Declan’s Birth Story

I want to preface this post by stating that I am by no means neglecting the fact that many mothers have to go through much much more traumatic birth stories than my own. They endure unimaginable amounts of physical and emotional pain. I know that the pain that accompanies the loss of a loved one weighs on many families’ hearts. I send my love and prayers to each one of these individuals. I simply wanted to express the true and raw emotions that I encountered when my first born son stayed a short period of time in the NICU.

It was five in the morning on a Saturday and I was really peeved about the fact that I was having to get up and pee on my one morning to sleep in. I knew that once my feet hit the floor and I was out of my warm bed that I would not be able to go back to sleep. As I started to shift my weight to get up, by get up I mean roll out of bed seeing as though I was 37 weeks pregnant, I felt as though I had started peeing my pants. I rolled my eyes and waddled to the bathroom trying to hold it until I at least made it to the toilet. As soon as I sat I heard a steady waterfall that I thought was pee, but it never stopped. It was at this point that I began freaking out. Could my waters have broken? I was sure it was not my waters because just the Wednesday before our birthing class instructor had informed us that only 10% of women’s waters break before they go into labor. I remember sitting there in the bathroom thinking this is not right, I am not a ten percenter, I am the average normal person.

After what felt like eternity (in reality 30 seconds) I called for my husband. Now, my husband is the kind of man who sleeps through every single one of his set alarms and would keep snoring on if a jack hammer was being used right outside his window, but by the grace of God that morning when I called for him he rushed to my side. I remember staring up at him from the toilet as he stood in the door way of our bathroom. His eyes were squinty as he tried to rub the confused sleepy look off of his face. I looked at him, dead serious may I add, and asked, “Josh, Do you think I am peeing right now?” I look back and die laughing at the fact that I asked him this. How was he supposed to know if I was peeing or not! My poor husband looked at me with his tired eyes and said “huh?” I feel like I repeated my question three or four times just hoping that he would saying yes your peeing and we could all go back to bed. However, that was not the case, and Josh made a phone call that “gave birth to” (pun intended) the life changing events that would take place that sunny June day.

The look on Josh’s face when he got off of the phone with our doctor said it all, we were going to the hospital whether we were ready or not. I instantly went into a panic mode. At the time I was teaching Kindergarten and I still had a week left of school. That being said I had been so caught up in the end of the school year prep and activities that I had not yet packed my hospital bag. In fact I had set aside this particular Saturday to do so. I just didn’t think I would be packing my bag at five in the morning as I ran around leaving puddles of amniotic fluid everywhere. As I packed, a surge of emotions flooded through my body. At certain points I was furious with my body. I would think things like, “Seriously, you couldn’t wait just six more days until school was out?”  At other times I would be overcome by shock. I would freeze up and just stare into nothingness. Shock was followed by panic which then was followed by excitement and joy.

            One of the impending circumstances that caused panic was the fact that my mom and dad, as well as my sister and brother- in- law, were all out of town. They were both on separate trips that caused them to be 4 to 5 hours away. As soon as he hung up the phone with the doctor, Josh instantly started trying to contact my parents so that they could start making their way home. Unfortunately, since it was so early in the morning, neither one of them would answer their phones. Josh finally decided to call the hotel they were staying at and have them transfer him to their room phone. The hotel receptionist started to refuse to transfer him because it was so early. She finally transferred him after he explained to her that the individuals that he was trying to contact would be very upset if they missed the birth of their grandchild.

Once we were packed, and our family members had been contacted, we drove to my parents’ house to swap cars so that we would have a larger more comfortable vehicle for our 35 minute trip to the hospital. I walked into the front door and waited in the entry way as Josh went in to find the car keys. My little brother came out to say hi to us and wish us luck. At this point my waters are still heavily following and I had made a huge puddle in the entry way. The look on my brother’s face was hilarious. He had no clue what to do. It wasn’t until later that my family told me that he was convinced that I was going to have the baby right there in my parents’ entry way.

            We were finally on our way to the hospital. I just looked out the window in shock as I sat on layers of beach towels in an attempt to keep the seats dry. Someone honestly needs to make a blog post about what to wear to the hospital when your waters break, because I wore a dress and that may have not been the best choice. However, I can’t really see how pants would be any better…. Any way as I tried to wrap my mind around the fact that I was about to give birth to my first child, Josh was busy making phone calls. When we finally got to the hospital the front doors were not open yet so we had to go around back to the emergency room entrance.

I waddled into the emergency room and up to the counter. The sweet gentlemen at the desk asked us why we were coming in. I replied with, “I think I am in labor”. He then asked what made me think that I was in labor, and I promptly informed him that my waters broke. He seemed very confused as to why we were in the emergency room. He had me sit down and wait as an older gentleman took my vitals. I watched as he went through the process of looking at his computer and going to ask his coworkers what he was supposed to do with me. Finally, someone from the back came and got us. She apologized and informed us that they had just changed their triage procedure and were still getting used to it.

Once in triage they placed me in a bed to check me. The nurse informed her partner that I was indeed grossly ruptured. My little voice piped in with, “Yeah, I know it’s gross, sorry.”  The nurse smiled and giggled and informed me that she was not saying that it was gross, but that grossly ruptured was just the medical term for broken waters. That was a relief, but I was still anxious. They checked for contractions. They were there, but they were not progressing as fast as they would have liked. Since my waters had broken they wanted to start me on Pitocin in order to speed up labor and reduce the risk of infection. Once I heard these words I instantly began to freak out. Speed it up I thought, but my family is still hours away. I asked the nurse if I would be able to hold off on the Pitocin until my family at least got there. She said that she would ask the doctor, but was not sure if they would agree to let me wait due to the potential for infection.

It was then time to prepare to transfer to the labor and delivery room. Before we left I had to have my IV doc placed. My veins seemed to be in denial as much as I was because they kept jumping out of the way of the needle. They were so evasive, that the sweet nurse who started the process had to allow another nurse to finish. Once the IV was finally in place they transferred me to the delivery room. It was here that I would meet my nurses. They were two young sweet ladies who were comforting, bubbly, and energetic. Their demeanor instantly put me at ease. They informed me about everything that was going to happen and introduced me to the doctor that would be delivering our child, since my own doctor was not able to come in that day. The doctor then checked me and with a pleased and surprised tone informed me that my labor was progressing fine on its own and that I would not have to start Pitocin. I sent a silent prayer of thanks up to God and finally started to feel more excited than frightened.

            Unfortunately my nurses were rushed into an emergency c section a while after, and I was assigned a new nurse. I don’t remember this nurse very much since she was only assigned to me for about an hour before she was assigned to another c section. I did not really pay attention to what seemed like a revolving door of nurses that looked after me in the hours that followed because my family was finally there. Their presence put me at ease and I was able to focus and not worry whether or not they would make it to the hospital in time. I was not in a ton of pain. I was experiencing contractions, but they felt just like the period cramps that I had been pushing through my whole adult life. When I did begin to get uncomfortable, to the point to where I was not able to walk or move around, I opted for an epidural.  For some reason the epidural took longer than usual to work for me. It kept numbing portions of my legs, but never really relieved any pain. What it did do, however, was speed up my contractions so that they became more intense and closer together. Since I was still able to feel these contractions I focused in on breathing through the pain. A little while later they pushed more medicine in my epidural. I was still in pain and waiting for the medicine to kick in when yet another nurse came in. As I am breathing through my contractions she sweetly asks me if I was in pain. I just smiled nod my head yes as I internally became surprisingly irritated. I remember thinking sarcastically “no, lady I am not in pain. These are the faces and noises I make when I am relaxing” She then began explain to me that it takes a while for the medicine to work. After she said this I was more irritated with her than I had ever been with any one in my entire life.  There was no rhyme or reason for my irritation. Just as I was about to boil over and make a snarky remark my eyes caught a glimpse of her turquoise cross earrings. My focus shifted from my frustration of her to the Lord’s grace, something desperately needed.

It was finally time to push. The epidural had caused me to progress so much faster that I actually had to stop pushing so that a doctor could make it to my room. During this break I for some reason became increasingly aware that I was sweating. I began to apologize to the nurses and insist that Josh go and grab me my deodorant. The nurses laughed, I laughed, and by the time that the whole ordeal was over the doctor was there and it was finally time to have our baby.

            After about five minutes of pushing the sweet sound of newborn cries filled the room. I sat there patiently as my mom and husband looked on lovingly at the new life we had been gifted with. After what felt like an eternity to me, the doctor finally asked my husband if he would like to tell me the gender of our baby. Josh beamed as he proudly announced that it was a boy. As they placed my new son in my arms, I knew that our top boy name that we had picked out was not a fit for our baby. Naming the babe soon became less important as I loving looked at my son.

            As I continued to study every precious feature of my new baby boy an unexplained pit began to form itself within my stomach. Instantly, something inside of me was telling me that something was wrong. I questioned the nurses about the blue/purple color of my baby’s sweet feet and they assured me that the coloring was normal for newborns. The nurses then insisted that I try to breastfeed my baby. Still filled with concern I agreed, but instead of latching our boy started to produces bubbling saliva out of his mouth. The nurses also brushed this off and told me that I could just try to breast feed again later. After that everything seemed to go on in a fog. Friends and family came in to see us while the nurses took the babies measurements. My arms were now empty, but my mind and heart were racing. I knew that I should trust the nurses when they told me that everything was fine with my son, but I still had this nudging feeling that everything was definitely not right.

            Right before we were to be moved into our recovery room, a new nurse was assigned to us.  I wish I could remember this nurse’s name, but she only stands as a silhouette in my memory. As soon as she set eyes on our son her face confirmed what my heart feared. She stated that she did not like the way that our babe was breathing and decided to redo a bunch of tests and measurements. As these tests were being performed I could feel myself shutting down. My heart, which had just been overflowing with love and joy, was now guarded and closing up. Even though my baby was right next to my bed side, it felt like he was miles away. The metaphorical space increased with every second until I heard the words that absolutely shattered my heart. My baby would not be coming with me to recovery, but would rather be rushed to the NICU. As people started to flood into the room preparing for the move and transferring my son into an incubator I was frozen. There was nothing I could do for my son and I was helpless. I stared straight ahead and tried to fight back the tears that were inevitably welling up in my eyes. I felt ridiculous for crying, I felt guilty. There were people in much more dire situations than I was in yet here I was feeling as though my world was slipping through my fingers.

            As they helped me transfer into a wheel chair my vision was completely impaired with tears. Everything disappeared except for the incubator in front of me. We rolled in tandem down the hall for what seemed like an eternity until we reached NICU. It was here that I had to look at my son and say goodbye for the first time. I never imagined that I would have to say that word to my two hour old baby. As soon as I uttered the words it was as if a barricade was put in between my tender heart and my sweet newborn. I went numb. I didn’t want to talk, I didn’t want to feel, I didn’t want anything.

The numbness stuck with me as I was rolled to my recovery room. My husband had stayed behind in the NICU and my mom came with me. That first night was a blur. It was almost 8 pm by the time that I got settled in. I remember people coming in and out of my room, but I don’t remember who they were or whether or not they visited my sweet baby in the NICU. Only two people could go in and see our boy at a time and Josh filled one of those spots leaving only one available spot for rotating visitors. After things settled down I was exhausted and as physical and emotion pain radiated from my body I made the decision to stay in my recovery room and see my still unnamed baby boy the next morning.

            Already all of my expectations of new parenthood had been shattered. Thankfully my mom took it upon herself to take a picture of my son with his “Today I was Born” sign and read him the book The Night You Were Born. These were things that I had been anxiously waiting to do with my new little family in the comfort of our own room. The bundled up baby burrito picture that I had envisioned I would share with the world, was replaced an image of our sweet boy attached to numerous tubes and monitoring systems. This image cut me deep, It cut so deep that it was not until 4 days later that Josh and I decided to share it.

I knew that not fulfilling these expectations was nothing in the grand scheme of things, but they were things I had planned to do and now those plans were thrown out the window and we were entering unknown territory. I went to sleep that night feeling defeated, lost, and helpless as if I were walking down a path with bends and turns that could not be predicted or anticipated. Even though I couldn’t verbally communicate it at the time, my new mama heart was utterly terrified.

Morning came and the pain remained both physical and mental. Our baby was still in the NICU, but we finally had a diagnosis for his condition. He had what is known as Tachypnea. This is a respiratory phenomenon that occurs when the substance that lubricates the lungs is washed away by inhaled fluid. Our boy had most likely inhaled liquid as he hiccupped during my labor, thus causing him to have difficulties breathing.  This condition is common and we were told not to worry and that our new little boy should be fine in just a couple of days. They could not tell us how long it would take him to heal because there was really no treatment that they could provide for him besides supplying him with the oxygen that he was not able to get on his own. With Tachypnea the body has to heal on its own in its own time. We now entered into a waiting game. We spent our days staring at monitors watching his levels. My heart was still distanced from our baby boy. I yearned to hold him yet feared I would break him with a single touch.

A name, our sweet boy needed a name. We had been so focused on the physical health of our baby boy that we hadn’t had time to sit down and choose a name for him. We had decided to keep the gender of our baby a surprise until its birth. Prior to coming to the hospital we had agreed on a girl name, but were still struggling to agree on a boy name. We knew that we wanted to incorporate my Grandfather’s middle name “Wesley” into our son’s middle name by shortening it to “Wes”, but we were still in disagreement about a first name.  I had a two names that were at on top of the list. As soon as our boy was in my arms I knew in my heart what I wanted his name to be, but I also knew that Josh had expressed how he did not like that particular name. We were not able to discuss the issue of the name until the day after our baby was born. I told josh that I really wanted to name our son Declan. Declan is an old Irish missionary name that means man of prayer. This name not only represented a part of our family heritage, but it also spoke to the amount of prayers of healing that friends and family were currently blessing our baby with. Josh agreed on the name somewhat reluctantly and went to write it on the whiteboard that was hanging in our hospital room. When he finished writing I just stared at him in disbelief. He had written “Deckland”. I quickly informed him that we were not going to be naming our child “Deckland”, but rather “Declan”. I spelled it out for him as he rewrote the name on the board. He turned around with a sigh of relief and a big smile. He instantly loved the name, and we both knew that it was a perfect fit for our boy, “Declan Wes”.

There was a distinctive moment when my heart sank during Declan’s first week of life, the moment that I was handed my discharge papers. The realization that I would have to walk out of the hospital doors without my baby in my arms hit me like a flood. I told Josh that I was not leaving the hospital without my baby. I had been pumping breast milk around the clock and taking it to the NICU for Declan to use. At that point of time pumping was the only way that I could provide for and care for my baby and I was not going to leave and not be able to provide this nourishment for my child. Josh talked to the NICU and they assured him that I had already pumped enough for our sweet boy to be fed for the next couple of days. Somehow this reassurance that my child was going to be able to be fed hit me hard. I was his mother, I had given birth to him two days ago and now, in this moment, he didn’t need me. There was literally nothing that I could provide for him. I couldn’t even comfort him by wrapping him in my arms without his oxygen dropping down to dangerous levels. This absolutely broke me.

We grabbed our bags and shuffled ourselves to the front of the hospital. There were no wheelchairs or car seats, just us. I had fought hard to stay and sleep in the hospital parking lot, but my loving husband knew I needed to sleep and be comfortable in order to begin my own physical recovery. I remember staring straight ahead. I didn’t make eye contact with anyone or anything. I didn’t even think. As soon as we walked through the front doors the dam broke. The tears flowed. I couldn’t see anything and the only reason that I was able to continue walking was because Josh was literally supporting me physically. I have never felt so emotionally and physically weak in my entire life. When we finally reached the parking structure Josh helped me into the car and I just sat and cried. Whispering the words no and I can’t to myself, but I knew that whether I could or not I had to.

It was around midnight when we got home. We walked towards our house in the dark quiet night. I tried to shake the images that I had built up in my mind, and heart, but I couldn’t. All I could picture was how I thought coming home would have been with our sweet boy. How I felt it should have been. No one was waiting to welcome us. We didn’t open the back doors of our car to unlatch the car seat to bring it inside. It was just us, just the dark, just our broken hearts. We walked through the front door and immediately walked by the nursery. I didn’t stop, I couldn’t. I just walked straight to our room. Josh followed. Neither one of us said anything. As I went to crawl into bed I physically collapsed my body couldn’t support my exhaustion and my heart could contain my emotion. I lay on my bedroom floor sobbing and shaking. Josh rushed and helped me into bed. He promised to call the NICU every few hours to check on our boy. Every time we called they assured us that he was doing fine and that there was no need for us to worry.

The rest of the week went by in a blur, car rides back and forth from the hospital, tests for our little one, talks with doctors, and screaming alarms when things were not going quite right with Declan’s oxygen levels. We tried to hold him and snuggle him close, but the snuggles only lasted minutes at a time. As we squeezed our little one we would shift the very tubes that were keeping oxygen flowing through his tiny lungs. Even the tiniest of shifts would cause the alarms to go off and we would be forced to put him back. We often times opted for holding his tiny hands so that we didn’t disrupt him or the machines.

Josh and I would sneak out of the NICU to have lunch to decompress. We usually ate lunch in the hospital’s cafeteria, but one special day four days after our baby was born, we went out to an actual restaurant. I remember sitting next to Josh glossy eyed I couldn’t even focus on the menu. I was just trying to wrap my mind around the fact that this was how we were celebrating our third wedding anniversary. Three years ago on this same exact day our hearts were so full we had no worries in the world, yet here we were. Our hearts were still full, in fact they were fuller than they had ever been, but they were also heavy. They were heavy with worry, anxiousness, and hope. We didn’t talk much during lunch, we were just there, but being alone together in each other’s presence is all we needed.

We were able to return to the hospital that afternoon with lighter hearts. As we stared for hours at our son we had nothing left to lean on but our faith. It had been 4 days and our little guy really had made no progress. We didn’t know why we were in the situation we were in, but we knew that our God had a perfect plan and that he would provide. We saw him provide a respiratory specialist and nurse with whom we shared common friends. They quickly became our NICU family. We saw Him provide an overwhelming amount of support from our family and friends. We saw him provide doctors who fought to keep him at the hospital that he was at rather than transferring him to a different hospital for further treatment. And 5 days after our sweet boy was born we saw him provide the greatest gift that we could have asked for. He provided our boy with the ability to breathe on his own.

When we walked into the NICU that morning we thought that there was a zero percent chance that our baby would be able to breathe on his own. It started off like the four previous days. We sat and stared at our boy and whispered “I love yous” into his ears. In the late morning one of the nurses, who we had not met before, asked us if we wanted to try to breastfeed Declan. We were excited and instantly agreed because up until this point Declan was still getting his milk through a tube. I nervously tried to get him situated. His oxygen tubes kept moving out of place, and instead of taking him away and putting him back in his bassinet to fix his oxygen, the nurse took his oxygen off all together. My heart began to race. Declan had not been off of oxygen the entire week. Even when they tried to lower his oxygen his readings would worsen. I trusted the nurse and was able to get Declan to latch. As we were feeding our respiratory specialist came in. she looked at us with wide eyes and asked what happened to his oxygen. We told her that the nurse had taken it off. She looked confused but no longer worried. She told us that is probably not what she would have done, but that our baby seemed to be getting enough oxygen on his own. Declan was able to have a full feeding from me. This was such a relief to my mama heart. I was finally able to physically nourish, comfort, and care for my baby boy. Once we were finished feeding and snuggling and Declan was back in his bassinet the respiratory specialist informed us that she was going to try to see if Declan could continue to breathe well on his own. Declan did better than anyone could have expected and was not put back on oxygen for the remainder of his stay.

            We were excited that our boy’s health had finally began to improve. Even with his oxygen removed we still gazed at him with guarded hearts. As awful as it sounds I found myself trying to emotionally pull away from Declan throughout the course of his NICU stay. I loved him with all my heart, but I had not allowed that special mother bond to begin to form. I had subconsciously put up walls in between our two hearts as a coping mechanism. I still felt as if this little life that we had been blessed with was fleeting and fragile. I still felt as if he could slip through my fingers at any minute. Little did I know that all this feelings would begin to change the very next day.

Once Declan was taken of Oxygen we were told that he would have to be monitored for a couple of days in order to make sure that his lungs were completely dried out and functioning independently. It had been about 24 hours since Declan had been off oxygen and we were excited to hear the doctor’s report. You could believe our shock when he informed us that Declan could go home with us that afternoon! The nurses had told us that morning that we could probably expect to remain in NICU for at least two more days, but there we were getting the okay to finally take our baby home. I wouldn’t have to walk by his nursery one more night without wondering how he was sleeping 30 minutes away. I wouldn’t have to continuously pump around the clock in a haze of desperation to provide for my child. I could hold him, I could rock him, I could kiss him, and I could LOVE him whole heartedly without inhibition.

            We ate a quick lunch, completed our NICU safety course, dressed our boy in his coming home outfit, and finally walked out of the hospital as a completed family. As I sat in the back seat with Declan I could not wipe the smile off my face. Rather than fading our smiles grew as we were welcomed home by family, balloons, and banners all celebrating Declan’s arrival. We were encompassed in a bubble of love. The bubble that we had longed to be in for six long days.

            As we look back at our NICU experience we are so thankful for everyone who prayed, provided, gifted, comforted, and healed our sweet Declan Wes. We know that our God is great and that none of this would have been possible without His grace and provision.