main reason why I was so excited was because it was the first time I got to hold you! You were 11 days old. I was so excited, I was crying and couldn’t stop smiling! I made the nurses take lots of pictures. I just sat and rocked you. The only reason I got up was because the baby across from you was dying and the family wanted to be alone. After a couple of hours, they let me come back in and they had taken out your arterial line (the IV that was going through your belly button) and they had stuck a regular IV in. They decided they were going to move you out of the NICU and upstairs to the cardiology floor. I was so scared to move you because you were going to be in a room all by yourself with no nurses around, so I had to be there 24/7.

12/2/99 – Today was the first day that daddy got to hold you since he had been sick. They also decided to move you to a different room because the monitoring wasn’t working well in the room you were in.

12/3/99 – Dr. Wright came in to see you and said she would release you once you had gone 72 hours without going into SVT.

12/4/99 – You’ve still been going into SVT and they are having to give you adenosine to get you out of it. The nurses keep messing up your IV when they give you the medicine since so are so tiny. They are having problems putting a new one in. They’ve had to call NICU nurses, transport nurses and other “experts”. You’ve probably been stuck at least 25 times in the past 2 days. They finally had to shave a spot on your head to put an IV in. Mommy wasn’t very happy!

12/6/99 – P saw you for the first time today (he was 15 months old at the time). He was fascinated and kept wanting to climb into the crib with you.

12/8/99 – Dr. Wright decided that you could go home even though you had still been having episodes because you’ve been coming out of them fine with ice on your face. They took out your IV so they could watch you without it until you’re released tomorrow after dad & I take the CPR class. The earliest we could get the class was at 6:00 p.m. because we had to work around the respiratory therapist’s schedule and daddy’s boss wouldn’t let him off work (I’m still pissed off about that one!).

FINALLY at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, December 9th we got to take you home, you were 20 days old! Grandma Paula was at the house with P, but he was so tired he fell asleep before we got home.