Playing catch-up

Monday, February 15, 2010 6:19 PM, MST

I am just going to repost a few entries from a support group website, where I have already typed out basic information. These will not really be edited, and they will show our state of mind and such, pre-diagnos

is, etc.
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Cassidy Joy, our sweet little Valentine, has arrived

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I went in to triage around 1:30 yesterday because I still was having extremely reduced movement. Her heartrate was very flat until they put me on oxygen. Of course then they decided to do another biophysical profile right as she started moving up a storm. After the biophysical profile, she went back to not moving whatsoever and had a very flat heartrate even with me on 80% oxygen. My nurse was FABULOUS, and was very much trying to advocate for us to the on call dr. So we did a couple of tests to see how she tolerated life without me on oxygen, and she would have severe decels after every contraction. We were told it would probably be tomorrow morning that we'd welcome our little one. I was told I could eat and rest up.

I was put on a nasal cannula of oxygen and it stopped helping, so I was put back on the bag of O2. So we did another test to see what happened without O2. Within 8 minutes, Cassidy made it clear that she was not tolerating life in the uterus any longer. That was around 6:30. The dr came in, and we got all prepped for the section.

During the surgery (this is my fourth c-sec) I was noticing that it was taking an extra long time for them to get her out. Apparently, just as they were about to pull her out, I had a huge contraction that caused her to slip out of her position in my pelvis and ride into the very top of my uterus in a transverse position! My uterus clamped down on her, and they had to use a relaxer to be able to finally get her out feet first. My first breech baby

So, she had a bit of a rough entrance into the world, and has quite a few things working against her, but she seems to be a fighter and is already weaning off her O2 really quickly. They intubated her and gave her surfactant right away which really seems to be helping. She is on C-PAP right now at about 40% O2. (UPDATE 2/15 - Already down to 21% which is room air!) Her neonatalogist says she is doing very well. The first thing we have to do is get her off the CPAP and into just a cannula, or nothing at all. Then we can start working on feeding her and getting her nursing eventually. As much as I would love for her to come home at the same time as me, I am guessing now that it will be taking her an extra few days.

I am actually really at peace about the whole decision to get her birthed.

Oh, and now she is already on the bilirubin lights, and we will probably be bringing her home later this week.

I just wish I could be with her all the time, it breaks my heart that I am stuck in my room and she is stuck down there with all those wires and blue lights.