Lydia Belle's Birth Story-Part Two

Alright, now to the unhappy portion of the birth story.  It has a happy ending, which is good, but it was pretty scary at the time.


Lydia had spit up a few times during the day and when the pediatrician came to check her in the afternoon, he said she had swallowed amniotic fluid and that spitting up was normal.  He also said that we shouldn't worry if she didn't breathe for a few seconds after spitting up since it was a reflex that would keep her from choking.  We noticed that she did, in fact, hold her breath for a few seconds after spitting up until her airway was clear, so we didn't worry about it.  Around 8 that night, Bryant was holding her while I went to use the bathroom.  She spit up while I was in there and I was washing my hands when Bryant suddenly said she still wasn't breathing.  I came out and he was holding her on her side and patting her back, but she had her mouth closed and was turning red.  I grabbed the aspirator, opened her mouth, and tried to suction out the back of her throat, but she started turning purple.  I pushed the nurse button and said something eloquent like, "Uhmm...my baby's not breathing!"  A nurse came running in about 2 seconds later, grabbed Lydia out of my arms and ran, without saying a word to either of us.

We both started crying and hugging each other and Bryant kept saying, "I couldn't help her.  She wasn't breathing and there was nothing I could do.  She's my little girl and I couldn't help her!"  Lots of crying happened.  Two nurses came into our room about 5 minutes later  and informed us that she was breathing again, but that it had taken their team three minutes with her on oxygen before she pinked up.  Because of that, they were going to move her to the NICU and they wanted to know if we wanted to come see her.  I want to know if any parent has ever said no to that request, because I can't imagine anyone NOT wanting to see their baby after something like that.  We went in to see her and she was laying in one of those little beds in just her diaper and she was breathing pretty hard--you could see the muscles between her ribs straining with every breath.  We talked to her and touched her and cried a little bit.  The team of NICU nurses and the respiratory therapist were fantastic.  They talked with us about her condition and told us they had ordered a chest x-ray to see if she had aspirated.  My parents showed up and my dad helped Bryant give her a blessing, during which Bryant and I cried yet again.  They did the chest x-ray (the tech who did the x-ray was my sister's old childhood friend, Jenny, which was pretty crazy!) and it looked clean so they decided not to take her to the NICU, but they wanted to keep her in the TLC lab overnight.  The TLC lab is the step-down NICU, for babies who need some extra help/monitoring, but not enough to warrant going to the NICU.  I fed her there in the TLC lab, then Bryant and I headed back to our room.

Bryant was still really struggling and blaming himself for what happened to our little lady.  He had told my parents that Lydia was not breathing for at least a minute before the nurse came for her.  I kept saying it had only been about 20 seconds (he agreed with me later, when he had calmed down a bit), and telling him it wasn't his fault, but he still had a pretty rough night.  At one point I pointed out that if he hadn't been there it would have been worse because I would have set Lydia down to use the bathroom and wouldn't have known she needed help, but that made him more upset.  I went to the lab twice during the night to feed her and was told she spit up twice, once after we had originally left and then again after her first feeding, but had kept her next one down.  They let us take her out of the lab at about noon, just in time for some of my siblings to come visit.  We spent the day relaxing and enjoying our little girl (and maybe paying really close attention to her breathing).  The respiratory therapist told us that she would be fine now and that she had just had a bronchospasm and none of the fluid had gotten in her lungs.  He advised us to be diligent about burping her so that she would have a lower chance of spitting up.  It seemed like the issue was that all the amniotic fluid in her stomach kept making her vomit after eating, but it was now all cleared out and we were told she would be fine.

 The only picture we took with her that second day.  Go Cougars!  And also, doesn't Bryant look good?  I may have looked like crap, but my husband was cute enough to make up for it.

That night we requested a monitor to be brought into our room so we could keep her with us but have the security of knowing she wouldn't stop breathing during the night. They brought it in around 10:30, just after I finished feeding her, hooked her up to the monitors, and put her in her crib.  Her little bed was inclined so her head was elevated to lower the risk of her spitting up.  After the nurses left, Bryant and I climbed in bed and I prepared to get a few hours' sleep.  Then Bryant noticed that she was on her side and was afraid she was too far on her side and her arm wouldn't be getting the blood it needed, so he got up and rolled her over.  Which, of course, woke her up and nothing would make her go back to sleep until I nursed her again.  I did, and laid her down on her back in her crib and climbed back in bed.  Then Bryant said, "Oh no, she slid down!"  He got out of bed and moved her up, which woke her up yet again.  I then sternly told him to put a pillow over his face and that he was no longer allowed to look at her or touch her because I wanted to actually SLEEP!!  I may have been a little tired and cranky at that point.  He followed my directions, promptly fell asleep, and I was up with Lydia for another hour and a half while she fussed.  Once she finally settled down, I managed to sleep for about 45 minutes before the alarm on the monitor went off.  Bryant and I both jumped up in a panic, but her stats were fine.  The monitor was just running out of batteries.  We called the nurses, and they took her to weigh her and get a new monitor so I got another hours' worth of sleep.  When they brought her back I fed her again and she once again refused to sleep.  Long story short, between the hours of 11 and 4 (with an extra hour thrown in for the daylight savings change) I slept for about 2 hours.  The last straw was when I finally got her to sleep at 3:40 and the monitor started beeping again at 4 because, you guessed it, the battery was running low.  When they came in to fix it I requested they take her to the nursery because I desperately needed a few hours of sleep.  After they took her, however, I started crying because I felt like a terrible mother for sending her away.  Luckily, Bryant was there to calm me down and I finally got a few hours of sleep before we were discharged Sunday morning.

Not the most flattering picture, but here we are leaving the hospital!

And here's my sweet little girl making a funny face to keep me entertained during the car ride.

She has been perfectly fine since that incident (although I might have a mini panic attack every time she coughs or chokes while eating or being burped), which we are thankful for every single day.  I am also oh-so-thankful that I decided not to have her in Grenada.  They don't have a NICU and I can't imagine what would have happened to her there.  The lack of NICU was one of the biggest determining factors for me in coming back to the States, and although I would rather not have needed it, I'm so glad that I had those amazing people to help my little girl!!

Snorkeling and lots of standing on waterfalls

This is very belated because I've somehow become very busy here with SO responsibilities, grocery shopping, cleaning, volunteering, and hanging out with friends!  This post encompasses the last of the Family Weekend fun we had with Bryant's parents.

First up: snorkeling.  Believe it or not, I have all of 2 pictures of our snorkeling trip due to the fact that my camera does not take underwater pictures.  It was beautiful, though!  We went to an underwater sculpture park that is pretty famous around here and had some incredible sculptures, like a bicyclist, a sculpture of the Savior, and a whole field of some dead women....ok, the last was creepy instead of awesome, but it was still very fun!  I saw more variety in fish, plants, coral, etc. than I have ever seen in my life.

I only got pictures of the coastline and Bryant and his mom on the boat, but it was a great morning!

 

The day after the snorkeling trip, Al, Alison, 2 of my friends (Mallory and Krysta), and I went up to Grand Etang Rainforest to see some waterfalls.  We stopped at Annandale Falls first--you may recognize it from the island tour Bryant and I did back in August.

 





Afterward, we went to the Seven Sisters Waterfalls.  This was the highlight of the day due to our awesome tour guide.  His name was Clifton, but he said, and I quote, "Everybody calls me Super Butterfly." (Imagine that in a Caribbean accent and you'll find more humor, I promise!)  He showed us nutmeg, which is the pride of Grenada.

It actually grows that way!  When it's ripe, it splits open like that.  I never knew how cool nutmeg looked on the tree.

See that red part?  It's mace!  And yes, that is the stuff they put in pepper spray.  It is slightly rubbery and grows like that around the dark seed (which is the actual nutmeg) and Super Butterfly informed us that if we had no pepper spray we could just crush the mace up and use that instead.

Here's Super Butterfly, with my friend Krysta in the background.  He had jelly shoes on.  You know, the old school jellies?  His were dyed red, green, and yellow for Grenada and looked distinctly girly.  Super Butterfly also told us great things like, "When you slip and fall in the mud, you need to just embrace and love the moment!" and "This here is your free pedicure" as we hiked down a trail that was nothing but mud.  He also pointed out the local wildlife, like the millipedes (another picture for my favorite little sister here!):

And yes, that millipede was over 6 inches long.  I didn't get close enough to really measure him, but he was a big fella.  Super Butterfly also found a giant termite nest (think about 3 feet tall) and started whacking it with his machete to see if there were termites in it.  Luckily for us, there were not.  I had a very dignified moment when a completely red cricket jumped from the bush behind me, grazed my leg and landed right by my foot.  It was big and there was some squealing.  Then, not a second later, a gigantic lizard ran over my foot, grabbed the cricket in its mouth, and darted off.  Cue more squealing.  Of course, no one else saw the red cricket so they thought I was freaking out about a lizard.  The cricket was real.  I promise.

Then we made it to the bottom two falls.  Beautiful.

Here I am with Krysta, Super Butterfly, and Mallory.  It's hard to get a handle on the size of that waterfall, but it was about 30 feet.  The one below it in the bottom left there was about 6 feet tall.  Krysta and I decided to go jump the falls with a group of other hikers and Super Butterfly.  We couldn't take our cameras so there are no pictures, but it was awesome!  The falls above this gigantic one were between 6 and about 15 feet high and I had a blast jumping them.  Unfortunately, there were also swarms and swarms of mosquitos up there.  So many that I would kill 3 or 4 with one slap on my leg or arm.  I ended up with so many mosquito bites that, at a later date, I counted them.  Between my two legs (knees down only, apparently my thighs don't taste good) I had 78 bites.  I was embarrassed whenever I went out in public because it looked like I was suffering from the plague.

Anyway, we finally got to THE waterfall, the huge one (you can see the size better in this photo) and guess what?  I couldn't jump.  I tried for about half an hour (while other people jumped and I occasionally stepped up and tried to make myself do it) but could not convince myself that it was a good idea.  So here's a video of Krysta making the jump:

 

And here's a much longer video of me standing on top of a waterfall (I have no pictures of it):

You don't have to watch the whole video, because it's a minute and 50 seconds of me standing on a waterfall looking scared.  If you watch the first 5 seconds, you've seen the whole thing.  The best part is I have 6 videos (between 1:50 long and 4:02 long) of me standing on the waterfall.  A lifelong reminder of how wimpy I am, but seriously, I don't regret not jumping.  I'm still convinced I would have died.