The significance of 29 weeks...

I can't help but remember what was going on at this point in my pregnancy with Austin. For those who are interested, I will give you a rundown of the events that led up to Austin being born at 29 weeks, 2 days gestation.

Monday 9/18/06: Routine doctor's appointment- My blood pressure was a little up, and I was having contractions pretty frequently. I was set up with an appointment for the next week. I stayed home from work that day and was terribly sick all night long.

Tuesday 9/19/06: I went in early that morning to visit the lab and asked if I could see a doctor since I was feeling very ill. At this point, my blood pressure was 150/100. The doctor surprised me with the information that I was developing preeclampsia and had two possible outcomes: #1 I would be monitored for a little while in the hospital, go home and spend the remainder of my pregnancy on bedrest, or #2 I would have to deliver this baby prematurely. As you can imagine, I was in total shock. I was dressed in office attire and planning on going to work after my short visit to the doctor's office. Instead, I was taken down to the labor and delivery unit where the real drama began.

Not only was I dealing with high blood pressure, I was also having pretty frequent contractions. This was of concern to the nurses who were hooking me up to monitors regularly throughout the day. That evening, my contractions were about 3 minutes apart, so they gave me several doses of a potent drug called terbutaline, which is designed to stop contractions. This drug had the terrible side effect of making my heart feel like it was going to race out of my chest. Little did we know that it was doing far more damage to my body than good.

Wednesday 9/20/06: My mom came up to be with me in the hospital since Joseph had to work at night. I don't remember anything about the events of that day. I think they told me I would probably go home within a few days and be on bedrest. However, that all changed in the middle of the night when it became obvious that something was not right. I had been having a strange feeling in my chest all day, but the nurses never could detect anything wrong with me. Finally, late in the night, I was feeling really out of breath and terrible, and one of the nurses checked my blood oxygen levels, which apparently were dangerously low. Thus began the scariest night of my life. I was rushed around the dark and quiet hospital on a stretcher in the middle of the night for various diagnostic testing to see what was wrong with me. They had an oxygen mask on me, and I seriously thought that there was a possibility that I and my baby were dying. God was gracious to me, though. He comforted me with the words of a hymn we had been singing at church. I believe it was A Mighty Fortress is Our God. I know I sang what I could remember of the hymn, though I'm not sure if it was audibly with my lips or quietly in my heart.

Thursday 9/21/09: I was very sick all through Wednesday night and Thursday. The doctors decided that I had developed pulmonary edema, basically fluid in the lungs. This caused my oxygen level to drop, which obviously had a negative effect on both my body and the baby's. I continued to need oxygen, and my blood pressure continued to rise, although nobody really told me how high it got. I was also on a diuretic medicine to get rid of all the extra fluid in my body and in my lungs. The pulmonary edema could have been caused by the severity of my preeclampsia or as a side effect of the medicine they had given me to stop contractions the night before.

Friday 9/22/09: I don't remember anything about this day except that Joseph's parents came into town to see me in the hospital. They brought a ton of baby shower gifts that had been given to us by a Sunday school class at their church. I remember that it was fun to open the gifts even though I was stuck in the bed. I think it was probably on this day that they told us our baby would need to be delivered soon- probably within the week, maybe a little longer. We talked with a neonatologist, who gave us the statistics for a 29 week preemie. He had a great chance of survival and only about a 10% chance of a serious problem like a brain bleed. He said that once you get to 28 weeks, the baby usually does pretty well.

Saturday 9/23/09 Austin's Birthday: I was actually feeling pretty good on this morning. I was able to get out of bed for the first time, and I remember eating a good breakfast of milk, eggs, etc. (You know, all the food you shouldn't eat before having surgery.) My labwork was looking pretty grim, however, so the doctor said they would be doing my labs every 12 hours or so and if they got bad enough, they would need to deliver the baby. Immediately after the doctor left, the nurse charged into the room in a frenzy, put me on oxygen and said that somebody needed to contact the baby's father because they were rushing me to the operating room. Austin was going into distress and needed to be delivered by emergency c-section immediately! Joseph was actually at home sleeping since it appeared that I was doing better earlier that morning. Somehow he managed to shower, get gas in the truck and race over to the hospital (through a flood at that) and make it in time for the surgery. I think it was like one of those scenes from a movie where they are scrubbing the dad up as he runs down the hallway to the delivery room. If he had been a few more minutes, my mom would have been in there for the delivery. I am so glad Joseph made it, though. Austin was delivered by c-section and rushed up to the NICU only moments after they allowed me a very quick glance at my new baby. For the next 24 hours or so, I was restricted to my bed again since there is a risk of seizures if preeclampsia gets too advanced. The only thing I can remember about the rest of that day is that God comforted me through some scripture verses I had recently memorized. I remember reciting them to my mom immediately after the surgery when they brought me back to my room, and I asked her to read scripture to me. Looking back, it is encouraging to remember God's graciousness to me.

The Next 2 1/2 Months: Austin had been born at 29 weeks gestation weighing 2 lbs, 8 ounces and was 14 inches long. He stayed in the NICU for a total of 72 days and he needed oxygen for about a month after he came home from the hospital. We spent many long days at the hospital visiting and caring for our fragile little son, but God was faithful to us during that trial. Austin is now 3 years old and has been relatively healthy for a preemie. He hasn't had any serious developmental problems and the spinal surgery that he faces next week is completely unrelated to his being premature.

Pregnancy #2 with baby David Noah: The doctors told us there was a risk of me developing preeclampsia with subsequent pregnancies but that there were measures they could take to reduce that risk in my case (low dose aspirin, frequent ultrasounds and extra folic acid supplements). I am happy to say that David was delivered full-term at 37 weeks gestation. He weighed 7 lb 1 oz and was 19 inches long.

Pregnancy #3 with baby Logan: I am 29 weeks pregnant today. There are currently no signs of preeclampsia, and I haven't had any pre-term labor issues thus far. If I can make it to the middle of June, Logan will be considered full-term.

Life as a NICU Mommy- blog post recaps

Over the years, I have written quite a bit about our experience with prematurity. For those who are interested, here are some links to some of my prior blog posts:

Joseph with Austin in the delivery room after my c-section.

How a Creme Pie Helped me Remember- My most recent recollections of those difficult days in September 2006.

29 Weeks- A day by day rundown of my experience with preeclampsia and preterm delivery at 29 weeks gestation.

Here is a post I wrote about life once we brought our preemie home after his 72 day visit in the hospital.

Life as a NICU Mommy and the Issue of Germs

Joseph is a germaphobe. He doesn't like it when I take the boys swimming in lakes or public pools or when they climb in the tunnels at McDonalds. If a food so much as touches the counter, even if it was just washed, the food goes in the garbage.

I'm health conscious as well. But I don't get scared about a little bit of dirt.  As far as I am concerned, there are bad germs and there are good germs. I make sure my kids wash their hands when they've been playing with something nasty and before meals, but I don't stress out about whether we are going to pick up a germ at the grocery store.

Most people fall into one of the categories above (excepting that gross minority who don't even bother to wash their hands after using the toilet- eww).

And then there are NICU Mommies and Daddies....

I can still remember the first time I was able to leave my hospital room to go see my tiny preemie son. I had only gotten a short glimpse of him in the operating room, and then they had whisked him away to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit with me confined to my hospital bed. I didn't get to see him for a whole day after he was born. Family, friends and co-workers all got to visit my baby before I even really laid eyes on him. Thankfully I don't remember much of that day, which is a good thing because I must have been very sad.

Anyway, about the first time I left my room to see my baby--- I remember Joseph told me I needed to wash my hands really well. (He had been in the NICU room many times already, so he knew the protocol.) Well, I learned how to wash my hands very thoroughly in my high school medical electives, so I thought I was good. Nope, Joseph wasn't satisfied. He said I had to wash for like 30 seconds all the way up to my elbows and scrub harder. That was my initiation into the world of a NICU Mommy.

The parents of NICU babies are very concerned about germs--- and for good reason. Preemies are not as hardy as full term babies. A little bit of dirt really will hurt them, and the tiniest germ can wreak complete havoc on the system of a preemie. If you so much as scratch your nose or touch your mouth, you need to wash your hands for fear of spreading sickness to your baby.

I remember worrying so much about germs. We would make sure our visitors weren't sick, and we didn't even want healthy people to visit if they had even been around someone who was sick. The NICU is a very sterile place, and it should be that way.

Once you take your baby home, however, keeping your baby healthy becomes more tricky. Therefore, the safest place to be is at home. Austin came home from the NICU in December. We didn't take him anywhere but the doctor's office until the end of March. He was six months old before we even took him to church. I guess if it had been summer, we wouldn't have worried so much, but we were terrified that he would catch RSV and end up back in the hospital. (Thankfully, he didn't get sick at all that winter.)

Fast forward to 2010 when David was born, and we were like totally different parents. Our full term baby was more hardy and able to fight off sickness without fear of hospitalization. It's amazing what another two months in the womb will do for a kid.

All that being said, if you are going to be around a premature baby, please be conscious of germs, and don't visit if you are sick or if your kids are sick!

Life as a NICU Mommy- Before the days of Facebook

It used to be that everyone knew about our NICU story. Not so much anymore. I mean people don't usually go around talking about their 6 year old's birth story. There are typically other things to talk about- school stuff, younger siblings, etc.  So, if you've never heard our story, please keep reading...

Austin was born at 29 weeks gestation. Don't let his sweet demeanor fool you.
He was just as fiesty then as he is now!

If Austin were born today, people would know about his dramatic birth almost instantly via the world wide web. However,  the internet was a much different place six years ago than it is now. I'd never heard of Facebook, Twitter or Google Reader. People didn't send as many emails. Nobody sent text messages because it was too expensive. Information just didn't travel as quickly six years ago as it does now. What that meant in our case was that, other than our parents, very few people even knew I had developed pregnancy complications until days or weeks after Austin was born. If the same thing had happened today, I'm sure we would very quickly make a Facebook status- maybe it would be something like this:

"We had our baby 11 weeks early today. Our cute little peanut weighs two and half pounds and is a tiny 14 inches long. We'll post a picture as soon as we can. "

Or maybe it would be more like this:

"Austin was delivered this morning by emergency c-section. We haven't been able to hold him or even touch him because he is so fragile- only 2.5 pounds and 14 inches long. Emily is still very sick from the preeclampsia. Please pray for us."

It's crazy how technology has changed our lives so much in so little time.

Speaking of technology, I don't know what I would do without my blog. Every once in awhile, I get in the mood to write and reminisce about our experience. This is usually precipitated by some sort of momento that I find laying around the house- a picture, a preemie diaper, or in this case, a journal.

You know, I've come across this journal before- years ago- but I guess it was all too fresh for me to be affected by it. It's now been six years, though, and I've forgotten so many of the details. Looking back in my mind, it almost seems like a dream or a movie. It's only when I read something I once wrote or I touch a piece of preemie clothing that Austin once wore that the memories flood back.

I used to journal every day. I would write out my prayers in detail, list bible verses that I read, and document praises. I wish that I could say I still continue in this spiritual discipline, but in fact, I journal very seldom these days. The demands of having two small children, along with a bit of laziness on my part, mean that I am doing good if I can read a few chapters of my Bible each day. With that being said, it is easy for me to look back on journal entries from the past and think that I was once ultra holy or something. I know myself well enough to know that is not the case. I used to often "preach" to myself from scripture as I wrote out my prayers, so I have to remind myself that the words I wrote down may not be indicative of my exact spiritual state at the time.

All that being said, I was encouraged by what I read in the journal that I found. It is good for me to remember that I was close to God during that difficult trial. I found it fascinating to read the entries that I wrote immediately before being admitted to the hospital and throughout the time that Austin was in the NICU. I also have specific medicals stats marked down that are very interesting to read now.

Here's a little timeline:

Monday, September 18, 2006-

I had blood glucose testing done at my doctor's office. I was 28 weeks pregnant. My blood pressure was slightly elevated. On the way home from the doctor's office, I called my mom, and she mentioned something about toxemia. I'd never heard of it, so I looked it up. Here was my prayer:

"Lord, please take care of Austin and myself. I am concerned about the high blood pressure. Please let it go back to normal and let my bloodwork come back normal. Thank you for the doctor's wisdom. Help me not to worry this week. You are sovereign and will take care of all my needs..."

Tuesday, September 19, 2006-

I got very little sleep overnight, I remember. I was stricken with some kind of terrible stomach ailment, and I felt just awful. Before heading back to the doctor's office to get some labs done, here is what I wrote:

"Dear Lord, please heal my body. help my blood pressure to go down and my stomach to feel better. Help my contractions to be harmless and not labor preterm. Help me to have a good day and not to worry. I trust you to take care of me. Thank you for Joseph and for my mom. Thank you for my unborn baby. Help him to grow and develop. Help him to go to full term...Let me have a good day at work... Be with Joseph this morning. Get him through his classes. Give him restful sleep this afternoon...."

I had no idea that my world was about to be turned upside down. I was working at the seminary as a secretary. Joseph had just started working nights at UPS in addition to Smoothie King. He had a full load of seminary classes, and he was doing an internship at our church. I can't help but remember that Joseph ended up getting very little sleep that day or the days that were to follow...

My journal stops here for a few days. Here is a blog post I once wrote that will fill in the gaps. When I got to the doctor's office, it was discovered that I was much sicker than anyone realized. I was admitted to the hospital with preeclampsia and got sicker and sicker until they delivered Austin on Saturday.

My journal picks back up on Sunday, September 24, 2006:

"Praises: Austin was born yesterday without complications. The Lord helped me to make it through a c-section. I am feeling better. Encouragement from friends; good doctors. Prayers: Baby Austin's health; Joseph and myself as we come to reality..."

Our reality was like a dream for the next three months. Austin spent the first 72 days of his life away from us- being cared for night and day by NICU nurses. We visited him every day with the exception of one or two days when I was sick with a fever. Somehow God saw us through. It was hard, and it is still hard. But there is one thing that I know with confidence- God is sovereign, all-powerful, in control and good even when circumstances are difficult.

This is Austin now- almost 6 years old!