holly's birth story {dad's perspective}

We arrived at the Hospital at about 9:35 to check in for the scheduled C-section. We entered the Labor and Delivery wing and completed the necessary paperwork. They showed us to the room where we would be until the operating room was ready. 

Our nurse was named Nicole, and she had Ashley change out of her clothes into a hospital gown for the operation. It looked so funny to have her bum poking out of the back! Then the nurse set up some monitors to keep tabs on Holly’s heartbeat and vitals. She told us that we might be a little bit delayed on the operating time because of some other babies that might need emergency care, so we kind of waited while the preparations were being made, and talked about how crazy it was that we were having a baby today! 

Then the nurse came in and told us that they were actually going to take us in earlier than planned! She administered some medications that she told us might have a side effect of anxiety, and Ashley got really anxious all of a sudden a short while after that, so we started to talk about what we were excited about for the new baby. 

A short time later, the nurses came to walk with Ashley to the operating room, and I put on my suit to accompany her! We got to the operating room, and they had me sit in a chair on the edge of the room while Ashley sat on the bench-like table where the operation would happen. I had my phone out so I could take some pictures as the opportunity arose. The anesthesiologist completed the epidural in Ashley’s lower back, which included several needles being poked into her in that area to numb her lower half. Then she was laid down on the bench, with little wings for her arms to lay down on. At this point, the anesthesiologist laid a heated blanket on Ashley’s upper half to keep her warm, because it was really cold in that operating room! I was cold and I had full clothes on, so I couldn’t imagine how cold Ashley was with basically no clothes on! 

The nurses and doctors started prepping Ashley for surgery by applying a disinfectant solution to her middle half, which the nurse did according to her training, but the doctors said was incorrect, so she was forced to rectify that, and the anesthesiologist tested to make sure that Ashley was numb in the correct areas. When the doctors put up the shield between Ashley’s head and abdomen, it wasn’t clear, so I asked if they could use a clear one since Ashley had asked for that in her birth plan. The anesthesiologist separated the two pieces so it could be clear, but there is so much material there that Ashley could only see the doctors working on her. I was pretty surprised that by the time they got the screen situated, the doctors were already had the scalpel in hand, ready to make the first incision. 

Ashley asked me to talk her through what was happening, so I tried to do that on a regular interval. It seemed like the operating part of it went really quickly, and soon they had cut the uterus open, and the fluid was a really weird color to me. The doctors got what looked like two big open spoons, that came together to make basically some big tongs to grab hold of Holly’s head and pull it out. There was a lot of hair on her head, just like Ada! She was also really purple when they pulled her out, maybe she had the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck?

Pretty much as soon as she was out and umbilical cord was cut, they took her into the next room, where a couple nurses and a respiratory therapist spent some time cleaning her off, and clearing the stuff out of her nose and mouth. Apparently she had a bowel movement while she was still in the womb, and there had been some drops in her heartbeat while she was being monitored before the operation, so the doctors wanted the NICU staff on hand to make sure everything was good. They spent some time making her cry and listening to her breathing to help her return to a normal pink color. 

While they were doing that, one of the nurses turned to me and asked me what her name was, and when I said, “Holly,” it was like it hit me for the first time that this was my baby Holly, born and part of our family. Tears came to my eyes as I said that one word, and I couldn’t believe that this was my little girl! 

Then they measured and weighed her, 10lbs 4oz, 21in, so she was significantly smaller than Ada was, and her hair was looking more brown than Ada’s black hair since they wiped her off. After the nurses and therapist had determined that things looked good on her breathing, the nurse who had taken Holly out of the operating room wrapped her up in some blankets and put a little pink hat on her, and brought her back into the operating room, to put her face against Ashley’s face while the doctors were finishing closing Ashley up. Holly seemed so content to be close to her mom for that time, and the nurse told me that she tries to do that with all the C-section babies and moms, because it’s so hard to not be able to hold your baby right after it is born. 

Once they were done closing Ashley up and were ready to move her to the bed, I got to hold Holly for a few minutes. It was so beautiful to hold her close and just wonder at how perfect her little self is, and how much I loved her already! 

Once Ashley was in the bed, they took Holly and let Ashley hold her while they wheeled her into the delivery room, where Ada and Grandma were waiting! Ada was really cute while we were in the delivery room about Holly being “my baby” and holding her hand and giving her a kiss. Almost as soon as we got back to the room, Ashley started trying to breastfeed Holly, and Holly did so good at latching and sucking, that I was so hopeful that she was going to make it where Ada had struggled to keep up the blood sugar. She sucked and sucked for almost an hour before it was time for us to be moved downstairs to the Mother and Baby wing. 

While the nurse there was starting the explain some of the things that would be happening here, I noticed that Holly was looking kind of blue, or ashen as they like to say it. So the nurse decided that she needed to get to the nursery to check some things out. I went along, and they gave her some oxygen to try and get her saturation up. With very little effort, her saturation came right up and her color returned, but the saturation wouldn’t stay up without the oxygen right there, and she was showing some signs of respiratory distress. While we were in the nursery, the nurses tested her blood sugar to try and rule that out as a possible issue, and she was within the range of what was normal, so they thought that should be fine. The respiratory therapist decided that it would be a good idea to take her up to the NICU based on the difficulty she was having with breathing and oxygen saturation just to put her on a CPAP to get her back to normal. 

While in the NICU, the CPAP wasn’t as effective as they initially hoped, so they admitted her, and during her initial workup, they found that her blood sugar had dropped significantly below the normal level. They administered some dextrose to test how she would process it and tested again 30 minutes later, and the result was borderline above the normal threshold, so they started a continuous dextrose drip into her IV in order to keep her stabilized. 

They had an X-ray tech come up to take an image of her chest, to see how how lungs and heart were doing, and found some question marks about her heart, so they ordered an echocardiogram to make sure that everything was ok. When that was complete, I headed back to see how Ashley was doing, and shortly after, Ada and Grandma came back to see everyone and bring dinner. Ada, Grandma, and I went to see Holly after dinner, but we found out that Ada has to show them all her immunization history in order to enter the NICU, so we just came back down and visited with Ashley for a while before they left to get Ada to bed. 

When I went up to check on Holly, they were getting ready to do her weigh in and diaper change kind of stuff, so I helped out by lifting her up and changing her diaper, which was nice to be a part of. 

Ashley and I came back shortly after so Ashley could see her, since she hadn’t seen Holly in 6 hours or so. While we were there we got an update on how the recent tests had gone, which revealed that her heart is probably fine, they will just monitor it for a while, which is exactly what happened with Ada, and they were going to administer a medication to hopefully help her lungs function more effectively since her oxygen saturation levels were deteriorating repeatedly.

I had hoped that Holly would be able to come home with us from the Hospital, but that looks like it will not be the case. I am just hopeful that her recovery is quick and that she is able to learn breastfeeding without any issues. I’m excited to be able to hold her again and kiss her sweet face!