Devin's arrival

Well, it's been a while and a lot has happened since my last post. Let's just say, December 21st did not go as I had planned. It'll take me several blog posts to post everything!

Baby Devin did, in fact, wait until the 21st to make his arrival. And, although I was about to die before he came, I am so thankful he waited.

Devin was born at 8:18 a.m. on Friday, December 21. My scheduled c-section was set for 7:30 a.m. and I had to be there at 5:45. We got NO sleep that night so we were exhausted by the time we got to the hospital. Because I was not actually in labor, I had started to think about things way too much and my nerves were extremely messed up by the time I got in my little butt showing hospital gown. I kept thinking about how I was getting ready to get my stomach cut wide open and when you aren't in extreme agony from labor, that is a little scary. With Corbin, after over 40 hours of pain from labor, they could have cut my head open and I wouldn't have cared. Oh yeah, and as a side note, I woke up at 3:30 that morning throwing up. Yep, I can officially say that I barfed the entire 9 months of pregnancy. Thanks Devin!

Anyway, they started by doing all the IV's and stuff like that. Then came the epidural. They tried to give me an epidural but couldn't get it to work so after poking me 100 times in my spine, they gave up and decided to do a spinal tap thing. It's basically the same as an epidural but it doesn't last as long. But the failed epidural attempt had me all freaking out and towards the end, I was literally shaking. My whole entire body was shivering like a drug addict who hadn't had a fix in a few hours. The IV took about 3 tries too. So by the time I was wheeled back into the operating room, I was a mess. I was shaking so bad during the spinal thing, they had to cover me with blanket things and sort of hold me down. Then, I started gagging. Yep, Devin had me about to barf literally minutes before he was born. He's cool like that.

They started the surgery around 8 a.m. and he was taken less than 20 minutes later. I couldn't feel a thing and it was the strangest thing ever. But anyway, Devin was a gigantic baby. He was a whopping 10 pounds, 2 ounces. I remember hearing someone say he was a big one and then a bunch of people congratulated Allen and I and then I saw him. He was a big boy! And I was in love! He favored Corbin a lot when he was a baby, just a giant version of him!

Initially, Devin appeared to be the picture of health. He was checked out by doctors and given a clean bill of health. A few hours later, he was brought to the room. A few hours after that, he was taken to the nursery for a photo and a shot. He was never brought back.

My nurse, who took him to the nursery, discovered him breathing a little irregular and had the doctor check him out. In the end, he was admitted to the hospital's special care unit for babies for observation. Devin was breathing really fast, which is something that sometimes happens in newborn babies. It's call tachypnea. Sometimes babies, especially ones born via a c-section, may have fluid on their lungs. It's something about the squeeze they get during a vaginal birth helps get the fluid out or something. But anyway, it's supposedly not something to be concerned about and is supposed to go away in a few days.

Devin's, however, did not. The doctor tossed around several possibilities. One was that his lungs were underdeveloped which was causing his breathing issues. Typically that comes from being born early. Since Devin was born one day from me being 40 weeks, he wasn't early and he was 10 pounds so he couldn't have been premature. The doctor said the fluid on his lungs could also just be taking longer to go away than is normal. And finally, he could have had a early case of pneumonia. Whatever it was, Devin initially didn't get better. He was so bad at one point, he couldn't be fed and a feeding tube had to be put in. When you are breathing super fast, you are unable to eat because you could asphyxiate (which is a fancy word for choke).

Devin eventually had oxygen given to him in addition to the feeding tube as well as an IV put in. The hardest thing about the whole experience was seeing my little boy hooked up to all those monitors and tubes and not being able to do anything to make him better. It was heartbreaking. He didn't like it either. At one point, he took his little baby arms and flung them at the tubes and ripped out his feeding tube and oxygen. He was able to keep the feeding tube out but they put the oxygen back in. He kept that in for several days but eventually, he was able to leave that out as well.

Devin ended up staying in the hospital for almost 2 weeks. It was a horrible 2 weeks for Allen and I. We were in the hospital for Christmas and New Years. Most of our stay was filled with confusion. We didn't have a lot of answers about what was going on and we still don't have a lot of answers. There were a lot of things that were bounced around as possibilities but we were never given a definite.

So although we are home, we are still not at ease with things. Devin is doing much better and has adjusted to home life very well. But, we are still seeing things going on that concern us. Devin is on medication for acid reflux and from the research I've done, severe acid reflux can cause respiratory issues. So, I'm starting to wonder if maybe his reflux issues are severe enough that maybe there is a connection between that and his breathing issues. We are working towards getting a second opinion and hopefully in doing that, we'll get more answers.