An early surprise

At 31 weeks of pregnancy, we were in a hospital room in the Labor and Delivery area. Since unexpectedly being rushed to that area of the hospital a couple days earlier, our mission had been to “stay pregnant as long as possible.” Unfortunately, that ended up not being very long.

In the wee hours of the morning, an alarm sounded, and a nurse rushed into the room.

“What is it?” Holly asked.

“That’s the fetal heart rate alarm.” Replied the nurse. “Looks like there was a dip in her heart beats.”

Bags of magnesium sulfate, penicillin, saline, and others hung at the bedside, periodically dripping into the IV tube. A helicopter thundered in the sky on the other side of the hospital. Eventually, I drifted off to sleep again.

Suddenly, the alarm sounded again and the nurse returned. “Another heart rate drop…” She replied to our unspoken question. “I’ll page the doctor so she can check.”

After a few minutes, the doctor came in and performed an exam.

“So, you’re about 5 cm dilated now.” She said. “About 1 cm more since yesterday. Given that and the drops in heart rate, I think today’s the day we should meet your baby.”

A C-section was scheduled for later that day.

The Delivery

Bright lights shone down on the operating table in the Delivery Room as the surgeon and her assistants leaned over Holly’s lower half. On the other side of a blue curtain, Holly and I listened to music in an attempt to distract ourselves from the surgery. After a few minutes, the surgeon announced “Here she is!” and lifted a tiny, slimy body up for us to see. She lay limp in the surgeon’s arms. Someone rushed our newborn to the Resuscitation Room next door, and a medical assistant beckoned me to follow. I didn’t know how scary the experience in the Resuscitation Room would be.

What is it like with a newborn in the Resuscitation Room?

A large team of medical professionals in scrubs were crowded around a table where our little one lay. They watched a monitor on the wall as numbers fluctuated up and down. A young woman called out measurements to someone sitting across the room at a computer.

Blood was strewn across the table, and tubes snaked across it from an oxygen tank and monitoring equipment. The respiratory specialist stood at the head of the table holding a tiny mask over our infant’s face. Our little one was sprawled out on the table, lying on her back with her eyes closed. Her skin was thin and slightly gray. I checked the monitor. Her heart rate was shown as the top line of numbers, and it was in the 50s.

The respiratory specialist put his finger over a hole in the mask for a moment and released it, creating a suction effect. Our baby’s chest puffed out, and her whole body jolted. He repeated this procedure, and she sputtered. Her heart rate momentarily jumped higher and then plummeted to the 50s.

A nurse announced “Oxygen at 50%” as the respiratory specialist continued covering and uncovering the hole in the air mask.

“Should we increase the oxygen?” asked the nurse.

“Let’s try it,” replied the respiratory specialist, as he covered and uncovered the hole on the oxygen mask.

Our baby sputtered and coughed, and her heart rate leapt to the 180s. Within seconds, her skin turned pink.

“Looking stable!” called a nurse.

“Let’s go down on the oxygen,” said someone else.

“Oxygen now at 21%,” said the nurse. Our newborn’s tiny chest rose and fell rhythmically. I finally breathed a sigh of relief.

The neonatologist turned to me and said, “This is all completely normal, just so you know.”

“She could have mentioned that a couple minutes ago!” I thought to myself as the team wrapped our little one in plastic wrap to keep warm, installed IVs, and strapped on the CPAP (respiratory support device). She was going to be okay.

You may also be interested in this article about our experience in the NICU and this article about our daily routine while on our NICU journey.