Baby News

My sister called me on Tuesday and said that she was in a lot of pain and thought she might be going into labor. I thought, naaaa, you are just having some pre-term false labor stuff...but I didn't tell her that, thank God. Instead, I told her she should call her doctor to let them know and see what he wanted her to do.

FYI: having this baby NOW was both good and bad.

Good because she was getting HUGE and was totally MISERABLE;

Bad because she was not due for another 4 and a half weeks!

Well, needless to say, after calling the doctor, Michelle went in to the hospital at 9:00pm and was dilated to 6! Mom called me and before I got off the phone I had grabbed my purse, grabbed some TLC Wiggles yarn (since I hadn't finished anything for the baby yet because I thought I had four more weeks!), and grabbed my knitting bag. I told John bye and headed for the hospital.

When I got there she was at a 7.5, the baby was pretty high up in the canal or uterus or whatever :-) and her water had not broke yet. Because she was all calm and pretty well under control of her emotions the first thing I asked her when I walked in the room was if she was on any drugs :-) After all, why go through labor without drugs if you don't have to? Just as I asked her the anastesiologist walked in...or as I like to call him "the angel sent from God".

While we were waiting for little Wyatt to join our lovely family I was frantically crocheting him a little hat. No pattern, just started with a ch3, joined and increased from there to what I thought was a good size then worked the stitches so it would create a hat and not a doily :-)

I love passing the time in the delivery room crocheting or knitting. The wait is almost unbearable without anything to do so at least with my hands busy I am not staring at the monitor or bothering the mommy-to-be! I also find that it is a good conversation starter since people want to know what you are making, who is it for, how long you have been doing it, yadda-yadda.


So, after a couple of hours I finished the hat and still no baby. You would think that this being her third the baby he would just zoom on out, you know what I mean? I nurse kept coming in to reposition the monitor on her stomach and to let Michelle know that the doctor didn't want to break her water yet, and that the doctor was still at home but wanted the nurse to continue calling her with the updates.

Alright, brief pause for vital information: this is NOT her regular doctor, this is the doctor on call! Okay, let me tell you all what I am thinking at this point...

Dr. who shall not be named,

Get off your sweet A** and get down here! Lady, this baby delivery stuff may be routine for you but isn't it possible that something could be wrong with this delivery since my sister has had two other kids with no pre-term complications and now she is in the hospital in labor 4 and a half weeks early? Don't you think you should at least come on down here to check out the situation for yourself instead of relying on a NURSE to tell you things? Even if it is to comfort the mother and let her know what is going on? After all, IT IS YOUR responsibility to come and take care of the mother and the baby; even IF it is 2:00AM in the Fricken MORNING!!

Nope, the doctor never showed up! Can you believe it? Around 2:00am I went home because I had to make sure I was home in time for John to leave at 5:00am for work. I figured I would take Allura to school then go to the hospital. But Wyatt couldn't wait that long :-)

At 9:00am Wednesday morning, a different doctor came into Michelle's room (after the first doctor called him to let him know that Michelle was probably ready to deliver so he better go to her room first). He broke her water, saw a lot of blood clots come out along with excessive amounts of amniotic fluid and got worried. He said that it was imperative that they get that little one out so he had Michelle start to push even though she was not fully dilated. He then put his hand inside her to make sure the babies head was ready to go though the birth canal and noticed that little Wyatt's hand was over his head. So, the doctor pushed on the babies head to allow the hand to go down and OOPS...the baby came flying out!

No warning, no camera, no pushing, no screaming, no family in room except Mark (Michelle's husband)...just BABY! 9:30am healthy little baby boy, 7 lbs 11 oz, 20 inches. The NICU nurses looked at the doctor when they came in the room and questioned "this is the premie?"

Wyatt was a big baby for being 4 and a half weeks early; could you imagine if she had went full term? His appgar score was high but he had swallowed some of the blood clots during delivery so his little stomach was pumped. And, because he is premature his little lungs are struggling which means his blood/oxygen is low. Also, the reason his little hand are was positioned up above his head was because the umbilical cord was abnormally long and was wrapped around his arm and his neck! We are very fortunate that his arm was in the way or the baby could have been strangled! (again, in my mind, maybe the first doctor would have noticed that if she would have come down to the hospital to check on my sister!) Anyway, little Wyatt is in the NICU (neo-natal intensive care unit) and is expected to be there until the middle or late next week.

We (the kids and I) went to the hospital on Thursday to check on Michelle and the baby.

(got her permission to post this shot even though it is not the most flattering...give her a brake...she just had a baby)

We could see the baby since he was in the NICU with an oxygen hood over his head and a feeding tube in his umbilical cord. You know, keep the "unessential" people out cause there are some really sick babies in there who don't need yours or my germs! But is was good to see Michelle and talk to her. I don't know how she is doing it but she is handling this all really well. She went home yesterday and had to leave her baby at the hospital....that would just kill me.

I know I have a few blogger friends who have had to go through so much more with their children and I have the deepest amounts of sympathy for them too! That has to be so tough to have to leave YOUR BABY behind. I mean, of course she is back there every waking hour she can. Her inlaws drove out here to help out with the other two kids while Michelle and Mark tend to Wyatt. Michelle says that the baby is not getting any worse but the progress is really minimal. You know, God takes time to heal and I believe that he is working here in Wyatt's little life! Please keep him in your prayers.

Marly