Hey Everyone! Hope you all are enjoying this Christmas season! I was asked last month to write my story in the NICU newsletter and thought you guys might like to read it!
On New Year’s Eve Day 2009, my husband and I were thrilled to find out we were expecting! Our excitement also came with a lot of nervousness and fear after experiencing multiple miscarriages. We spent over a year dealing with fertility specialists and spent thousands of dollars for them to conclude that my husband and I would never be able to have a child together. However, just a few short months later, we got a miracle, becoming pregnant with my son. Right after I found out I was expecting, I began having complications and was told I was miscarrying. We were devastated to think we might lose another child. However, at an ultrasound a week later, we heard the best sound of our lives – a heartbeat! With that great news also came great stress. I found out I had a blood clot on the placenta and also cervix shortening at just 12 weeks. I was put on bed rest and progesterone, which lasted on and off through the rest of the pregnancy. Through my second trimester, I had many episodes of bleeding, contractions, and abnormal ultrasounds that made us fear for our son’s life. At 18 weeks, I was admitted in the Labor & Delivery unit and told I would be delivering my son due to cervix shortening and pre-term labor. After a few nights of medications to stop my contractions, along with steroid injections to help develop his lungs, I was stable enough to come home on strict bed rest orders. Along with bed rest, I had to go into my doctor’s office as many as three times a week at times, and was sent to a specialist to be monitored twice a week. Finally, the roller coaster of being in and out of doctor offices stopped when my OB admitted me to the Family Birthing Center on bed rest at 29 weeks for constant monitoring. I had dangerously low amniotic fluid and sometimes went and days where I couldn’t feel my son move. It was clear that the safest place for me to be was the hospital near the NICU. I spent a few weeks in the hospital on bed rest. Each day was a constant roller coaster of emotions and complications not knowing if I would have to deliver early. During my time on bed rest, I had some wonderful nurses who would cheer me on for making it through each additional day. One nurse specifically eased my stress while I was there. I was having so many complications that my doctors daily tried to prepare me that my son would most likely be born prematurely and have to go to the NICU. I really had no clue what to expect, as I had never set feet in the NICU. One evening a nurse came in my hospital room and asked if taking my husband and me on a tour of the NICU would help ease our minds, giving us an idea of how the NICU operated. It really gave us a peace of mind walking through and seeing such one-on-one care that the nurses gave each baby.
Finally I had made it to 34 weeks and delivered my son via an emergency C-section due to high blood pressure and severe oligohydramnios (low amniotic fluid). Minutes before my son was delivered, his heart rate dropped off the monitor and the nurse told me to prepare myself that my son may not come out alive. Just a short while later my son was delivered screaming and kicking and didn’t even require oxygen! He was sent to the NICU for observation and had to stay for a few weeks due to lethargic eating and severe jaundice. We had wonderful care in the NICU. It was a hard journey to go through, not being able to hold my son whenever I wanted to or being to take him home right away. But, day by day, things seemed to get better. Shepard was finally released from the NICU just to be readmitted to the PEDS two days later with seizures, kidney issues, and a severe heart murmur.
We went through a lot through my son’s first four months of life, but we are happy to say he doesn’t have any complications that he had at birth. Our doctors told us at the beginning that he may never walk or talk due to his early health problems, but I am proud to report he took his first steps at eight and a half months and there are not too many words he cannot say now at 15 months. His is truly our miracle child!
-Amy Patan
