Graydon's hospitalization

So I had a darkly humorous post about our first few weeks as a family of four. We had a rough go of it...mom with an episiotomy (aka "the devil's laceration") which literally hobbled me for a week, a sick toddler, a sick dad, and a brand new baby with a broken clavicle and a circumcision. That was tough but still kind of funny...it was the kind of stress where you can laugh or cry and we mostly chose to laugh.

Now of course things are serious. And we are not laughing very much. I'm sitting here in the pediatric ICU watching my son 's chest heave with each breath he takes. He is working hard just to keep up his oxygen levels. And it is heartbreaking.

The good news is that Graydon's life is not in danger. I want to say that first of all. Yes, he is very sick. But this is not a life threatening thing, at least for Graydon. It is just a life crappening thing. And yes I just invented that phrase.

G started to show symptoms on Saturday. Tim was in New Orleans at a course and I called my friend Jen (a PICU nurse) to come check little Gradycakes out. She and her husband (Tim's fellow ortho resident) checked him out and thought he was ill but not in dire shape. Terri, my stepmother-in-law and a family practice doc, very kindly drove down from the Cities to spend the night and help me assess Graydon. She agreed that he had some congestion but felt he was basically OK. G seemed tired but fairly normal on Sunday until that evening.

Tim had flown home that day and we decided together that I would take Graydon into the E.R. I took him in at 11 pm and they admitted him almost immediately. Truly, I was shocked...I thought we would get a nebulizer treatment and they'd send us home. Not so much.

Graydon has bronchiolitis, probably caused by RSV. This requires him to have help breathing properly, which is why he is in the Peds ICU. The upper right lobe of his right lung collapsed and he is also spiking some high fevers. Right now, Graydon is on high flow oxygen and he is occasionally on CPAP treatment...which is basically a medieval torturel looking device that jhelps keep his airways open. G is also on a nasal feeding tube. He is basically a mass of wires and tubes. It is really sad to see.

The good news is that Graydon is doing well, all things considered. This illness usually peaks around day 5 or 6, and that is where we are right now . His doctors are pleased with his progress though they continue to prepare us for some rough days before the little guy really turns the corner. We will likely be here for another week.

I will try to continue updating, though some of that depends on how tired I am and how things progress. Thanks so much for all the kind words of support and all the offers of help and especially thanks for the prayers and positive thoughts so many people are sending our way. We are all hanging in there.

Graydon's Birth Story

Graydon James was born at 3:46 AM on Friday, Dec. 30th. He weighed in at 8 lbs 15 oz and 20.75 inches long. We named him for a number of people, but mainly our fathers, who have the middle names Graydon (Tim's dad) and James (my dad). Tim's middle name is also James, and he had a grandfather named James. Tim also had a grandfather named Graydon, so there is lots of family history there, on both sides. He has a ton of spiky black hair, wicked little dimples in both cheeks when he smiles, and the longest fingers and toes you'll ever see on a newborn.
He was born wonderful and has remained wonderful for the whole first week of his life (this is the exact same sentence that I typed for Addie's story, and I thought it bore repeating!)

Someday I would really love to sit down and write a birth story that goes something like this: "Everything happened really quickly and smoothly. I was able to visualize my vagina as a sea cave with waves rushing in and out and I felt like a goddess of the deep as a I labored powerfully but quietly. When it was time to push, I connected with my inner tigress and let out a primal roar as Baby Ewald triumphantly entered the world with arms held in a V for victory!"

This is not that day. And frankly, I have these big, dramatic babies ...so it may never happen that way for me! This is already a long post, so I suppose I should say what actually DID happen.

If you recall Addie's birth story, you remember that it was a crazy labor. Lots of pushing (3.5 hours), attempted forceps delivery (fail), and finally a C section with some imperfect anesthesia and my best impression of Mel Gibson in Braveheart as he is being disembowled at the end of the movie. It's not the best birth story I've ever heard (by the way, Addie's birth story is found here).

I felt like a lot of the problems with Addie's labor started because of the epidural I received. So I spent a lot of time preparing for this labor because I was determined to do this free of drugs. I did a lot of practice visualizing and listening to a hypnobirthing CD and I spent a good portion of nap time every day practicing my breathing. This all really paid off...to a point.

If you've read my previous posts than you know that I was having the world's longest bout of prodromal labor. Tim and I scheduled an induction for Dec. 30th at 8 AM and as the 29th dawned, I was so relieved that it was my last day of being pregnant. Truly, I think I had the "baby blues" before the baby or the blue arrived.

I spent the day with my Mom, tidying up, and savoring some QT with Ads. My sister in law babysat Addie for the afternoon and Mom and I went to the movies. We came home, watched the Heels bball game, and started getting ready for bed. I didn't eat dinner that night, but I'd filled up at the movies, so I didn't think much of it. I had been contracting regularly, but I thought nothing of it, because you know, I'd been contracting regularly for days. I took a shower around 9 PM and then I started to think "hmm..." because my contractions were increasing in frequency and strength.

By 10:30, I was sure this was "it". My contractions were five minutes apart and lasting a minute apiece. Tim, by the way, had downloaded an app on his Ipad for timing contractions, which was he was enjoying far too much. "Your average duration is 1:01 and they're coming about 4.75 minutes apart" ...that kind of thing. We just had to laugh at this point because OF COURSE this little whippersnapper wouldn't let us get a good night's sleep and stroll in for an induction. He always had his own plan. Though truthfully, I was thrilled to go into labor naturally, as I truly loathe Pitocin or "the Devil's brew" as I prefer to call it.

We woke my Mom up, told her we were going in, and hurried off the hospital. We checked into triage at midnight and that was the only bad part of early labor. I hate lying in that bed hooked to machines while they decide whether or not you're really in labor. Fortunately, I was already 6 to 7 cm dilated and they took me straight back to a tub suite.

I really can't say enough nice things about the birthing tub. It was blissful. The staff turned the lights down low, put on my hypnobirthing CD, and left me to soak in the warm tub. Tim helped me to count through my breathing and was generally perfect...very present and supportive but not pushy. He knows that I like to be left alone when I'm sick or in pain, and he didn't try to talk to me or touch me until the contractions were done. All I needed was a glass of wine but I didn't want to push my luck ;-)




I don't want to imply that this part of labor was pain free, but it wasn't "pain" in the bad sense of the word. The contractions were definitely intense... I couldn't talk or even really move during them...but they were bearable. I kept listening very intently to Tim's counting and reminding myself that "he never has to count to 8 very many times" and I was able to really concentrate on the way that the contractions built, peaked, and then faded as a natural and good thing rather than an "ohmygod, this is awful" feeling.

Anyway, at 2:20 I asked to be checked because I was feeling the urge to push. I had a small lip of cervix left on one side and the midwife suggested that I lean over the edge of the tub and kneel instead of lying back. Two or three contractions later and I could feel the baby start to move down. Sure enough, I was "complete" and they helped me out of the tub and into the bed to deliver. This was hugely different from my labor with Addie, as I had to remain in bed with the epidural and try to push past the lip of cervix that remained...which took almost an hour by itself. I felt really validated in our approach, at this point. Both Tim and I felt really peaceful and encouraged by how well things were going and we were so excited to meet our baby.

I pushed a few times and it actually felt really good to push rather than just endure the contractions. Then the midwife asked if she could break my water, and I said "sure" because I knew that would speed things up. Boy, was I right about that!

My water broke and then the contractions became very very intense. They were probably a minute apart, MAX, and often less than that. The nurses and midwives would try to go do other things between contractions and have to rush back almost immediately. It was brutal. The contractions were very powerful. And truly, it was scary for me, because I had NO coping mechanism for this part of birth. I had spent a lot of time and effort preparing for the laboring down portion of things and absolutely zero thinking about how I'd handle the actual pushing. One of the midwives had remarked to me that I'd have to "push like a prime" to deliver because I never actually pushed Addie all that far down the birth canal. I'd heard that comment, but thought very little about it.

At this point, I could tell that the baby wasn't actually going anywhere when I was pushing and I started getting really upset. I was crying at this point, and I (of course) was like "GIVE ME DRUGS!!!" which I think is a pretty common reaction for women who are doing things naturally. You get to the pushing and think "I am insane". Or maybe I'm just telling myself that. And let's be real, there is no way to move a baby down your birth canal without it hurting. A lot.

And at this point, Graydon's heart rate started to drop. So in comes OB and they are all feeling my stomach and trying to guess where the baby is located and how big the baby is, and I'm just thinking "oh my word, here we go again". I got wheeled back to the OR and frankly, I'm freaking out because everyone kept saying "This isn't a big baby, you can do this!" and I wanted to tell them all that they were dead wrong, but I couldn't spare the breath. The OB consultant was trying to explain my options to me but they all boiled down to "You have to push this baby out now and we don't have time to get anesthesia in here because that will take at least 20 minutes that the baby doesn't have."

And then I discovered why they don't allow pregnant women to tote weapons because the OB resident, God love her, shoved her fingers inside me and started stretching everything out. I was shouting at her to stop and she was shouting at me to push them out if I didn't like it. I was less than pleased with this whole operation, but you know what? It worked. I started really pushing effectively and her "tough love" approach was exactly what I needed. I stopped being scared and started really working hard to get our baby out. I had some really good progress in a short period of time, and they decided to attach a vacuum to the baby's head and "assist me" in getting him/her out.

Let me just say, you haven't lived until you've had an almost but not quite 9 pound kid Hoovered out of your V without any painkillers, folks. From the moment they attached that thing to Graydon's head and started pulling, I was like "Oh dear. This is going to leave a mark." I stopped crying and begging for help because I was literally speechless and breathless. I can now sympathize with lobsters when they get cracked open. Three more contractions and ...he was here!





I wish I could say that I felt euphoria, but what I felt was more pain and a sort of a dazed relief that I was done pushing. They whisked Graydon away to check him out (he actually broke a clavicle in this crazy process but Tim is the one who discovered this later, not the hospital staff) and I was left with crazy muscle spasms and the team shoving various things inside me as they sewed up the wicked episiotomy they'd done to assist me in delivering G as quickly as possible. Sooooooooo not euphoric.

The bliss came when I got to see Graydon and hold him and marvel at the fact that for once my intuition was RIGHT and we had a baby boy! He was pretty beat up from the delivery...his face had a lot of swelling and red marks where he got hung up on my pelvic bone for that first part of pushing...but he was so ridiculously cute with all of his hair and his sweet little face! We marveled at how big he was, and how much we instantly loved him. That's a feeling that never gets old.




I had that same feeling of instant recognition that I had with Addie. I thought "oh here you are" and he just felt instantly like...my son. It still gives me a thrill to type those words. We have a son!

There is still a ton of stuff to say, but I'll end the birth story here. Graydon is strong and healthy and we love him more than we can possibly express though we intend to spend the rest of our lives trying to do just that!





PS: Some of these pictures look really dark on one of our screens, but perfectly normal on the other. I apologize if some of them are too dim to be seen perfectly.