The Arrival

Gid is here!  Little earlier than we had planned, but what do kids care about plans right?

Morgan started feeling some pressure on Monday (not helped at all by Hurricane Irma).  It continued on into Tuesday, but we weren’t too overly concerned with it as she has had some pressure in other points of the pregnancy.  But along came Wednesday, and oh what a day Wednesday was.

About 5:15am, Morgan woke me up and told me that she really needed to go see someone about her pain.  It had morphed into something that looked a lot more like contractions, but they were still super mild.  Luckily, my dad had come over the night before to lend a hand with Owen so we immediately hit the road to EAMC, and were admitted to observation.  The contractions sped up until they were 6-7 minutes apart, but fluids and some pain meds helped to spread them further apart and we were discharged around lunch time with instructions to call if anything changed.  Morgan immediately went to bed while I headed to school to do a make-up lab that afternoon.  Owen, Dad, and I all went to church that night, and all was generally well.  Morgan was resting and it looked like we had avoided early labor.

As I went to leave our church for home (~9pm), Morgan called me and again said that she needed to go to the hospital to be seen.  So back we went!  This time, the contractions were ~10 minutes apart, but with increasing severity (with pain meds giving limited relief).  They checked her every so often, but she remained un-dilated.  Pre-term labor can be very simply defined as contractions with dilation.  Without dilation, these were just pre-term contractions but we remained at EAMC to be monitored for changes that could indicate labor.  We were told that we most likely wouldn’t stay overnight, but there were no guarantees.

Somewhere around 2am, the exam revealed that Mo had dilated 1cm.  For most pregnancies, that’s not a huge deal, but for us, that meant that we needed to get to UAB so that we would be ready if Gid decided to make his big appearance.  So off Morgan went in the ambulance with me chasing in our faithful Rav4.

The ambulance pulled in about 4:30am and I made it about 5:30am.  Mo’s contractions were very painful at this point, but all administered pain meds took the edge off at best.  Throughout the morning, she began to progress from 1cm up to 5cm.  She was finally (mercifully) given an epidural around 11am.  We hung on at 5cm until just after 6pm, when the OB went to check the cervix, and instead ran into the top of Gideon’s head!  After that, our room resembled an ant hill that someone had kicked the top off of.  16-ish doctors joined us for the delivery.  Morgan made the entire thing look easy, and Gid was taken to a separate table to begin work on his lungs.  The attending neonatologist stabilized him and he was wheeled down to the NICU, where he currently is, and will be for the foreseeable future.

So what are we looking for now?  He is currently on the oscillating ventilator (gives about 400 breaths/min) that has pulled his oxygen saturation from 75% to the upper 90s (88-95% is desirable).  Oxygen saturation is basically the measure of how well oxygen is being transferred from the air to your blood.  A low O2 sat can indicate several different things, but in Gid’s case it means that he most likely did not completely go through the phase of lung development that allows this to happen.  The air that you and I breathe is roughly 21% oxygen.  A healthy human takes 21% oxygen and produces a 95% oxygen saturation in the blood.  Gideon is currently taking 100% oxygen and producing a 95% oxygen saturation.  So the goal here is to lower the concentration of air being pushed by the ventilator to something closer to 21%.  If Gid is able to convert 21% oxygen (or something somewhat close) into acceptable saturation levels, then he would be able to come off the ventilator long-term.

So that is where we are currently!  If we can reduce the O2 concentration to mimic atmospheric air, then we would be clearing a massive hurdle.  Gid has already lived up to his namesake (“the Mighty Warrior”), and we don’t think he will give up anytime soon.

We are so thankful for all the people who have reached out to us to offer kind words, encouragement, financial help, or anything else.  Gideon is worth every second of the fight.  It is so incredible to be able to see and touch him (he isn’t a fan of having his feet tickled).  There are no guarantees about his future, but this little boy has already grabbed hold of our hearts.  Each moment with him is a precious gift, and we are going to soak up every single second that we have with him.