the journey from husband to father, part 4

Obviously Melissa is alive and well and everything turned out great. Our only goal throughout the whole process was to have a healthy baby and a healthy mommy. Charlotte got 8 and 9 apgar scores and if they handed out scores to people for recovering from surgery, I think Melissa should have received 8’s and 9’s, if not 10’s.

The sound I heard was indeed Melissa being rolled into room #17. There were three nurses who brought her down from the post anesthesia care unit. She had all of the typical post surgery garb. Blood pressure cuff, morphine drip, antibiotics, pulse oximeter, pneumatic leg compression, etc. It took them a while to get her all set up, but as soon as she ready, I had the nurse bring Charlotte back down from the nursery so she could meet her daughter for the first time. Melissa was still a little foggy from anesthesia, but she held her tight and commented on her small nose and how much she looked like me. It’s amazing how I went from absolutely tired and ready to call it a night to charged with energy and excited to spend the night with my family.

The rest is history. We spent the next few days in room #17 learning what it meant to work together as a team to help Charlotte have a great start. I’ll spare the details, but breastfeeding is pretty cool stuff. I still catch myself just watching in wonder. It’s so simple and natural and I’m so glad that Melissa is able to get Charlotte off to such a great start. I’m not patting myself on the back, but you really get to see how much you love someone when they can’t pull up their own pants, dry certain parts of their body or even put their own socks on. I think Melissa recovered like a champ after her surgery and I am so thankful I was able to be there all day every day, so that we could do it together. We’ve always been a great team ever since we met in 1997 and Charlotte has only brought us closer and made us a better team.

Today, Charlotte is nine days old and she’s already gained half a pound past her birth weight. She eats like her dad and is sweet like her mom. This 4 part series was only going to be one post, but after I wrote the first section I realized that there was so much on my heart and so many things I needed to express.

After it was all said and done we found out that in the process of progressing so fast and pushing so hard and Charlotte not wanting to come out Melissa tore her uterus, cervix and into her vagina. It was a blessing that day, that dr. eads couldn’t be found. It meant that once he was located there were two surgeons to work on Melissa. One delivered Charlotte while the other focused on stopping the bleeding. On top of that, there were two anesthesiologists, several nurses and an urologist. Melissa ended up losing half of the blood in her body. At one point they found blood in her catheter and wondered if possibly something around her kidneys or bladder had been nicked. After a camera was inserted into her bladder they found that all was OK. It took just at three hours to complete her surgery and put her back together. 

So....I’m thankful for whoever donated blood, so that she could receive two units of it. I’m thankful that dr. eads used the bathroom around 5:30 that day. I’m thankful for Katie waiting with me when things were uncertain. I’m thankful for great nurses and doctors who truly care about people and I’m thankful for the sovereignty of God.

psalm 55:22

Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.

one week and a happy birthday

My mom like all moms has been giving me advice for years.  One of the things that my mom has always said was that I would feel closer to my husband after we had a baby than I have yet in marriage.  Now, most people know that Jay and are very close and much of that can be accounted for by us growing up together through high school and college, so I was reluctant to believe her.  Since we have been married we have had many experiences that helped us to continue to grow closer; everything from moving ten hours away from home, to working at a church, to demolishing and remodeling a kitchen.  These things have been trying and rewarding, but like most things in life, this is what makes you grow closer together.

Well mom was right!  Charlotte has been with us for one week and one day and I have never felt closer to my husband than I have over the past couple of days.  From the beginning of labor with him by my side encouraging me to the recovery process that we have gone through after birth.  It is amazing how you instantly become a family unit.  I know that we were a family before Charlotte, but we had never had to rely so much on each other than we have had to over the past week.  I have been absolutely amazed by Jay.  I am well aware that some of these feelings might be my hormones, and maybe that is why women have them, but I have never felt so content, relaxed and filled with purpose.  

It is so exciting for both of us to go through the same emotions of excitement, amazement and awe by what we have been given.  Yesterday we celebrated Charlotte’s one week birthday with a long walk and funfetti cupcakes.  We have always said that when we have kids that both of us would just need to make it through the first six months until we felt truly comfortable, oh how we were wrong.  It was amusing to watch us both get a little emotional on how quickly a week had passed and how we think time is already moving a little to quickly for our liking.

Needless to say our family has been so truly blessed.

-melissa

the journey from husband to father, part 3

  Melissa and her team of doctor’s and nurses left room #60 heading for the operating room and I stayed in the room for a while not knowing exactly what to do. I had felt my phone buzz but it took me a while to think to look at it. I heard a statistic that 90% of text messages are read within 7 seconds of receiving them. Our phones can ring and we just ignore it but there’s something about our text message tone that says, “read me now...I’m important.” It took me a bit longer than 7 seconds, but I think something inside of me realized that I wasn’t alone; someone had contacted me. It happened to be one of our great friends Katie Gosney. Her text simply said, “I’m in the waiting room. I don’t want to bother you all, but thought I’d let you know. So excited!”

Now I’ve hard several sermons over the years about being in the waiting rooms of life and no statement was ever so true. Before the doctor’s rolled Melissa away I was told it would be 60-70 minutes tops before I would see her again. An hour is a long time, but I knew that they would have Charlotte out in 10-15 minutes no matter what. Katie had no idea what had been happening in room #60 behind the tightly secured labor and delivery floor. The timing aspect of it all was amazing when later I found out that Katie had been in the waiting room for about 30 minutes before deciding to text us. And the timing of her text message couldn’t have been any more on time. So I gathered up our cameras and other valuables remembering a waiver we had signed about the hospital not being responsible for lost or stolen items and I left everything else we had brought in the room.

I walked down the long corridor to exit from the locked down labor and delivery unit, which was now a ghost town being that most of the nurses were assisting in the operating room and not at their normal stations monitoring screens and charting away. I made my way around the last corner and exited to find Katie sitting in the first section of chairs in the waiting room. I’m not sure what kind of look I had on my face, but anyone who knows Katie knows she has a great spirit and brings happiness to everyone she’s around. I set down my bag, told her everything that had just happened, she gave me a hug and we waited. About 7 minutes later someone came out to tell me that Charlotte had been born at 5:45. I asked about weight and length, but they still were in the process of cleaning her up and bringing her down to the nursery. I was told that Charlotte would show up in the nursery in a few minutes and we could see her through the glass.

I took a few minutes to call both sets of parents to fill them in. I admit that I held back a little bit of the information as to not cause worry. I told them about a simple c-section and told them I’d call them later on when I heard more news. While I was on the phone someone motioned me over the glass windows separating the waiting room from the nursery and for the first time I saw Charlotte Gray Hess. We knew we were having a girl, but I didn’t know that we were having such a beautiful girl. I heard someone say that when parents see their babies for the first time, it’s the only true case of love at first sight.

While laying in a little plastic bin the neonatal nurses went through their checklist of tests and observations, writing vitals on their gloves and measuring and weighing and checking and checking. I took some time to take some video through the blinds and captured a few pictures. Katie and I stood there for 20 minutes or so while they gave her an overall inspection. At one point towards the end one of the nurses gave us a big thumbs up and man did that feel good. One of my girls was out of the woods for now and that is one of the “thumbs up” that I will remember forever.

Another nurse appeared to give me a report on Melissa and let me know that I could now head back to room #17 and as soon as Charlotte was ready, she would be brought down. So Katie and I made the trip down down the same halls I had come from just minutes earlier. It doesn’t make sense number wise, but on that floor room #60 comes before #17, so we stopped in for a second to grab the bags I had left from before. The machines that were beeping when Melissa was swept away to the operating room had been silenced, but a few drops of blood still remained on the floor.

One part of me was still scared of the unknown, while one part of me knew that just minutes from now I would spend time with Charlotte for the first time ever.

Katie and I set down my bags and waited a while until a nurse came down to let me know that it wouldn’t be long now. We heard something with wheels coming down the hall and Katie said, “go see”. It turned out to be a warming device that I was told Charlotte might need if she got cold. Knowing that they roll babies around on carts my ears sharpened waiting for the sound of wheels coming down the hall again, and that’s just what happened. We have video, thanks to Katie, of me as their wheeling Charlotte in and my face is filled with anticipation, with just a pinch of nervousness. I had never imagined that this is how things would be. I had plans to take video of Charlotte right after she came out. I was going to cut the cord and bring her over to Melissa’s chest, but none of that happened.

What did happen is something that I wouldn’t trade for anything else. I ended up getting to spend the next 4 hours with Charlotte, just me and her...and Katie of course, which was great. I carried her around the room and rocked her in a chair. They took her away for a while to give her a bath and when she returned I think my paternal instincts kicked in because, by this time it was now about 8:00 and I was thinking that Charlotte hadn’t eaten anything yet. Another plan we had was to have Melissa breastfeed Charlotte shortly after her birth, but that wasn’t possible. They told me that I couldn’t give her any formula until she was 4 hours old, so they told me that at around 9:45 someone would come by to show me what I needed to do.

So until then I held her and looked at her and Katie and I just sat there and talked. Several times dr. powers came by to update me on Melissa. For those of you who caught on, if Charlotte was born at 5:45 and it was now 8:00...8:15...8:45...9:00...9:15...9:30...9:45, the 60-70 minutes I was told about had expired 3 times over. I’ll tell you more about all of that later. The nurse came down and showed me the formula I could give Charlotte and explained that I would need to burp her. I was also told not to give her any more than 10ml of formula. The whole bottle was only about 50ml. We actually have video of this and it’s funny to watch because I put the bottle in Charlotte’s mouth and the nurse was talking to me and by the time she left and I looked down at the side of the bottle, 30ml were missing from the bottle. My first responsibility as a dad and I blew it. I burped her and she never spit anything up so apparently she could handle it.

I asked Katie what she thought about me sending Charlotte to the nursery for the night. I still had no idea when Melissa would be back and it had been a long day already. I convinced Katie to go home, thanked her and called for the nurse to come and get Charlotte. She brought me some pillows and blankets and I made my nest for the night on the couch/bed thing. I changed my clothes, turned out the lights and lay my head down. I was laying there for just a few minutes when I heard the faint rolling of wheels coming down the hall. A sound that had brought one of my girls down the hall, so as I listened and as it grew louder I wondered...is this just another warming device, or is it my girl...

to be continued...

the journey from husband to father, part 2

At this point, the nurses on the floor began to come in one by one. I overheard them saying, “where’s dr. eads”? And one by one more nurses came in like soldiers each outranking the next one. I know just as well as anyone that most labor and delivery nurses can probably deliver a baby just as well as a doctor, so I knew if the dr. wasn’t found we would be just fine. Now I’m not sure how long things took because it all seemed to happen so fast, but before I knew it, in came not the on call doctor, but our actual doctor who had seen us throughout the whole pregnancy, dr. powers. Our ob/gyn’s office is connected to the hospital and they were able to call over there and just happened to get a hold of dr. powers, so she ran over the hospital to deliver Charlotte.

Charlotte sat down so low in Melissa, that it became hard for the monitor to pick up Charlotte’s heartbeat, so they inserted an internal monitor, which gave better success. Contractions would come and Melissa would push. Dr. powers, said, “you really need to push if you want this baby to come” so Melissa did. It became harder to find Charlotte’s heartbeat, so they opted to use a simple vacuum to attempt to aid getting Charlotte out. I always imagined something more like a shop-vac with a motor, but it turned out to be a rather simple machine. After attempts during two contractions, dr. powers told us that an emergency c-section was our only safe option.

Again, the timing is pretty blurry. All of my Bradley training taught me to be at my wife’s side through thick and thin and to encourage her with my words and presence, but it felt so out of body. At times they would let me stand close to her, then things would change and I was moved aside. Over the nurses calling between each other and the dr. directing the careful symphony, I remember just standing there feeling utterly unused. I guess they call it shock. At no point did I fear, but the whole experience was packed with rapid fire change. As planned, Melissa had taken no pain medication, had no epidural, nor took any pitocin to induce labor up to this point. Consequently, she had to undergo an emergency c-section where she would be under general anesthesia and on top of that it meant that I wouldn’t be able to see Charlotte arrive. 

Before I knew it, Melissa’s bed was converted from delivery mode, to surgery mode. Machines were disconnected from the wall. Oxygen mask tubing yanked from it’s fixture and just seconds later I left standing in room #60 on the third floor of the hospital with machines still beeping.....alone.

It felt like a movie. The labor and delivery rooms are big. On our hospital tour about six months into our pregnancy a nurse giving the tour mentioned being able to hold 10-12 family members if desired. Now who would want 10-12 family members to be a part of their birth escapes me, but anyhow, just imagine how big that room feels when there’s no hospital bed and only one person standing in the middle. It was weird to say the least. I remember sitting down on the couch/bed thing by the window and taking a few minutes to pray. How do you beg the God of the Universe, the one who creates, puts, and holds all things together to let everything turn out OK. I don’t know. I just breathed and let God handle it. It’s amazing how the holy spirit can bring scripture to your mind just when you need it. And it’s amazing how God can bring friends into our lives who come along side just when we need it. That’s when my cell phone buzzed...

to be continued...