New Year's 2014

The plan for New Year’s was to go to a “block” party New Year’s Eve at a neighbor’s across the street from my mom’s. We were planning on bringing Vashti and then leaving early for a (hopefully) quiet rest of the evening. Mom and Vashti were well on the way to recovery and the new baby wasn’t due until the end of January so it looked like this plan would go off without a hitch.

Sacha had had a prenatal appointment on New Year’s Eve. We hadn’t thought anything about it because, to this point, everything was going well with both Sacha and baby during the previous checkups. When I got home from work there was a message from Sacha. During this visit it turned out that the baby’s body seemed to be on the small side of normal though the size of the head was still OK. There was some concern that there might be some problems. So they wanted to do an ultrasound but they had to wait on a technician. It was getting pretty late at this point so Sacha decided to stay at her mom’s in Arlington where Vashti was staying.

I waited at home for the results of the test. It was verified that the baby’s body was on the small side of normal and that there might be some other problems but, at that point, nothing was seriously wrong and there wasn’t anything that needed immediate action. Sacha would come home the next day (New Year’s Day). I decided that I might as well go to the block party since that would involve significantly fewer miles of driving with possible drunk drivers on the road than if I drove to Sacha’s mom’s. I stayed at the party until about 11:00 p.m. and went home. I hadn’t drunk any alcohol but I was still pretty tired by the time I got home so I went to bed without even thinking about checking for phone messages.

New Year’s Day a phone call woke me up early. It was Sacha. After she left the checkup, her regular obstetrician, who had been swamped with delivering a lot more babies than usual, had had a chance to look at the ultrasound and thought it would be a really good idea to get Sacha in and induce labor as soon as possible. It would be about three weeks early but Sacha was close to term and it looked like the baby would probably be better off outside. She got hold of Sacha who tried to get hold of me but I don’t carry a cell phone and, at any rate, I would have been in a dead zone so I hadn’t gotten the message anyway.

It wasn’t a complete emergency but we couldn’t dally either. Sacha needed to come home and get some things together and I needed to get in touch with some friends to make sure the livestock and dog were all fed and watered because mom still wasn’t up to this task.

It was an hour or so from our house to the hospital in Mount Vernon. We weren’t even sure if a room would be available because of the number of recent births but we had a backup plan to stay with Sacha’s mom if we couldn’t get a room. When Vashti was born, the first trip we made was a false alarm so we ended up driving back home after midnight the first time. When we found out that there was a room available, we went to the hospital, leaving Vashti with Sacha’s mom.

Sacha was induced shortly after she was admitted and we settled down to wait. She tried to get some sleep in the hospital bed which was difficult because she was very stressed and wired up with worry. I slept on the couch in the room.

I woke up at about 6:00 a.m. the following morning to a discussion between the doctor and Sacha. It had been hoped that the delivery would be a natural one but the monitors were indicating that something was wrong with the way the baby was reacting to the contractions. It looked like it might be getting stressed by lack of blood flow when the contractions occurred The doctor wasn’t sure what exactly was wrong but it didn’t look very good. Sacha decided that they needed to get the baby out.

So they wheeled here in for a caesarian section and, at 6:49 a.m. on January 2^nd , Phoebe Anne was born, weighing 5 pounds and a little shy of an ounce. Everything seemed to be OK with Phoebe except for her small size. She was quite vigorous from the get go though, even if her cry was a bit squeaky (I call her Squeeker).

The main concern now is to keep her from losing too much weight and to have her start gaining weight as soon as possible. Most babies loose quite a bit of weight just after they are born but Phoebe can’t afford to lose too much because she was pretty small to start with.

Sacha was laid up for a day not only because she had just had major abdominal surgery but also, we think, because of an adverse reaction to the anesthetic used for the “C” section. The reaction wasn’t too serious but Sacha was severely nauseous and couldn’t eat or drink anything or even walk for most of the day after the surgery.

Sacha and Phoebe were released Saturday afternoon two and a half days after Sacha and I went in. The time between then and now has been a bit of a sleep deprived haze of feeding every two hours or so which requires us to get up and wake Phoebe up to feed her. This is normal in dealing with newborns but we are also trying to give her supplemental nutrition as well. This has been done while riding herd on a two year old toddler, at least during regular waking hours, who is into everything and while making several trips back down below to Mount Vernon for follow ups on Phoebe. The trips wreak havoc on feeding schedules and the all important toddler nap time. 

All in all I think we have been fortunate to this point. We are not out of the woods yet but I think the prognosis is good. Phoebe was actually at term when she was born and she isn't by far the smallest baby I've ever heard of that did just fine. I am certainly happy that we had access to modern medicine. We had many more options than people many years ago did. Back then you got what you got. Maybe the child would be perfectly fine, or have some deficits but then catch up to her peers or maybe she ended up with lifelong problems or disabilities (still a possibility with us) or didn’t live at all. We had an option at this time. Why take a chance? Many people all around the world, to this day, still don’t have the options that we had. I feel fortunate.

I also feel fortunate for all the friends and family around us that have been taking care of our animals and us as well, watching our toddler as need requires and bringing food so we don’t have to try to cook in the midst of chaos.