Episode 4: She's a "Yes", I'm a "No",... Together we make "Maybe's". - Part 3 (final part).

               It was the year 2007, and my wife and I had been enjoying raising our two little girls, Ducky and Sassy. Ducky was now about to turn 6 years old, and Sassy was about to turn 3. We knew we planned to have one more, and we felt it was the right time, so we decided to start trying to have a baby. With both girls, it had taken about 4 months to get pregnant, and I think we sort of expected the same this time, but God decided to push things back JUST enough to make my wife squirm a little. I was o.k., as I had accepted that it would happen in God’s timing, so I wasn’t stressing about that…..I just wanted to ensure I didn’t get laid off from another job (as had happened with BOTH of our daughters).

               After 5 months (yes, just 1 month more than it took with the first two), I was driving to work one morning, when I received a phone call from my wife. As had been the case with BOTH of our daughters, my wife had decided to take a pregnancy test without telling me she was going to do so (I kinda think she just enjoyed catching me off guard). She called me and told me that the pregnancy test was positive. We were going to have another baby.

               Over the course of this pregnancy, if I had a nickel for every time I heard “You do know how that happens, don’t you?”, I would be a rich man. The same goes for the number of times I heard “What are you going to do if this one is another girl?”

My answer: I’m going to have three girls…. that’s it. That’s all that is going to happen.

However, I believe my father-in-law was a little more concerned about it. He had 3 children (including my wife) …. all 3 were girls. My wife was the only one that had given him grandchildren, and both of the first 2 were girls. So, the first thing he said when my wife told him she was pregnant, was "Oh, please don’t let it be another girl. Lol”.  (NOTE: He was mostly kidding).

               My wife was about 13 weeks into the pregnancy when they did an ultrasound, and they confirmed that the baby (Drum roll, please!!) …..WAS A BOY!!! (Drop the confetti, strike up the band, begin the cheering, and watch as, for the first time ever, the medical staff begins the wave around the office).

I was going to have my SON!

               However, they also indicated that my son’s neck was measuring a bit larger than it should be and that the blood work they had done also appeared to be “a bit off”. Because of this, the doctor advised that they suspected our son might have Down Syndrome.

(Where’d the band and all of the confetti go? … it was just here!)

They sent us to a high-risk pregnancy center, where another ultrasound was performed. They confirmed the baby was a boy and were able to confirm that the baby did NOT have Down Syndrome after all (Obviously, we were relieved, not that it would have made any difference if he had it).

NOTE that at both of the first couple of ultrasounds, we had done, the technician struggled to show the baby’s face, because my son kept wiggling away from the ultrasound scanner. He clearly did not like it. He also moved away from every heart monitor check too. It was always fun to watch the technician constantly chase the baby around my wife’s abdomen.

However, when we had the one at the high-risk pregnancy center done, he was caught off guard (he wasn’t expecting another one so soon after the last one). They finally saw his face …. which had both eyes, and the mouth, wide open as if he was in shock. SURPRISE!!!

My wife and I, along with the technician, all had a good laugh about this.

               From that point on, the pregnancy went pretty normal, except that my wife was constantly uncomfortable, and REALLY wanted the baby to hurry up and come out.

               As both of our previous children had been born via C-section, there was no alternative for this one. The doctor advised that we HAD to have a C-section for him as well. So, we scheduled the date and time, and could not wait for that day to arrive. The day chosen was January 31^st of 2008 (which was 1 week before the actual due date).

We arrived at the hospital and were checked in as scheduled.

It should be noted that, when the anesthesiologist put the epidural into my wife and gave her medication to keep her from getting sick, he also helped to keep her blood pressure from dropping, so my wife didn’t feel as lousy as she had with the previous two births. To show how fantastic this was to her, she then professed her undying love for this anesthesiologist … with me sitting right there … trying to decide how to take that.

               Everything went relatively as expected up until the moment that the doctor tried to actually pull the baby out of my wife …. and then things got weird. The baby was absolutely determined that he was NOT going to come out. The doctor struggled and struggled. Even going so far as to put her foot up on the edge of the operating table, to gain leverage. She pulled and pulled …. but the baby refused to come out. In my head, I just had this image of my little son holding on with all his might to my wife’s rib cage and shouting, “YOU’LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE!!!”.

The doctor LITERALLY looked at my wife’s abdomen and spoke to the baby. “You MUST come out. This is not open for discussion!”

               At this point, the doctor pulled out a device which is known as a “Vacuum extractor”. This device is sometimes used during vaginal births. They place the suction device on the baby’s head and basically try to suck the baby out. (For lack of a better way to describe it).

This was the first (and still only) time I had ever even HEARD of this device being used for a C-Section birth.

(POP!)

NO! .... you have GOT to be kidding!

The vacuum extractor POPPED OFF!!!!     Even THAT didn’t get the baby out.

At this point, the doctor, the nurses, and I all just looked at each other in shock.

The doctor then turned and began trying again.

FINALLY, the baby got tired enough to give up and let himself be born. There was my brand-new baby boy. MY SON! Immediately, he started with the sweetest little baby cry that my wife and I had ever heard. We both looked at each other and smiled.

Unfortunately, it was then explained to us that the reason his cry was so little and sweet sounding, was because he had inhaled fluid, and was in “respiratory distress”.  Our smiles now turned to concern.

They ended up taking him to the Neo-natal intensive care unit (NICU for short). This brought the fear of God into my wife and I, and we both began praying.

I was able to leave, while my wife went into recovery (they wouldn’t let me in the recovery room anyway) and go down to the NICU to see my son.  Unfortunately, my son was 16 hours old before my wife even got to go see him. She was heartbroken during the wait. All she wanted was to hold her new baby, and she couldn’t. All she could do was hold her cell phone and watch videos that I was able to take of him in the NICU. Eventually, they were able to get his lungs cleared out, and he was no longer in respiratory distress … however, they now informed us that he would be held in the NICU longer because his blood pressure was high.

At this point, our emotions were all over the place. We both felt like we needed to do something but had no idea what to do. Tears were shed, and we both could not believe this was happening. We had never been through anything like this before and had never been so afraid in our lives.

I left my wife in the room to go down and see my son again in the NICU. While I was down there, the nurse came up to do the regular round of checks on the baby, where they check the heart rate, blood pressure, and all. As they began to poke and prod at my son, he began to cry and fuss, and his crying and fussing quickly built up.

Immediately, I realized the problem. Call it fatherly intuition… or just me also not being a fan of having someone messing with me. The nurses would begin their poking, prodding, and checking, and get the baby all worked up, then take his blood pressure.

I asked the Nurse “is this how it is being done every time?” and she said it was.

So, I told her to put the blood pressure cuff on the baby and walk away for a few minutes…then come back once he has calmed down and take his blood pressure.

She did so, and BOOM, his BP was fine. (I was a little concerned that I had to explain this to professionals, whom I would have thought would know this already).

               Later we were told that my wife would be able to go home the very next day …. but the baby would not. This did not work for either of us, and my wife began crying at the thought of it. She explained that she would be sleeping in the waiting room until her baby could go home, as she was not about to leave the hospital without him.

Thankfully, the hospital social worker stepped in and worked with our insurance company and was able to give my wife one more night in the hospital. This allowed us to leave with our baby, which was a huge relief for both of us.

               So, we had already established that my son was very particular about things, and didn’t like change, or to be messed with … and we hadn’t even gotten him home yet.

               We later learned that our son had high-functioning Autism, which made it all make sense.

Our last night in the hospital was spent ordering food to be delivered to us and watching the Super Bowl. The next day, we took our son home, and have loved having him around ever since. 

Shyguy had arrived.