NICU Experience & More

Trent was able to go straight over to the NICU to be with Magdalena. Because I had the spinal block I could not yet get out of bed. Trent's mom was in the room with me at this point, and was able to keep me distracted and not feel too upset. While I was talking with Diane my face started itching like crazy. At some point a nurse came in and noticed that I was scratching my face (my nose was VERY itchy) and gave me some medication. Apparently this is a side effect of the morphine that is in the spinal block. I kept asking nurses about Magdalena and if she was okay and when could I go see her. Finally a nurse called over to the NICU to get a report. She was doing fine, but was on oxygen and they were giving her antibiotic just in case she had an infection. I don't know how long it took but finally Trent came back to the room and updated me. My mom had to work the next day so we needed to transfer the kids from my mom to Trent's parents, along with switching carseats and gathering clothes and diapers and other gear for the next 5 days or so.

Trent, Diane, and my mom all met at our house. They took care of everything! Then my mom came to see me at the hospital. Trent arrived soon after my mom did. After a while a nurse came and helped me to get out of bed and I was able to be wheeled over to the NICU. Let me just say that I had amazing recoveries after Anne and Abbey. With the C-section I had staples and I felt like I couldn't stand up straight. I was quite literally pulled together and stapled shut. This is not something I want to do again any time soon.

**1st night**

Everything about the NICU was amazing. The nurses were fantastic and helpful and encouraging. The doctors were all friendly and honest. The parent lounge is set up very nicely so that parents can hang out throughout the day and even stay the night if they want to.

*Maggie with all of her tubes.*

Magdalena spent 6 days in the NICU. Everything sort of blurred together, but we got into a bit of routine between handwashing when you enter, signing in, then going to her "pod", taking her temperature, changing her diaper, and when her feeding tube and oxygen came off I was able to take her out of the special bed by myself and get set up for breastfeeding.

little peanut

*After her sponge bath*

I think it was day 3 or 4 that I started getting a headache. I thought it would just go away but it didn't. It got really bad when I was feeding Magdalena and had to go back to my room to lie down. That seemed to help. When I told the nurse she said it sounded like a spinal headache, and sent the anesthesiologist over to talk to me. Of course it was a spinal headache. I had 2 options: wait it out (they usually last about a week) and take percoset/ibuprofin and drink a lot of caffeine; or do a "blood patch" where they draw blood from your arm and put it into your spine. HA! Yeah right. I decided to wait it out. It was difficult, and I actually even went home for a little bit (I was discharged at this point already). After getting some good sleep in my own bed and drinking as much water and caffeine as possible I felt a lot better. I went back in to the hospital and stayed the night in the NICU. The next day was when Magdalena was to be discharged! The NICU closes while doctors make their rounds, so Trent and I went out for breakfast. It'll probably be the last time just the two of us go out for quite a while! When we got back we were able to pick up our sweet Magdalena and go home!!

Going home!!!!

Anne and Abbey were very excited. I was a bit nervous about the transition, but there was none. We brought her home and sat the carseat on the living room floor.

4 lbs. 9 oz. when we came home!

Abbey said, "hey Baby!", and that was about all the transitioning it took. The girls completely accepted her from that first moment and we are loving every second of all of our girls being together!

3 little Hess girls

About my C-Section. I should clarify that the cut they did on the outside is the "bikini cut", the incision on my uterus is the "classical cut". The doctor who did my surgery explained that this had to be done because of the position Magdalena was in. She was feet first. Normally when the baby is either head or bottom first this stretches the uterus to make it wide. They can then do a horizontal incision and pull the baby out that way. Since she was feet first my uterus was not stretched wide enough to make a large enough incision to remove her, so he had to do a vertical incision. This is why any baby has to be a C-section after this. With the classical incision the chance of your uterus rupturing during labor and/or delivery is very high. The classical incision is not as strong as the bikini cut, and the stress of the contractions and pushing is often too much for the uterus to handle. He told me that no doctor would consider allowing me to labor again.

What does this mean for our future? We don't know. I hear stories of women having 7 C-Sections, but I can guarantee that will not be me. Some people say it depends on scar tissue, and on how your body heals. The general rule of thumb is 3 C-sections, which means we would have 2 more biological children. Many of you who know us well also know that we want to adopt at some point in our future. We really struggled as to when that would be since we were quite happy having biological children. However, the more I thought about this I felt that perhaps was the Lord's way of slowly closing the door on having biological children and slowly opening the door to adoption. We are praying about biological children, adopted children, and our home situation. We do love our home, but are questioning how long we should be here? 2 years? 5 years? We know that God will show us the way, but God has such a different idea about timing than I do! I just like to KNOW things in advance. If I know we will be here for 5 more years I feel like I want to prepare myself for that. And if we will only be here 2 more years I would want to prepare myself differently for that! And this is why I'm thankful for such a grounded, level-headed husband who can talk sense into me!

All I know is that all the difficulty is worth it in the end...

Magdalena's Story

Now that we are back home and pretty much settled into a routine I figured I'd take the time to write out Magdalena's story.

Sunday, August 22, 2010: Trent preached a great sermon. After lunch and naps we went to Lancaster County Central Park to hike around a bit. Life was "normal". (Yes, Elmo is wearing a diaper... It's bad enough diapering kids but my kids make me diaper Elmo!)




Tuesday, August 24, 2010: 8:15 a.m. I dropped Annie and Abbey off at my mom's house while I went to a check up at MFM.
8:45 a.m.: I arrive for my appointment and get checked in. My Non-Stress Test is scheduled first. The nurse, Lindsay, got me hooked up to the monitor and I read a magazine while I waited the 20-odd minutes that it takes. Lindsay came to check on me a couple of times. I could tell by her face that she wasn't thrilled about what the monitor was showing (several drops in the baby's heart rate). She asked if I had a date scheduled yet for a C-Section, and I said, "No, we were hoping to wait until 38 weeks." I was 36 weeks and 6 days at this point. I also didn't have an ultrasound scheduled for that day, so she went out and talked to the doctor and they fitted me in as soon as they could after the NST.
9:30 a.m.: The sweet ultrasound tech came to do my ultrasound. When she checked the fluid level around the baby I could tell (even though she didn't say anything) that there wasn't much. There was no measuring done this day, so the ultrasound didn't take very long.
10:00 a.m.: The "mean" doctor came in the room. He looked through the slides that the tech had taken of the baby. He looked very closely at the fluid level, then he measured it himself, several times. He then went in and did a doppler of the baby's brain. This is one thing that they do that I'm never quite sure of what they are looking for, so I wasn't sure what he was seeing (and he doesn't like to talk while he does these things). When he was finished he said something like, "Well, there is very low fluid around the baby (4 c.m. when they like to see at least 8 or more), and there is shunting in the brain. The baby was also showing a dropping heart rate on the NST. We're going to send you downstairs for an emergency C-Section since the baby is still breech. I'll have Lindsay and Jackie get you ready to go downstairs." I said, "Can I call my husband?" He said to go ahead out to the waiting room to make any phone calls and I never saw him again.
10:15 a.m.: I called Trent's direct line at work and he didn't answer. I called the receptionist and was trying not to cry as I told her who it was and can I talk to Trent. I asked Trent to leave work because they want the baby to be born ASAP. I also called my mom to tell her and make sure she would be okay with the girls the rest of the day. She didn't answer so I had to leave a voicemail! Ugh!! What a way to tell someone such big news!

The next couple hours were quite strange. Trent arrived shortly (his office is just a 15 minute drive), and we waited to get checked-in. We weren't sure of how serious the 'shunting' was and it seemed like it took forever to get officially admitted. The women behind the desk were just laughing at how it was taking so long because they needed to figure out how to enter my information into the computer for billing purposes. I was frustrated at this entire procedure.

From here we were sent back to Triage and were hooked up to monitors to wait. Every couple minutes people would come in and ask me questions (how tall are you? how much do you weigh? do you have any allergies?) I thought if one more person asked if I had any allergies I would go nuts! We also met with the anesthesiologist and the doctor who would do my Cesarean. My only concern was that we wanted to have more children and can the doctor be sure to do the horizontal cut. He said they nearly always do what they call the "bikini cut" and not to worry. Now we just had to wait for our time slot to open up. They were fitting us between 2 other C-Sections, and we were going to go to surgery around 1:00.

Throughout our waiting period I felt an overwhelming sense of peace. I felt rested in the peace that God was with me and watching over me. As odd as it sounds, I was worried about the 1/2 bushels of pears that were sitting on the counter at home ripening, and thinking how I wouldn't be able to can them as planned.

1:00 p.m.: I was wheeled back to surgery. While they did the spinal block Trent was not allowed in the room with me. He kissed me and I went back into a huge room filled with people but all by myself. Let me just say now, I don't mind shots, and I don't mind needles. However, when that needle is going into my back I just don't do well. Unfortunately, they had a difficult time getting the spinal block in just the right spot. At one point the woman hit a nerve, causing a painful jump in my left leg (twice). Then she moved the needle and hit another nerve causing my right leg to jump. At this point I lost it and was shaking and crying and a real mess. They had to completely stop and get me calmed down. I was praying SO hard at this point. Once I was calm they tried again, this time with immediate success. You could almost hear everyone breathe a sigh of relief.

I'm not sure how long all of this took, but soon Trent was in the room and by my side. There was all sorts of medical personnel working busily. I won't go into detail about the procedure, but it was a very odd one. Although my body was numb I could feel tugging and other odd sensations that would have been extremely painful had I not been numb. When it came time to open my uterus, the doctor leaned over the drape and said, "I had to do the classical cut. All babies after this are C-section. I'll talk to you more about it later." I could feel tears start streaming down my face, and the nurse who was watching over me wiped them away. Soon they were getting ready to pull out our baby. They asked Trent if he wanted to watch (yeah right!). He squeezed my hand as we prepared to meet our new baby, not knowing if it was a boy or a girl, if he or she would have any problems (physical or otherwise). Trent hadn't decided on a boy name until he was IN the Operating Room.

1:47 p.m.: The doctor pulled out the baby and said, "It's a girl!" Trent and I started laughing. The doctor asked if she has any older brothers or sisters at home. Trent said, "Two big sisters!" And the doctor said, "Oh, how old are they?" Trent replied, "2 and 1." The doctor asked what we were thinking, and Trent said, "I don't think there was much thinking involved."

Unfortunately, we didn't have a camera with us because it all happened so suddenly. There was a NICU doctor there that checked out baby Magdalena, and he said she looked great. She was pink and crying and beautiful with a head full of dark hair. Magdalena Faith Hess weighed in at 4 lbs. 10 oz. and was just 17 1/4 inches long.

When I was in recovery the nurse noticed her making a grunting noise. She said it sounded like fluid in her lungs. As I was sent over to my regular room the nurse took her to the nursery to check her out. They wanted to send her over to the NICU, and so I was able to kiss her and then she was gone. The first pictures we have of her are from much later that evening:

Maggie in the NICU with oxygen, IV antibiotics, and being closely monitored.

Close-up of the oxygen and feeding tube in her mouth.

Our little Magdalena.

I will share more about NICU and our other experiences and challenges at another time. The girls will be waking up from their naps soon and I want to get a little house work done!