Abbie's birth story (9/26/10-9/30/10)

My water broke at 36 weeks, a Sunday.  The Monday before my water broke I could not quit puking, there was a little blood, but I knew it was irritation in my esophagus because I puked ALL.THE.TIME. Anyway, to get out of going to work I had to go to L&D. I’m glad I did because it turned out I had a UTI I didn’t know about. They monitored me for like 4 hours, and her heart beat was steady, but because it wasn’t “reactive” they decided to do an ultrasound. I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary on the ultrasound, but the doctor called me back afterwards and told me I needed to go to the university for another ultrasound, she thought what they saw was a cyst on Abbie’s ovary, but she wanted a second opinion.

That Friday I went in to the university and the perinatalogist there told me it looked like a cyst on her ovary, and worst case scenario, Abbie would lose an ovary. Doctors should never say worst case scenario to anyone. Anyway, they told me I’d have to deliver at the university Children’s hospital and set me up for weekly ultrasounds to watch development.

2 days later, my water broke. I was nervous, but not freaking out. We went to the hospital, and they hooked me up and all that. The most painful part of that experience was the internal exams and having the internal monitors put in. 3 ½ hours after my water broke, and before I even really started to feel any contractions, Abbie’s heart rate started dropping more and more with each contraction. When her heart rate dropped to 70, I started yelling, “I don’t care if I have to have a c-section, do what you have to do to save my baby.” They gave me the shot to stop my contractions, took me in for the c-section, and about an hour later, at 1:22 pm, I had my little Abigail Marie, 5 lbs 11 oz, 18 inches. The sound of her cry was the most beautiful sound I have ever heard.

They had forewarned us that she’d have to have surgery and that she’d be in the NICU, so we were prepared for that. When she was born she was surrounded by doctors, and she was wrapped in a blanket when they showed her to me. I didn’t get to see what her belly looked like until I was in my room and J brought pictures of her back down to me. Her belly was very distended, like the Ethiopian kids on the Sally Struthers commercials, but they hadn’t told me different yet, so we still thought it was an ovarian cyst. An hour or so later a doctor came down and told us she had free air in her belly which meant probably some kind of bowel perforation, but, again, worst case scenario, she’d have an ostemy bag for a few days.

Because I’d had an epidural, I had to throw a fit to get them to let me go upstairs and hold her before they took her into surgery. At this point, I still wasn’t that worried. I’d trusted the doctors with their “worst case scenario” talk, and thought everything was going to turn out okay. It wasn’t until I talked to the surgeons who operated on her that I realized just how dire the situation was. The first thing they said to me was, “Your little girl is very sick.” What they told me made me go numb. When they opened her up, they discovered that her intestines were “mush.” She had what was called a midgut volvulus or shortgut. They had to remove, they said, 85% of her intestines.

That was the point I knew my baby wasn’t going to survive. One of the doctors told J about a hospital in Omaha that specializes in colon/digestive issues. They contacted that hospital for us, but because of her size and the severity of her condition, she wasn’t a candidate.

The next day, Monday, we met with the neonatologist. At this point Abbie was still on the ventilator from surgery. The neonatologist explained Abbie only had about an inch of duodenum left, and the only way for Abbie to get nutrients would be with something called TPN, which would eventually lead to liver failure. She told us some other stuff too, but it all came back to there was nothing else they could do and Abbie would suffer. They gave us the choice to do what we wanted. I asked if waiting would mean when we had to let her go that she would starve to death. She told me yes. J looked at me and said we need to talk privately at the same time I looked at him and said we have to let her go.

They told us after removing the ventilator, she could live for 5 minutes or 5 days, they just didn’t know. The doctor explained to us that Toby Keith had donated a 2 room comfort suite on the terminal floor and that we’d be able to spend the end of Abbie’s time up there with her in a more homelike environment. They also contacted Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, an organization that takes free professional photos. (Google them, they’re a great organization). We were going to remove the ventilator on Tuesday morning, but my dad lives in California, and my sister told me he was planning on driving out, so we wanted to wait until he got here. My grandma ended up getting him a plane ticket and he was here Tuesday afternoon.

Wednesday morning we had a baptism service in the NICU. They took all the tubes out except the ventilator and the central line and we got to bathe and dress her. The nurse helped us get her hand and foot prints in her baby book and they let me cut a lock of her hair. Around 11 am, they removed the ventilator and took us upstairs. The first couple hours were great. My SIL took a lot of pictures; the NILMDTS guy also got some really good pictures.

At 1 pm, she stopped breathing for the first time. She went for probably 2 minutes without taking a breath, though it felt like forever, and her heart rate dropped to 60. Then, she just started right back up and her heart rate went back up to 120. At this point I kicked everyone but J out of the room we were in and we just sat and held her and watched her for probably 3 hours straight. Her breathing was real spotty after that, and every breath I thought is this going to be the last, is this going to be the last. She was heavily medicated, and, you know, infants sleep a lot anyway, which I didn’t think about until afterwards. Until later in the evening when she started to stir and become alert again, I thought she was basically gone and we were just waiting for her heart to give up.

Other than the stress of that, we had some moments that we’ll cherish forever. The couches folded out and we got to lay down with her in between us, she was alert during this time, and I don’t care what they say about babies not really smiling, it’s gas…it’s not true. My baby couldn’t have possibly had gas, she’d never eaten, and she smiled at me.

It was just me and my mom there when Abbie died. Mom was holding her and I was laying down trying to get a little rest, I hadn’t slept at all since Sunday morning and it was time for shift change, Thursday morning. The nurse woke me to tell me she had to go down for report and the next nurse would be up at 7. My mom said, “She hasn’t taken a breath in a minute.” I took her and the nurse checked her heart rate: it was 34, then 12 bpm, and then she was gone.