Elijah was slowly dying

July 2nd 2008 -
9pm - Elijah had been trying to nurse every hour and a half without much success and he was acting very sleepy. (not uncommon for a newborn) He was also breathing rapidly. Not struggling just breathing fast.
10pm - We put Elijah in the bed with us because his skin was cold...I wrapped him in a blanket and slept with him bundled next to my chest. A little later he woke me with a weak scream - He was sweating so I put him in his changing pad (which was in between Steven and I in the bed) I looked at the clock and noticed that it is time for him to eat. I tried to nurse him and he just wouldn't eat. It had been 6 hours since he had really eaten. I tried to feed him with a medicine dropper and he took in just a little and he went back to sleep. He was still breathing fast. We searched the internet to see if this was a cause for alarm and everything we read said "it's normal."
Around 1am Elijah was crying- he was cold again. I figured he was having trouble keeping himself warm and I checked his temperature. It was 96 degrees. Babies are supposed to at least be 97. I tried to warm him again. And he began to sweat. We checked his temp with a temporal thermometer and it reads 97.3. Normal. I checked it with the arterial thermometer again and it still reads 96. I think the thermometer is broken.
We were up and down all night.
We called the Dr. office at 8:00 they didn't seem alarmed so we made an appointment for 4pm.
Steven leaves for work telling me to call if he gets worse.
About noon - Elijah broke into a cold sweat - still breathing fast and every 30 minutes is screaming - his temp reads 95.
I call Steven and tell him to come home.
When Steven arrives Elijah has calmed down...not sweating....still breathing rapidly.
We took a few more minutes to get ready.
1:40pm. We are all in the car heading towards the Dr. office.
I call the office and tell them that he needs to be seen sooner and the lady tells me that if I can be there by two she can get me in. Perfect...It takes us 20 min to get there.
In route, Elijah cries and then sounds weak....cries...and then is weak again.
We arrive at the Dr. office and I get him out of the car...his head feels REALLY cold and he is sweating again.
Inside there is a line...Only takes one minute.
The receptionist asks me what I need and I tell her, "I have an appointment for 2 and you said that I could go right in...He is really cold."
She answers the phone....
I start to cry.
God walked a nurse by the window and made her look up at me.
She came to me and asked, "Are you o.k?"
I choke - "He's so cold."
She reaches through the window and grabs Elijah.....I watch him go limp in her arms....
She runs to the back motioning for me to come back.
Steven sees the nurse run with him and grabs Natalie up to follow us. They take us to a room where they have his clothes off with an oxygen mask on him....he's blue and not moving.
The Dr.'s came in and told the nurse to take him to ICU across the parking lot.
They usher us over there and put us in the ICU waiting room.
We wait.
Finally a sweet nurse comes in and touches my shoulder she says, "I'm not supposed to tell you this but your baby is going to be o.k." We calmed just a bit and then she continues, "The helicopter will be here in just a few minutes."
WHAT??!! I was thinking - If my baby is o.k. why do they need a helicopter?

About 40 min later the Dr. comes in and tells us that Elijah is stable. There are two things that could be wrong.
One is that he could have a bacterial infection in his blood - treated by lots of antibiotics and fluid and time in the hospital.
Two is a heart condition. They needed to do an ecocardiogram on his heart which they were not equipped to do.

They tell us that we can see him before he goes on the helicopter - but warn us of the iv's and wires.

We go in to see him and we are shocked even though we were well warned. He had several things hooked up to him including a tube down his throat and an i.v in his head. He was on life support. If we would have waited another 20min....he would have died. They had also tried to put iv's into his leg bone so he was bleeding there.

The helicopter arrived shortly after and they assessed him.
The Dr. from the helicopter administered a med called Prostaglandlins (sp) This was to re-open a valve in his heart...more on that later.

The helicopter then flew away with are baby.

Elijah's Birth Story

For about a month I pondered the thought of being induced. I really didn't want to be, some have told me that contractions are more painful if you are induced and that there is an increased chance of c-section. Well, since I had a horrible experience with an epidural with Natalie I didn't want one again and with the thought of labor being more painful I really didn't want to be induced.

THEN my Dr. decides he wants to go on vacation on my due date! I realize that doctors have to have lives too but he could have told me much sooner so I could have found one closer to home. I had been traveling two hours to see this Dr for every appointment.

SO....we start discussing induction. He thinks it would be best especially since I live so far away and I began thinking it would be easier on everyone (except my uterus) to go ahead and induce.
Well we schedule the induction for June 23 10pm. I prayed for days that I would go into labor on my own and you know what....I DID!!! It was 4 pm on the 23rd and we were half way to the city where I was to give birth. YAY!!! We had a very busy morning...packing and loading, caring for my daughter and missing our naps! Well, when we finally were in the car and down the road a bit I pulled out my pillow and began to try to take my nap. Then I had a contraction....then another...I started watching the clock and they seem to be coming every 7 min. I made a deep sigh and quietly thanked God. I then opened my eyes and told Steven...."Honey, I believe I'm in labor." So we started timing them and for the rest of the way the contractions were every 6-7 min. We were to meet Steven's mother so we could eat dinner and she could take Natalie for us.

To pass time we went to Target and bought a mirror for the backseat so we could see our son in his carseat on the way home.
Then we went to pet smart.
Then we went to Ross.
(Yes I was still in labor contractions about every 6 mins now.)

Steven's mom arrived and we went to eat at Applebee's. We had a really nice visit.
When we finished eating my mother arrived and we took Steven's mom and Natalie to the hotel. After we had them settled in we headed for the hospital. I was thinking that since I was already in labor they would let me go and walk and come back when the contractions were 3-5 mins apart. But no...they wanted to go ahead and start moving things along, so they hooked me up to a small drip of pitocin. They told me to get some rest and that the baby would be here sometime after lunch the next day.

Yeah...we turned out the lights and were about to go to sleep when I turned the lights back on and told Steven, "Get up...I can't sleep with these contractions." SO for hours we worked through each contraction...they kept getting harder and harder to handle...We finally turned on the hypbirth...it helped a lot!
Then I just became too tired...I had been up forever and didn't get a nap...I was exhausted. So I asked for some pain meds. About 10 minutes after they gave them to me I went to sleep.....only to wake up to another hard contraction. (I think the meds only put you to sleep, I don't think they help with any pain)
I finally asked for an epidural...the guy was real nice and he did a perfect job....I didn't feel a thing after about 30 min.
I slept.
2 hours later, about 8:30am....My Dr. came in the room and said that I would be having the baby around noon. About 20 min later he said it was time to push.
He asked how the epidural was doing this time and I said, "It's like Heaven."
All I could feel was a lot of pressure in my right ribs (i think he was pushing off them with his foot)
But just three pushes and Elijah was here.
He was born at 9:32 am June 24....He weighed 7 lbs 4oz and was 20 and 3/4 inches long!