NICU awareness month/Birth story (Warning: LOOOOONG)

August 5th, 2018. The day our September baby turned into an August baby. Since this month is NICU awareness month, I thought I’d share our story, appreciating how God pulled us through!

August 2nd. I started having cramping in the morning. I went to get my car serviced and noticed while waiting that my ankles and hands were super puffy. My sister brings me an iced coffee and asked me why my face was so fat 😂 I brushed it all off thinking it was the heat and I needed water. Hubby gets home for lunch and I’m not feeling the best still but it’s still bearable. We get some alone time in while he is home and bam...things go downhill. My cramps increased, I brushed it off again thinking it’s post-sex cramps hat you get being pregnant. Jace was still moving so I figured I was okay and decided to go get some grocery shopping done. I make it to Aldis, barely kept myself upright in the store but walked through it. At this point I’m thinking .. okay maybe? But probably not, you’re only 35 weeks, have had a almost perfect pregnancy, things wouldn’t go wrong now. I had to stop at Walmart still anyways so I made myself troop through the pressure I was feeling. As I’m walking around Walmart, the pressure between my hips and around my back increased to the point of needing to use the cart to lean on, taking breaks to breathe through it every 10 minutes. I get to the bread isle and suddenly it hit me like a train and I sat down. Right there. In the middle of the bread aisle in Walmart, having contractions. I checked to make sure my water hadn’t broken and it hadn’t so I gathered myself and got up. I checked out, painfully and made my way to the car and cried the whole way home. I got home and texted Austin that something was wrong and we needed to go to the hospital. I’m waiting for him to get home, sitting there with my brother in law and I was finally able to time my contractions. 2-5 minutes apart. Jace was no longer as active as he had been so at that point I started freaking out. Husband gets home and we finally make our way to labor and delivery on base.

After I’m hooked up, the contractions continue and we all wait. The nurses came in and confirmed I was definitely in active labor but they wanted to check my cervix and do an ultrasound. Jace was head down as normal and pretty content on the ultrasound so we didn’t worry there...until they checked my cervix and said it was at a 3. They wanted to wait two more hours and come back to see if I’ve progressed because if I had, we had to be transferred to a civilian hospital so we had access to a NICU.

Two hours pass. I’m at a 4 now. Careflight is called. I’m separated from my husband and brother in law and put into an ambulance and they meet us at Miami Valley. This is where it gets interesting and our baby boy started to really show signs of distress. In the triage, I was checked again. Still a 4 but slowly progressing and now bleeding. Water still hadn’t broken.

Eventually we got moved to a room, where I was hooked up to IVs and the contraction monitor. It is now early morning August 3rd. We were told they didn’t want to induce labor or think delivery because i was only 35 weeks..and the frustration begins.

From August 3rd to right before I finally delivered our beautiful son, my cervix was checked close to 20 times. Jace’s heart rate started to decelerate, slowly at first and then rapidly. Eventually it got so consistent, a team of nurses came in to flip me on my knees everytime it happened, give me oxygen and check my cervix. Jace would relax a bit, we would get a half hour break and it would happen again. I was rolled back to the OR for an emergency c section 3 times. We were told after the first time that “the next time this happens, we are taking him out” and again, we ended up waiting.

August 5th around midnight. I got my epidural. I was at a 4 still but 100% effaced and contracting like I was at a 9/10. I couldn’t bear it and I was weak and exhausted from not eating and sleeping on top of everything else. The epidural is administered and i realized I could still feel my right side. I felt the catheter and I felt pain on my right where my contractions all seemed to be happening now.

The anesthesiologists didn’t even make it out of the room and in comes the nurses, flipped me over, oxygen, cervix check. I had my cervix checked 4 times in 3 minutes. Jace was trying to come out and I was only still at a 4. Then they realized he was compressing his cord, either grabbing it or laying right on top of it. There was a mass amount of panic on every end, I looked at my husband and knew something bad was happening. They wheeled me back, hooked me up and brought Austin back in. Another epidural was given. And then even more medication due to me being able to feel everything still. At one point we were told they could not find his heartbeat and at that point, Jace and I both were not doing good. I could hardly talk but I could see the look on Austin’s face. I didn’t know what to think.

1:20 am. I heard the cry. I saw the tears in Austin’s eyes. Jace was here. And he was crying. Which meant he was alive. Best feeling ever! We kept hearing how healthy he was, how he looked full term. We were so happy and thankful.

Fast forward to the next day. In the nursery Jace was having respiratory issues that corrected themselves overnight but made room now for sugar issues. We were told this was common for all premies, early and late term. They told us he had to stay in the NICU but it shouldn’t be long as these usually correct themselves as well or after a little assistance are fine.

We got to the NICU to see him the next morning and my heart just broke seeing him hooked up to all the machines and now an IV to administer glucose. They had us on a tight schedule once my milk came in. I was nursing every 2 hours, supplementing with formula, repeat. That went on for 2 days before Austin and I had to ask for another route to take because we were losing our sanity due to no sleep and it didn’t seem to be helping Jace at all.

Fast forward again to August 8th. His sugars dropped very low and now his bilirubin was rising. Just when we thought we may be close to going home. They didn’t have answers to why he sugars weren’t progressing and got frustrated with us for questioning them. This is when we decided we had enough. We pressed for answers..my husband and dad both becoming increasingly frustrated at the staff because nothing they had us doing or they were doing was helping yet they continued to do what they wasn’t working.

August 9th. We get a young nurse who FINALLY had some insight and found that the IV that was put in Jace’s hand was leaking and had been for a few days and this is why his sugar was dropping and his levels were reading so low. She placed he IV into his head. His sugars drastically improved and by the next day they had him off the glucose drip. They wanted to give it another day to see if he had maintained his levels on his own.

August 10th. Jace kept his levels steady overnight. He seemed happier all around. Big sigh of relief! A long day was still ahead but got the assurance that we were leaving today, our hospital stay FINALLY was coming to an end and we were bringing Jace home.

Seeing the pictures and how far Jace has come has completely blown me away and definitely had me on my knees a time or two thanking God for his grace in this entire ordeal! As traumatic as the labor and delivery was, seeing our son being poked and moved around and stressed out (at times for no reason at all) was not easy and the emotional and mental toll it all took on us was one for the books. Jace David Lee Hamlin has been our fighter since the moment he took his first breathe and long before.

💙💜💙💜💙💜💙💜💙💜💙💜💙💜💙💜💙

Here’s to NICU awareness month. Here’s to all he babies, all the mommies and all the daddies. I know we were very fortunate to have the outcome we did, not once do we take it for granted and our hearts ache for those with guardian babies in heaven. NICU stays are no easy feat..if you have a friend or family member experiencing this or who has, hug them extra tight. They need it 💜