Sept 18, 2007

Sept 18, 2007

Well hello everybody. I should have started this when we first got here, but we were a little pre-occupied so I am starting it now. This will be a long post because I have a lot to get down in writing, so feel free to skip as much as you want. Many of you know a lot of the details anyway, but for those that don't, here goes. Anna started contracting fairly regularly around 2:30pm on Thursday, Sept. 13th. By 6:30pm the contractions were 7 min. apart for 30 seconds. We went out to dinner to keep her mind off of it and that worked well. We continued a fairly normal evening and got to bed about 12:30 am. A couple hours later Anna woke up with contractions about a minute long and 5 min. apart. She was like that for an hour before she finally woke me up and we continued to time and track the contractions. By about 4:30am she felt like it was time to go to the hospital. They got her right into a room and were monitoring her to see if they would admit her or if they would send us back home. At this point she had dilated to a 3 and was 80% effaced. We obviously wanted to stay there and have this baby so we were hoping they would let us stay. They were trying to get a certain reading on the baby before they would let Anna get up and walk around and see if she was still progressing on her own. They weren't getting the reading they wanted and had tried moving Anna to some different positions and after almost an hour and a half (6:30am), Anna's water broke. We were so excited because we knew they couldn't send us home. They got her started on an IV a little while later and they checked her again but she was still the same. Her contractions had actually gotten more intense but less frequent so they wanted to start her on pitocin. At this point Anna felt like she wanted an Epidural. So they got the Epidural in and started the pitocin and Anna's blood pressure dropped significantly and the baby's heart rate dropped as well. They pumped Anna full of fluids and she stabilized after the third bag. They then tried the pitocin again and the baby's HR decreased again so they turned it off. They tried two more times with lower dosages and Anna in different positions and finally the baby's HR stayed in an acceptable range. They increased the pitocin after 30 min. and Anna's contractions increased in intensity and frequency to the point that she should have continued dilating at the normal rate. They checked her again after an hour of so(3:30pm) and she hadn't progressed at all. At that point we had come to grips with the fact that this baby might need to come out cesarean so we were okay when the doctor told us that things just weren't moving forward and the baby was trying to tell us something. So in the doctor’s words we went to have a "birthday party." I watched the surgery and feel extremely sorry for everyone that has gone through a c-section. It is not a gentle process and I will understand if Anna is sore for the next few months. The baby was born around 4:37pm on the 14th which is also my sister Cami's birthday. We had decided that if it was a little girl born on the 14th, we would name her Adilade Camille Whitaker. I went and watched as the cleaned Adi and then took her so Anna could see her. At that point, the doctor informed us they found a cyst the size of a peach on Anna's right ovary. They were able to cut it out and again in the doctor’s words we got the "2 for 1 special" that day. I went with Adi to the nursery while they finished the surgery. Everything looked great at that point. Adi's blood sugar was low, but after her first feeding, it came right back up. We had her with us the rest of the night and everything was great. We didn't know that the next few hours would change things dramatically. At 3:40am on Sat, the nurse came in with a pediatrician and woke us up with some bad news. They told us that she started displaying some odd behavior over the previous couple of hours. I guess there is a limit on the number of words per post, so I will just break it up into sections. Okay, so she was screaming out in pain whenever the nurse would try to move her or change her shirt or anything like that. That led her to check some other things and she noticed her breathing very rapidly. She also was very stiff in her arms and legs and hands and feet. Something was visibly wrong. The nurse called and got the pediatrician and that's when they came to talk to us. They wanted to run some tests and get an IV into her umbilical cord. He came back at 6am and said they had found that her calcium level was low and they had given her some through the IV and she was responding well. Her breathing had slowed and that helped regulate her ph levels and get them in balance. She was breathing with an oxygen hood so that she didn't have to work so hard. He also said that they had taken some x-rays and done an ultrasound and they thought there was a possibility of some hemorrhaging in her brain. They wanted to transfer her up to Primary Children’s Hospital so they could do further testing and have the specialists here work with her. He said they wanted her to have a CT scan and a spinal tap and all kinds of things done. We basically felt like we had the rug pulled out from under us. My initial response was anger and fear. Anna seemed to be taking it better than I, but I know it was equally hard for her. It took me a little while to pull myself together, but after some pondering and praying and reading, I was finally able to turn things over to the Lord and trust what was happening. Anna felt the same. Before they transported her my dad and I had the opportunity to give her a blessing. She was still under the oxygen hood at that time. The blessing went well and we all felt better afterwards. By the time they left for Primary Children’s hospital, she was breathing on her own. I followed her up here and soon after she got here I spoke with Dr. Null, her neonatologist. He had reviewed the x-rays and ultrasound from Timpanogos hospital and said there was no bleeding in the brain. That was a huge relief. They were going to run some blood tests and look at her electrolytes etc.. and then decide if she needed an MRI. It was very re-assuring talking with the nurses up here. I had thought I would be looking through a window at Adi the whole time and that I would get to go see her for a minute every once in a while. That turned out to be completely the opposite of what they do. I was very involved in the communication from the start and could be right there with her for as long as I wanted. The nurses also wanted us to ask as many questions as possible and I sure did. The first rounds of tests came back normal so they said they would probably do an MRI the next day to see if it was something neurological. Anna was released a day early from the hospital so she came up Sunday afternoon. They got the MRI ordered and done that afternoon and the preliminary results looked normal. They wanted the Neurologist to take a look and see if he could see anything that they missed so he took a look Monday morning and said everything looked fine. His whole team came to talk with us later that day and explained that they didn’t really know what was causing the contractures, but they wanted the geneticist to take a look as well.

The Physical Therapist also came by to do an evaluation of her joints and muscles. She tested all of her reflexes and there are a few of them that she doesn't do, but she does most of them. Her hands and toes had loosened up considerably by this time and they continue to get better each day. The PT had just a couple of concerns from what she saw but overall Adi did really well. The PT came again today and met with my dad and showed us all some exercises we can do to help her loosen up those muscles. Then the Geneticist came and looked her over and said everything looks good that he saw. He didn't want to do any further tests at this time and expects her to develop normally and on schedule and if we see some signs of slow development, then they may do some chromosome testing etc... So after everything that has been done, there is nothing that stands out as a reason of why things have happened the way they have. They mentioned Arthrogryposis as a possible diagnosis because that means multiple contractures, but she doesn't display any of the other usual symptoms so they are not really eager to say that that's what it is. Everyone is saying that we should do the PT and work with her for a few months and our pediatrician will be able to monitor her progress and we'll see how she responds. If everything goes well the rest of this day, they said they would let us all go home tomorrow! We are so excited to take her home with us even if we don't know exactly what is going on or what caused her contractures. We have really felt so blessed as this process has unfolded and have felt the strength and help from all of your prayers. We feel like we have had a series of little miracles along the way and expect more to follow as she grows older. We certainly feel grateful that Heavenly Father knows much more about this than we do and we know that he will continue to comfort and strengthen us for what lies ahead. It also makes us so much more grateful for every little thing that goes well. We definitely took for granted the whole birthing process and the miracle it is each time a baby is born. We sincerely thank you all for your visits, calls, prayers, and everything else you have done for us over the last few days. We will let you all know if anything else happens and will keep you posted on the continued progress of our little Adi. Love you all, Scott and Anna and Adilade Whitaker