Shep’s Birth Story Part Two

We were able to stay in our “labor and delivery” room for a good hour or so before they wanted to move us to our “mother and baby” room. Our local hospital (that we used before) is completely different; there you give birth and stay all in the same room. The rooms are extra spacious for that reason. But here, you switch rooms and nurses altogether.

The nurses kept checking my bleeding and giving me “massages”. These massages are not the fun, relaxing kind either. These are more like pushing on your now squishy belly to make sure things are doing what they should be doing in there. They don’t feel good at all. (lol)

Finally when we were sure that my epidural had worn off, my nurses helped me to the bathroom to try and pee and just get me changed into a new gown and those fabulous mesh panties that they give you after birth. (I’m still wearing those mesh panties, to be honest. No way in hell am I ruining my regular ones, when I can just wear diapers for a few more weeks.)

We got to the bathroom, and of course I bled all over everything. It was basically a crime scene in there, not gonna lie. And as I’m bleeding out all over the floor and everything else (that’s dramatic, I wasn’t actually bleeding out), all I could think about was how I’d never ever want this job. I don’t have the stomach for it.

And also, my legs were still jello. We realized that on the walk over. They felt heavy and like I was walking on a cloud. You know the feeling when your leg falls asleep, and then it’s trying to wake back up, but it’s not quite there yet? That was the feeling.

So when we were done getting undressed and redressed and all padded up, they brought a wheelchair and my baby to move us from one room to the next. Leslie grabbed our bags (which we actually brought this time! We had nothing with Eleanor, but that’s a story for another time) and we headed out.

I don’t know where I assumed the “mother and baby” rooms were, but I just figured we would have our same great nurses over there. I was a little teary watching them leave us there, but quickly grew to love our next set of nurses all the same.

Can I just say that nurses are the real deal?! They can literally make or break your experience, and every single one of ours was awesome and perfect for us. We couldn’t stop talking about how fortunate we felt having those specific nurses for our stay.

Anyway, the next few hours and days would be a waiting game. We knew Shep needed an MRI (that was the whole reason we were there to begin with); however, emergency cases kept popping up and getting moved ahead of us.

Looking back, and even in the moment when I was irritated that we were pushed back for days at a time, I knew that if my baby was an emergency case, I’d also want them pushed to the front of the line, and my heart just went out to those mamas that I didn’t even know.

Our days were filled with checking vitals, chatting with pediatricians, waiting on the MRI and navigating our new life. Quietly. Alone (with the exception of nurses and doctors checking in every so often). It was kind of nice, honestly.

Just the three of us.

Except we missed Eleanor fiercely.

And my heart broke knowing that she missed us too. (We didn’t know how long we would be there just waiting on his MRI)

They were ready to send me home, but said they could keep me for one extra day with him before having to discharge me. And wouldn’t you know, the night before my discharge he finally got wheeled back for his MRI. They needed a parent to walk down with him, and Leslie happily obliged so I could get some sleep.

They mentioned possibly having to sedate him if he wasn’t being still for the scan, and in that case he would have to go to the NICU to be monitored for a few hours as he was waking back up. However when they brought him back to our room rather quickly, I knew that he must’ve cooperated; which was a sigh of relief, because no one wants to think about their baby being sedated.

We didn’t get results right away, obviously. We had to wait on the neurosurgeon to come talk to us after he had time to read the scan.

In the meantime, the pediatricians and neuro-whatever-residents were picking Shep apart. They were doing all the digging, ruling every little thing out.

I mean the first thing they noticed was a dimple in his lower back, and immediately ordered an ultrasound to check for a tethered spine. That came back clear.

Next they heard a murmur in his heart that wasn’t there before. So they ordered an echo of his heart. They told us that all babies are born with small holes in their hearts, and they just close up over time. He still had his holes, but not to worry because they should close up. However, we’d need to follow up with a cardiologist. (For what? If this was normal, why follow up?)

Finally, he needed to go under the light thing for jaundice. (He loved it, by the way. He was basically on a beach vacation in that thing, just hanging out so calmly. I actually had to wake him up to feed him lol)

I kept telling Leslie that I was thankful for their in depth checks on Shep, because I’d rather be safe than sorry. I’d rather them over check than under check. However, our pediatrician back home errs on the side of “our bodies know what to do”. Of course he takes things seriously, but he doesn’t just prescribe medicine left and right. He doesn’t sweat the small stuff. He’s more of a “watch it for a few more days, and call me back if it gets worse” kind of guy. And I LOVE THAT.

I was ready to get back home to him. To hear what he thought of Shep and all of his potential issues. Our pediatrician is my kind of people, and I cannot stress how important it is to find doctors who are your kind of people! Whether you err on the side of caution and medication just in case, or you prefer the less is more approach like us; it’s so comforting to have someone in your corner who has a like-minded approach to yours and your family’s health.

Okay, back to our stay. I was able to shower a few times throughout our stay, which was monumental to my state of mine. I felt like I had washed the bad feelings away with all of the filth from giving birth.

Also, if you find yourself giving birth at Memorial Health in Savannah, their mama-menu is freaking wonderful. They ask what you want to eat for your three meals per day, just like any other hospital; but instead of bland hospital food, you get the option for fancy supper food. On your insurance’s dime (hopefully, lol). Y’all, I had filet mignon and cheesecake for dinner one night. WHAAAAT?! Yes, please. And it wasn’t gross. They had actual chefs down there going hard in the kitchen. I was impressed. Leslie was jealous. Anyway, it doesn’t fix the fact that you have to be there because your baby is high risk, but it was a nice consolation prize in the moment.

Finally the day that we were to be discharged, the neurosurgeon came in. We were ecstatic to see him. But also slightly terrified.

He told us that Shep still had the enlarged ventricles, and that it looked like a hemorrhage had occurred at some point to cause the swelling. He could see that his head swelled and then went back down in utero.

The good news was that Shep didn’t need surgery today. The ventricles / swelling was “arrested”, and he said that’s the best news we could get from him.

RELIEF.

But still confusion.

We wanted to know why.

And what Shep’s future looked like.

He knew it too.

He said that his job was to assess the situation and fix anything that was pressing. His job was not to determine the WHY or the future. He said that no one can determine the future (if we’d heard that once, we’d heard that a million times).

And he referred us to a neurologist to work out the WHY.

But also, we’d meet in his office next week to go over the MRI more in depth and just discuss every little thing.

The WHYs that he gave us as possibilities, but not definite answers, were trauma to me during my pregnancy (and you best believe I’ve replayed every single moment of every single day from 20 weeks until 32 weeks trying to remember anything out of the ordinary that could have possibly happened), a genetic thing, a bleeding disorder, or just a fluke thing that we could potentially never know about.

We still don’t know.

We still have follow up appointments.

But alas, our time had come to leave. We were finally discharged around 8:30pm, and we struck out for home on our two hour drive once again. This time with Shep in tow. It was scary. I was worried about him having to ride for two hours in his car seat, worried about whether or not he could breath good in that position and we just wanted to get home as quickly as possible.

So anyway, once we were home and through our first weekend as a family of four (Eleanor woke up at like 2am the night we got home and met Shep for the first time. She was very impressed with her new brother, and kind of weirded out by the fact that he drank straight from the faucet and not a bottle lol. But I assured her she did the same thing, and now it’s just normal), we had a pediatrician appointment scheduled for Monday morning.

When we got to our pediatrician’s office, they did the normal things like take his temperature, get his weight and measure him.

His doctor came in and asked a few questions, looked him over from head to toe and we chatted about everything that had happened in the past month leading up to this day.

He was so reassuring and comforting, just like I knew he would be. (Our kind of people, remember?)

He said that he was going to treat Shep like a normal, healthy baby since that’s what he sees. He’s feeding well, peeing and pooping like he should and everything checks out health-wise.

Naturally, he’s requesting every bit of paperwork from our hospital stay and all of that (which we wanted him to have, obviously). He said he would look over everything more in depth before our next appointment.

Leslie and I had kind of chatted about how the cardiologist follow-up seemed like a bit much when everything was supposedly normal, and we figured that we would mention that to Shep’s doctor at home and see what he thought since he would be listening to his heart also.

He agreed that he would keep a check on that and refer us to someone local should there be any problems, but he said it sounds fine for now.

Another thing we noticed before his appointment was that his cheeks were a little yellow-ish, and we were nervous that his jaundice had come back.

We should’ve known that our pediatrician wouldn’t be worried a bit. I know some people would freak out and want to fix this right away, but it’s comforting to us to hear him say things like “breast fed babies just take longer to clear that from their system” and “we’ll keep an eye on him” as opposed to admitting him to the hospital to lay under the lamp again.

It made us feel really good to hear things like that.

He also mentioned that he’s had other patients with more worrisome effects of enlarged ventricles (like Shep, only worse) and now those kids are perfectly healthy, normal and on track!

Y’all, I could’ve cried right there.

He said that he obviously couldn’t promise us anything about Shep’s future (or Eleanor’s for that matter), but that he wasn’t really concerned for Shep’s wellbeing. He seems fine. He could potentially be JUST FINE.

We left that appointment floating in the clouds. We couldn’t stop grinning. We both felt lighter. Our hearts weren’t hurting. We could LAUGH and BE HAPPY again!

Even though we have no new news about Shep’s condition, and we know we’re not in the clear, it feels good to have someone (an actual medical professional, who we trust) in our corner believing and rooting for our baby boy.

That feeling was brand new in the midst of what was the absolute worst month of our lives.

And now we can breathe. Even if it’s just for today. For this week. Or this month. It feels good to have hope again.