The Path of a Racecar: Part 3
The entire affair was not even remotely what I had expected to happen. Who starts labor in transition and doesn’t have any contractions? Well, that’s what I did. It made sense that he had trouble with breathing at first because there wasn’t enough squeezing to clean out his lungs. It also was going to make sense that his breathing was going to remain a bit too fast for a while, but not before a 4 day stay in the hospital was complete. Newborns are often born with rapid breathing that will usually calm down by day 3 or 4, but his didn’t. The midwives wanted to make sure there wasn’t something big going on - though everything else looked good - so we had an echo done. Turns out there were two holes still open that allowed them to calculate his lung pressure and it was too high. So, everyone was concerned but we convinced them to send us home with oxygen rather than admitting us directly.
Remember that I have just given birth 5 days ago. We’re trying to breastfeed and recover from the shock of his birth. So, stress only begins to describe what I was experiencing. After waiting ALL DAY for home health to deliver the oxygen and pulse oximeter, it finally comes at 7pm. The guy explained it all to us, but we didn’t know what we were doing. We hooked our newborn up to it all, which was not fun and then sat there and watched the pulse ox go up and down, wondering if all the dips meant he was about to die on us! If we truly understood how difficult it is to get a consistent reading on an infant and how finicky those machines can be anyway, we probably would have lasted longer, but we didn’t know that and were scared for our newborn. So as I’m holding him and Mr. Butler and I are staring at each other and then the oxygen numbers, he finally just said, “I think we just need to go to the emergency room.” I wanted to argue with him. The last place I want my 5 day old newborn was the emergency room, but I knew we were so exhausted and couldn’t bear the weight of missing something major out of ignorance. So I numbly packed a bag for us. I sat in the back of the car with him in his car seat and the oxygen, making sure it stayed attached as well as I could. It all seemed so surreal.
Once they finally got to look at him, we were admitted to Children’s around 4:30 in the morning and would stay for just over 4 days. He stayed on oxygen for most of the time and they ran all the tests known to man, it felt like. We braced for heart conditions or lung medications or all the unknown disorders your brain can come up with. Never in all my life had I been so eternally grateful to be married to a 6”2, 230 lb intimidating engineer. He asked all the questions and then more. I was traumatized just by being there but we were exceptionally cared for and protected through his determined advocacy and a great (or scared of my husband) staff. All the tests came back perfect. They sent us home with oxygen and an appointment with a cardiologist in 2 weeks. He seemed stuffy at times, on top of the fast breathing so we had started giving him some herbal remedies for mucous before we even left. They said to keep him on oxygen for the 2 weeks before weaning him, but our pediatrician encouraged us to try sooner if he would tolerate it. We turned it down to the lowest setting before off (we thought) and he struggled (meaning his oxygen levels would dip into low 90s high 80s) a bit for a couple of hours but then stabilized. Since we didn’t want to press our luck we kept it at that setting until the day of his appointment. Just to see what would happen, Mr. Butler tried to turn it off. Turns out, he already had!! So for the past few days he had been on no oxygen and we had just been wasting electricity! The good news was that he had stabilized on his own and things were looking really good. The cardiologist said he looked great and sent us on our way, never to return.
After all of that, we never were given any answers. The oxygen seemed to be what he needed perhaps, but other than that no one knew what to say. Thankful for the no news is good news routine, but still frustrating to go through all of that when maybe we didn’t need to. Still, you just don’t know what you don’t know and that’s a scary place to be in. Now 5 years later, I think what happened was that little speed racer was born so fast that his body didn’t get cleared of all the fluids and such in this body and was carrying around more than his little body was prepared for. The oxygen gave him a boost and time mixed with some herbs helped get him where he needed to be. So so so thankful that he is strong and healthy today, but it still triggers so much conflicting emotions in me.
The next couple of months our Rory would settle in just fine, but the stress streak he started would continue with a lightning strike to the tune of $1000 worth of damage, a chunk of medical bills and my dog - my first baby - getting sick. After everything we had gone through to get Rory here and safe, having to put Grace down only 2 months into his life was the height of my grief. It felt like a bizarre trade that I didn’t sign up for. It was all more than I could process at times. And I know to the many families who have ongoing medical issues or events that didn’t turn out as well as ours, my roller coaster seems like a pebble in the road, which comparatively it is. I think comparing is disrespectful and misguided, but it is easy to get caught up in. This whole affair was very traumatic to me, which is why I needed to write about it. As a mother we get used putting our pain or needs over to the side until the child or family gets settled. In the same way, I have often felt uncomfortable talking (or writing) about my pain or needs because there are many someones with greater pain or needs. I hope we agree that we should never play a game of “My struggle is worse than yours” anyway, but I’m learning that there does need to be some space for a struggle to be a struggle no matter how it compares to someone else’s. Momma needs to eat eventually, even if the kids get first dibs. We all experience grief and struggle AND we all need to process it to be healthy and balanced. So, this is my attempt at feeding myself, I guess.
One of the most interesting thoughts I’ve had since Rory was born and I’ve gotten to know his personality is that even at conception, he was fast. Only a really fast swimmer was going to make it through because clearly all the rest weren’t cutting it. And the thought that all that waiting brought us the most determined, task oriented, crowd-loving racecar just shows God’s grand plan is more beautiful than we can imagine. This kid is one of the happiest kids I’ve ever met and never fails to bring an extra layer of fun to life. Looking back, I am so thankful for my 3 very different children and am in awe of all the different instincts and struggles that have led to my mama heart feeling full and complete in the family God has allowed me to serve.
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