After Phoebe’s birthday and with Easter coming, I wanted to write for myself and share about Phoebe’s birth. It was such a chaotic time while we were in the hospital and the months after, so this is a year later, remembering… and some of the depth of what happened has finally sunk in a bit.
Phoebe entered the world a month early – she had reduced movement over the course of a day & night and finally I checked into the hospital in the morning of Wednesday, March 28th. With no movement detected during two ultrasounds, our midwife’s back-up OB was called in and he determined we needed an emergency c-section. Immediately, they prepped me and I was in the operating room receiving the epidural within minutes.
She was delivered at 1:15 pm and was pale and not breathing or moving at first… soon cried and began breathing – we were able to get a look at her and a kiss and she was whisked away to the NICU. Soon after, the doctor determined that she had lost most of her red blood cells through the placenta into my blood system and she was very anemic. She received three blood transfusions that afternoon/evening and began recovering and creating her own the next day. We so appreciated the care from the NICU doctors and nurses and they took great care of Phoebe. It was somewhat scary at the time but mostly things were happening so quickly and I was recovering from the unexpected surgery and not able to be in the same room as Phoebe (luckily, just down the hall on the same floor.) I was able to facetime with Zane at her bedside shortly after the surgery and see her covered with wires and oxygen masks, etc. I was able to hold her finally late that night and have some skin-to-skin time then and every day for a little while.
The day after she was born, the OB who delivered her visited to check in and said we had really experienced a miracle – that she likely would not have survived if we had waited too much longer to come into the hospital and get her delivered. The NICU doctor we worked with said she sees this maybe once a year or less and it’s a rare and surprising occurrence that can’t be predicted and there’s no clear answers about how/why it happens. Being one who is very skeptical of claims of miracles, I am coming to terms with the reality that this was nearly miraculous… I’ve now read studies about this fetal-maternal transfer and many babies have died from this unexpected and unpredicted transfer… I’m SO grateful for my midwife and her wisdom to call in her OB right away and his ability to diagnose the severe anemia from the heart rate pattern and move right away to the operating room.
Phoebe did lose a lot of her weight that first week – it’s normal to lose up to 10% of body weight after delivery but usually they gain back quickly… she lost more than 12% and was down to just 5 lb and a couple oz. – initially she needed the blood transfusions more than nutrition and then being so tiny, they have to adjust the amount of stuff they put into tiny babies so her nutrition came after blood and then her body was recovering from some pretty big physical challenges.
That first week is a blur – I was in the hospital recovering the first 2 days and then released. Then traveling back and forth for most of the day for a couple days… and all the while she was improving and we were getting lots of good news on the blood tests, etc. but she was still needing lots of supports and until the oxygen mask came off, it all felt very unreal. I don’t remember the process specifically but she was able to begin eating from a bottle after just a few days but needed some time under the bilirubin lights on Easter Sunday and the next day… and then we were able to check back into the hospital to stay with her in a recovery room down the hall from the NICU to see how she would do away from all of the supports and finally figure out how to take care of our tiny baby. After 2 nights in the hospital room with her, monitoring her temperature throughout the night and trying to feed her… in ml rather than oz.. they determined she was stable enough to go home.
The next few months were challenging as she initially wasn’t able to keep her temperature up so we had to keep her in a warmer room with a space heater and really bundled up. (I hate being hot, so this whole time of being in a warm room constantly was so frustrating for me personally!) We were not able to take her out for walks or do anything out and about really in those first months – and this just added to the frustration and challenge. She also wasn’t eating and gaining as much as we would hope… she finally reached her birth weight around 2 months(!) and the slow gaining for those first months became faster and faster gaining and catching up.
One of the most difficult aspects of this past year was feeding – she needed to take her food by a tube at first and then bottles due to the energy required to learn breastfeeding, especially being so small and needing all of her calories to gain weight. I began pumping right away the first night after she was born while she was in the NICU. I was able to pump enough from the beginning and actually donated a lot of milk as the freezer filled up and I figured we’d be breastfeeding soon… but unfortunately after lots of trying during those first 4 months and lots of stress we realized that it was best to keep pumping and feeding her with bottles so that her health and weight gain was the top priority. I was able to pump for 11 months and she had breastmilk until she turned one – but the amount of time and energy that went into getting her breastmilk this last year was really overwhelming. Since she also had the dairy/soy/egg protein intolerance that Sam had, I was glad that I could go off of those things and get her breast milk instead of needing the horrible smelling and expensive special hydrolyzed protein formulas… (which I’m glad exist to ensure the survival of many babies!) We are so lucky to have so much help with bottle washing, watching Sam and Phoebe and all of the other assistance that made the pumping 6-7 times a day possible.
As the year went on, Phoebe started gaining weight and filled out looking nice and regular chubby baby-like around 6-7 months… Phoebe tested normally in most development tests in the past year but a bit slower in her gross motor skills and strength. She sat up on her own around 7 months and began crawling at 11 months and is now pulling up to standing all the time and cruising around the furniture and has now reached 35% for height/weight, so she is really catching up!
Having had a relatively healthy and “normal” birth with Sam and expecting a slightly easier and similarly unmedicated birth and a long (easier) breastfeeding time with a second baby, and having high expectations for how I was going to manage life as a mother of two (and all the walking and outings we would do during the first year!), this year has really thrown me. It’s been difficult to come to terms with birth and feeding and life that was definitely not what I was planning for… I’m still grieving and processing but at the same time so so so grateful for the gift of Phoebe, her life and her joy and energy. I know it could have been otherwise and we are grateful for our proximity to a great NICU, grateful for the doctors and nurses, grateful for such an amazing community of friends and family who have helped us so much this year.
We love Phoebe so much and she LOVES her older brother Sam. She laughs at him a lot. Life is definitely crazier with two kiddos and this year has really challenged us with the attention and care (and appointments) Phoebe needed. We are SO grateful for all the help from our family and friends and we are SO grateful for Phoebe’s health and wellness and smiles!
haxtema family 