Monthly Archives: March 2022

Recovery

I hate some of these photos but I want to always be reminded of God’s goodness, the miracle of medicine, and how far we have come.

After Amos’s heart operation, he went straight to the pediatric intensive care unit. There was little Tyler, and I could do as he was on the vent, on a feeding tube, and super sedated. The list of medications he was on made my stomach turn. I asked the nurse one day about the potential adverse side effects of one, and she told me it could cause hearing loss. That was the. last time I asked. I decided the less I knew, the better. Each day Amos was in the PICU, my heart felt heavier and became more and more torn as to how to spend my time. Almost every emotion felt new and foreign to me. I danced between trying to be there with Hank and Si at every opportunity and making sure Amos wasn’t left alone as much as possible. The thought of Amos in pain grew more excruciating by the day.

I began to fixate on small things like is he thirsty? Is he bored looking at the same image above? Will he be impaired knowing he hasn’t shifted positions in the first 25 days of his life? Does he feel scared? Does he feel alone? All of these questions haunted me. His body didn’t look like his. I briefly mentioned to Van about being on his back. He said angels His eyes and ears were swollen shut for four days straight. I tried my best to touch him, talk to him, and Linda, a nurse, and I even got him a little music box for entertainment.

On a positive note, his nurses were out of this world, impeccable. I received complimentary meals while I was there, and they welcomed parent involvement at any opportunity. Whenever I wasn’t at the hospital, I could call and check-in, making me feel more secure with his care.

After the PICU, Amos was transferred back to the NICU. I anticipated this being the joyful part of the journey. This was a sign we were getting closer to going home!! I would get to hold him in the NICU! I was wrong. Wrong. The last portion of his recovery was by far the most challenging. As Amos began to look more like himself, I became antsier and antsier for him to get home. He got his chest tubes out in the NICU, taken off the vent, his wound vac checked and cleaned, and was tapered off his narcotics day by day. I held him often (with the help of many nurses) and even helped with his sponge bath each night.
With every diaper I changed, the more attached I became, and the more I anticipated him coming home. After most tubes and lines were out, we waited on one thing. It seemed simple, but it wasn’t for him to learn to eat. They kept his feeding tube in, and each day we focused on getting as much milk in his little body as possible. Every little ml was documented. Attempting to nurse him went out the window, knowing it would suck all of his energy and then be too tired to take in the milk. I focused on pumping and feeding him with a bottle giving him little breaks to regain his energy.

One morning Dr. Sweeny said it could take him a few more days to learn or maybe a few more weeks. It was pertinent he could take in a specific volume before pulling the tube. I felt helpless. I can not do this for a few more weeks, I thought. I hated this place; this dark room, the beeping, and even the interactions with the nurses started to get under my skin. After my conversation with the doctor, I escaped for 10 minutes to church. It was a bust. I didn’t want to be there. I felt angry. I got back in the car. I prayed. I asked God for change. A few hours later, I begged them to let us have a new feeding plan. They agreed (PRAISE GOD).
Amos did so much better on this plan. So much so he ripped his own feeding tube out. I begged them not to put it back in, and sure enough, they never needed to! Though bumps still happened, we were on the up and up, and it felt good. They transferred us to a room with a window that night (also praise God). What massive difference sunlight makes; Tyler joined me for a hospital date with pasta, wine, and a show. We prayed for Amos, read scripture, and were reminded how blessed we were. God had answered so many of our prayers. We were seen and loved. It was an excellent ending to a bad day. He continued to improve daily by taking in larger volumes of milk and showing the doctors he was growing strong enough for discharge.

Dust Bunnies

Amos Post-Op

Dust Bunnies

I will never forget. The room was empty, sterile, lifeless. My dad and I sat in complete silence, hands gripping the phone beside us, waiting for the surgeon to call with one-word updates. My eyes drifted to where Van’s bed WAS, and all my eyes could focus on was a collection of dust bunnies on the hospital floor. 

Amos was intubated minutes after birth and emergently received a balloon to keep his little body alive until his open-heart surgery. I was able to hobble my way down to the NICU at 3:00 AM when he was finally stable. I was in such a daze after scarfing an entire pizza and dozing in and out of sleep, waiting for the nurse to call me to give me the green light to go down. Tyler stayed the night in his NICU room, and after just a few short moments, I walked myself back up to the postpartum floor. Amos was already covered in lines, on a breathing tube/ventilator, and pumped with narcotics to help keep his pain at bay. He was only hours old, and already so much had happened in his little life. The first time I held him, he was three days old. I will never forget how much I cried when it took three nurses to hand him to me. They wrapped his cords around my neck. I felt such deep sadness it’s hard to describe. Sure, I was so grateful that I was surrounded by amazing doctors and nurses that had kept him alive, but I felt more anger and sadness than anything. 

On Friday morning, March 4, Amos had his arterial switch operation and surgery to fix his aorta. At 7:00 AM, the doctors began to prep his little body. There was so much activity in the room. Tyler and I watched nervously. Thirty minutes later, the doctor told us we could give our kisses and say our farewells. Tyler read a Psalm over Amos, and we listened to Sam’s song once again. It felt like a holy moment. It was a holy moment. As soon as Tyler began to speak, the room was quiet. The doctors, surgeons, and nurses completely stopped and waited until he was finished. We kissed our little Amos, and they rolled his bed away. The commotion left the room. Tyler prayed aloud, giving God thanks. I sat in silence, looking at the dust bunnies collected on the empty hospital room floor. Here I was again, holding on to hope and waiting for our first update that surgery was underway. 

Throughout the longest day of my life, we received texts from the OR. Amos was finished with prep, his lines were in, he was on by pass, his aorta was patched, his arterial switch was starting, taking him off bypass, warming his body after cooling his body, surgery was over and he was stable. 

We reunited with Amos around 5:30 PM. I tried to prepare myself for when I would see him post-op, but the truth is nothing can prepare you. The bottom line was that he had made it through the surgery. The surgery was successful. The coming days were about seeing how he would respond to the trauma his body had just endured. We left the hospital emotionally tanked, grateful, and sad. We finished the night by starting the sabbath with the boys. We made tacos and margaritas and tried our best to rest. 

Amos is Here!

Amos is here!

Amos Whit Staton was born March 1st at 5:51 PM, weighing a whopping 8lbs 8oz. He came with a head full of dark hair, the perfect button nose, and squishy arm rolls.
The experience was expectantly quite different than my other births, but I will always treasure how this tiny fighter came into this world.

Jess was recently telling me women relish telling their birth stories because, in some ways, it makes their experiences come to life. Birth is surreal, and it does feel like you float to a different planet for a day or two, and coming back down to earth is a bit of a rattle until the details begin to unfold in the imagination. As a doula, I always encourage my clients to tell their stories, however traumatic or beautiful their experience was. I believe it can be a cathartic experience of healing. So here we go!

First off, primary emotion: weird. Monday night Tyler and I walked into Randalls Children’s Hospital for my 7:30 PM induction. My other two births, I walked through the hospital entrance in full-fledged labor moaning and groaning and not knowing if I was half-naked or not. I had just endured a taxi ride over the bridge, first the Brooklyn than the Queens into Manhattan, where there were lights, noise, and chaos all around and my yells of pain just faded into the background.

This time in Portland, Oregon, we settled into our state-of-the-art birthing suite, where we couldn’t hear a pin drop and had a view of evergreen trees in the distance. The doc came to check my cervix and dilation straight away to have a good induction plan. He reported that I was 1 cm dilated and would start with the foley balloon. I asked if they could do some miso (a cervical ripener instead), but I realized VERY early on they did not want ANY baby being born before 7 AM. I was not too fond of the idea of a foley and was SHOCKED I would need one with my third baby. I asked them to recheck me in a different position. I was convinced I was further along than they said, and sure enough, I was 3 CM instead of 1 just 5 minutes later.

No foley was placed (they only work until 3 or 4), and they decided to start me on ONE unit of Pitocin. Believe it or not, I knew this entire birth experience would be anything but natural, so I pushed for more pit, but they held off until the following day. I slept on and off through the night, watching my contractions start to ebb and flow. The next morning they broke my water ouchie. The pain from the amnihook was much more intense than I expected, so I asked to change positions, and boom boom, easy as pie. I was pleased and knew this would help my body kick into gear. My pain level was nil to none, but I could see a rhythm of ctx was beginning, and I was encouraged by that. I danced around the room a bit, letting my water out all over the floor as Jess (my sister-in-law) graciously followed me around with a chuck pad. It was clear that the two of us were very used to this kind of a mess and welcomed it with open arms. I continued to progress at a textbook pace throughout the day, not insanely fast, but not too slow. My pain level was still incredibly manageable, so much so it was almost weird. The next check, I was at a 5ish. As things progressed, I anxiously waited, trying to know the best time for an epidural. I had decided that I wanted to have as little pain as possible for my delivery with Amos. I knew that the moments after he was delivered would be milliseconds, and I wanted NOTHING clouding that time. I wasn’t in much pain, but I ordered the ep, and they got it to me right away.

Jess held my hand, and the anesthesiologist asked me to curl my back like a cooked shrimp. Minutes after, I felt like I had smoked 500 joints in the best and worst way. It was such a WEIRD sensation. I started watching my contractions as they intensified, and I wondered why in the heck did I not do this with Hank and Simon. I became nauseous, another strange encouraging sign that labor was on its way. I threw up everything I had in my stomach and felt lightyears better. My next check a few hours later, I was at an 8.5 or so.

I knew we were getting close, and my demeanor shifted. My emotions were bubbling inside my throat, and I felt an overwhelming sense of fear, sadness, anger, excitement, basically every emotion all in one. (Cue another great sign of labor progressing). Deep in my gut, I knew this was my last hurdle before becoming fully dilated. I had no choice other than to let it out. I began to sniffle, then cry, then weep. “I know that if I birth Amos, I can’t protect him anymore,” I said. The pain of that felt overwhelming to me. These were the last moments he was safe and whole, and he was about to enter the land of unknowns where he would be poked and prodded, and it would never be the same. I had carried him all of these months. Months of grief and tears and sadness, but assurance that we had time until we had to face the hard part. Tyler and Jess stayed quiet and gave me the space to let it all out. Tyler prayed the psalms over me, and we listened to Hope on the Horizon. I asked for the doc to come in because I knew I was ready.
Sure enough, they gave me the last check, and I was fully.
I pushed in complete silence with a room bright as can be with a million doctors around the foot of the bed and even spilling into the hallway. They were respectful and kind, but I kept thinking, omg, there are so many shoes in this room, haha. After 12 minutes of excruciating pain, Amos came into the world crying a roar and was placed on my chest. I felt overwhelmed with gratitude and sadness knowing I got to feel his skin on mine, and also, they were also about to take him away. My doctor said it was time. Before I could blink my eyes, Tyler, Amos, and the doctors were entirely out of eyeshot.
Jess never left my side and was with me those moments after, which made me feel less alone. I had no adrenaline, probably because there was no bassinet next to me or a baby on my chest. The doctor sewed me up.
Minutes later, we heard from the cath lab where Amos had his first echo, and his aortic coercion and DTGA diagnosis were confirmed. Shoot-he was not healed in the womb. He headed to his first surgery/procedure, where they placed a balloon in his chest to keep him alive until his switch operation. I didn’t see him again until 3:00 AM.