And now...the story of Francine being born.
March 3, 2015 - Tuesday
Midnight the night before...I woke up feeling an uncomfortable feeling. Should I get up? Should I wake Christopher up? We are supposed to be going in at 5:30 for my induction in 5 hours. All of these things and so much more was going through my head at this time. Lets have a back-story on this. Amanda...me...would have never scheduled an induction 3 years ago pregnant with my first child. Never say never is what I learned the last few hours of my pregnancy.
So….the day before…
So….the day before…
March 2nd, 2015, Monday - Francine’s due date. Christopher and I went to see my doctor, Dr. Sizemore, for my 40 week appt. I would have NEVER thought I would be going to this appointment when I made it 3 months before. Jack was born a week early, Francine will be early to right? Wrong. I was a miserable, exhausted, large mess. I had never been so pregnant and ready to have a baby. We discussed some options and all 3 of us left feeling good about scheduling an induction for the next morning with his colleague, Dr. Stafford. He let me know he would only be on call till 7:00 that next morning so he wanted me to go with a different doctor. He said this is the one in his practice that is most like him. We decided that was what we were going to do and went home. I had been hitting the gym for about 6 days in a row on the treadmill. This day I did the same thing. I also worked about 3 hours while Christopher’s parents kept Jack. Went to bed and felt just miserable and ready.
Ok back to midnight...after contemplating what to do. I did nothing. I tried to go back to sleep but that was not happening. I decided to research what “induction” meant. All I knew is induction = “baby would be coming out soon”. About an hour into that research, I felt another pretty intense contraction. I woke Christopher up and we talked through for a while what to do. We decided to call Dr. Sizemore since we knew he was the doctor on-call. We woke him up and he said to come on to the hospital and get checked in and we can get started a little early. At this time its about 1:30 or so and we decide to call Christopher’s parents to start packing there stuff up to come over and look after Jack. We shower and get in the car.
AGAIN March 3, 2015 - Tuesday
2:30am - we start driving to the hospital. No one is on the roads. It felt really eery to be honest. I also just had this “why are we doing this” feeling the whole time. We could just wait 3 more hours and go when we planned to and not have to check-in through the emergency room. Rather, we could just check in as a patient at 5:30. Something in my gut told me to go and so we kept on. We arrived and Christopher always likes to share this “eery” part to the story. The emergency sign when you pull in at Williamson Medical Center was flickering like in a horror movie or something. It definitely added to the less-than-dramatic feel, and more I-feel-like-an-idiot feeling walking into the hospital ahead of the plan, I just woke my doctor, my in laws, and my husband...what for? We check-in...uneventful. They ask if I need a wheelchair to go up to L&D...I say no...uneventful. We get up to the delivery room. Change into a hospital gown...uneventful.
3:30am - around this time is when all the eventful stuff begins to happen. I met a few nurses after getting hooked up to penicillin because I was positive for Group B strep. I get the belly bands hooked up to me to check her heart. They all start getting quiet and looking at each other and then looking at the computer the belly bands were hooked up to. I look at Christopher. He assures me everything is going to be fine. The nurses speak... “We need to get a different computer in here. It looks like its not reading something correctly.” Ok. Sounds good. They go get another computer. They still have the same puzzled look. I speak up and ask if there is a problem. They said there might be and they are going to call Dr. Sizemore to come in just to look at things. He walks across the parking lot from his office where he sleeps when on call (THANK GOD he was close!). He looks at the computer and sees the same thing. He asked to get an ultrasound machine in the room because he wants to see the heart pumping. He then goes on to explain that the monitor is reading 128 beats per minute (bpm) but he is here 64 bpms. The average a heart should be beating at for an infant is around 120-160. He asks me to turn on my side, then my other side. The heart beat stays the same. Back up to yesterday…when I was at his office...the doppler the nurse was using and has been using at each appointment before that one read 146bpm. So we never knew there to be a problem until this very moment. Ok back to around 3:30am. Christopher and I at this point both seem to be getting a littler nervous. On top of that, my hand with the penicillin was driving me bonkers. It was making me sick and nauseous and my whole arm was going cold.
3:45am - ish. Dr. Sizemore says something along the lines of… “I hate to say this but I think we need to do an emergency C-section right now. We don't need to waste anymore time. I am not sure what is wrong with the baby but I don't want to chance her being in there any longer.” I start getting faintish and want to pass out from this news (Never say never wins again...to a c-section). The next few minutes were the most traumatic and scariest moments of probably Christopher’s and my life. They rush my bed out of the delivery room, to an open operating room (OR), and all the nurses and doctors are called in quick. Everything felt like it was moving double time. Everyone was putting on scrubs fast. They throw some scrubs to Christopher and said, “Put these on in here. Someone will come get you in a minute”. I am in complete panic and shock. After racing down the halls in my hospital bed like a tv drama, I see the sterile OR for just a few minutes. I see Dr. Sizemore. I see the nurses I saw earlier. I see people to my far right counting objects on a table. I see two bright lights above my head. They move my arms all the way out to these two boards and they are held there with something. This little Asian man is at my head and he puts me to sleep (anesthesiologist). Usually in C-sections you have a spinal epidural put in. Apparently the call was made for me to be knocked out because it was faster to deliver Francine that way. I remember someone pouring the sticky brown stuff on my belly. I remember a razor coming out…good Lord. And then I was out
While asleep…Francine Clare Phillips - 21 inches - 7 lbs and 11 oz was born at 4:16am.
4:30am - ish. And the next thing I remember is someone making me wake up. It took a while to come back. I was still in the OR and apparently I had to wake up there. I felt so groggy and then the moment I “for real” woke up, all I remember is asking for my baby over and over. They said they were going to try and let me see her. It was heartbreaking and I started crying immediately whenever I realized I never got to see her or hear her first cry or have that first skin to skin moment immediately or have the first nursing session right away. All wishes that I assumed would happen with my 2nd pregnancy like they did with my first (never say never… :()They get me back to my recovery room and I am there a few minutes before Christopher comes back. He had been with Francine since she came out of the OR. He said he heard her first cry from outside of the OR since he wasn’t able to be in the room. He did get to go back with her when they tried to get her cleaned up and put lead pads on her to begin monitoring her heart. He was able to show me some photos and videos from his phone so that I felt like I hadn’t missed that much. I remember feeling so overwhelmed with emotions and stress and pain and sadness. I just wanted to hold my baby.
6:20 - ish. Finally I see a cart come in the room. Its her! Francine Clare Phillips. Look out everyone Mama Bear wants her cub NOW. Please do not take a long time to stroll her in here...cub to mama Now! I wanted to nurse her and hold her and just look at her. We both had so many cords connected to us it was almost impossible. But we did it. She got to be in my arms for about 45 minutes I think. She was perfect. Her color was great. She had big beautiful blue eyes. She had dark brown hair. I was in heaven. It was exactly what I was hoping for. Except the cords...and the heart problem…and the C-section…or what would happen over the next 48 hours. None of these things were in the plan. The Bible says, “He will not put more on you than you can bare”....about 3 hours ago...I thought it was to much...little did I know in about 10 more hours...I would have a whole lot more to bare.
During this special time they were able to continue to unplug things from me while Christopher and I got to love on Francine every second we could. She nursed pretty good for all the trauma she had just experienced. From about 7-12, Francine had to be placed in NICU to be monitored without parents back there. I had to recover and be able to sort of walk to a wheelchair before I could go back to the NICU myself. I also needed to eat and start communicating to everyone that our little one was here and that things did not go as planned.
10:00am - ish. I am able to get transported from my bed to my wheelchair to the NICU where I was able to stay for about 2 hours. At this point I nursed her again. Christopher’s parents came to visit in our little “curtain enclosed” room. I went back to my room after a little bit to rest sometime around 12:30. At this time I was also able to drop the morphine drip and start reducing my other meds as well.
3:45 - This is the kicker of the story. We knew there was something wrong with her heart...yes. Now we had to get this news...the NICU nurse and neo-natalogist from Williamson let us know that this NICU was not going to cut it and that she is getting transported to Centennial Children’s and the ambulance is already on the way. Totally not in the plan…I have to be separated from her? Can I do this? Can they do this? Christopher and I both completely fall apart and cant believe this is happening. We haven’t hardly known her a half a day and they are taking her from us. We had to pull it together some because we knew Christopher’s parents were coming back with Jack for him to “meet Francine” through the window of the NICU.
4:00 - Jack comes to visit his sister. They start packing up Francine for her transport to Centennial. I was able to speak with Dr. Stafford (the on-call doctor from my office) and she said that I was able to go home at 6:00am the next morning. Unheard of usually when it comes to c-sections but I am very thankful. It is what got me through being at Williamson while my baby was at Centennial for sure.
5:00 - Christopher leaves the hospital for Centennial and I am so thankful that he gets to spend the night with her. Amanda Beam comes to the hospital to stay with me all night during the hospital. After Francine left and Christopher left, I was able to spend some time with Jack before he went back to our house. My whole world has changed. This is my first born and he looks huge. I just wanted to spend every moment I could with him so that I could make the time pass but also felt quite overwhelmed with my surgery and the feeling that he might pounce me and bust a stitch. It was a crazy mixed feeling. As crazy as it sounds, I was literally on the floor playing with him just trying to soak in this moment and not think about the “what ifs” of Francine and what all was happening with her at this moment.
While at the hospital I tried to pump or at least try to so that if something came out someone could deliver it to Francine. Unfortunately I got 1 oz over three 15 minute sessions and that was not worth delivering to a hospital 30 minutes away. I knew they would be feeding her something and I didn’t want to think about it really. Lets all just get through the night and then 6:00am, I am going to see my baby! And feed her!
We order some dinner and try to make the best of it. We closed our eyes around 8:30 because we knew they were going to come wake us around 12:30 and 4:30 to take medicine and to check on me that I was ok.
March 4, 2015 - Wednesday
4:30 - Up and at it. Got showered and ready to get going. We had all of our stuff packed and ready to go (me… in a wheelchair this time) by 6:00 am. The nurse, Amanda B, and I were humored by the fact that the clock said 6:01 above the elevator while we were waiting to go down. We stopped at Starbucks on our way downtown to pick up coffee and breakfast. Got to Centennial and found exactly where we needed to go. Ate our breakfast and coffee and went to NICU to see little Francine. Amanda left and it was just the 3 of us, mama, papa, and baby. This day was full of lots of tests by Dr. Pellenburg and his team. Christopher went home to be with Jack some. Christopher’s parents, Pastor Dan, Ron Sorbo, Ann, Fran, and Linda all came to visit in the afternoon. The Palmas brought us dinner and spent time with us for a while. Christopher and I were both pretty exhausted and spent. There was a snow storm projected for this night so I was not going to go home. I was hoping to have a hospitality room where I could stay like Christopher did the night before but all of the rooms were taken up by doctors and nurses that were being called in the night before because of the storm. We called Dr. Campbell who is pretty influential in the hospital and who goes to our church. She tried to pull some strings and she said there was no way to get a room this night. She tried. So that left me in a recliner in the NICU with Francine. I was totally fine with that. The only thing I didn’t realize is that you are not allowed to fall asleep in the NICU. You have to remain awake the whole time. YIKES! Definitely pulled my first all nighted ever! I definitely wasn’t bored. I was easily entertained by “hospital life” and the nurses and all that goes on. Its crazy to think that when we are sleeping…there are people all over the place working nights. It feels like nighttime everything is supposed to stop. At a hospital, its like someone is just stating there day at 8:00pm.
March 5, 2015 - Thursday
9:00am - Well I did it. I survived and planned on leaving to go home and rest some after we heard something from Dr. Pellenburg this morning. He told us he was coming back and going to give us some information. Christopher brought coffee and braved the 3 inches Nashville got and made it to the hospital. He got there just in time for Dr. Pellenburg to tell us that WE WERE GOING HOME TODAY! What? Are you kidding? He referred us to an electrophysiologist at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital, Dr. Frank Fish. He said that all of her vitals are good and that her diagnosis is Full Heart Block but it is not affecting any other part of her at this point. He said that Dr. Fish would be the person he would trust his own kids to and that he is one of the top in his field in the world.
2:30pm - we were leaving the hospital! This is crazy! You wouldn’t be able to leave the hospital till tomorrow with a regular c-section at Williamson and here we are walking out the door of the NICU! Scared? Yes. Exhausted? Absolutely. The rest of this day is a complete blur since I had gone so long without sleeping. I know I went to a consignment sale and bought Jack clothes. Ha! I know someone brought us dinner that night. And I know that I tried to adjust to 2 kids and all of us being home…I did this very poorly. I was scared that when Jack got near me he was going to jump on me and I was afraid I was going to pop a stitch constantly.
Now (this was back in April 2015 when I wrote this) - Its crazy that these traumatic days have come and gone. You never plan for something so intense, but somehow God’s grace gets you through them. I know prayer and people encouraging you and holding you up when you cant hold yourself up work to. I would have never realized that one of the greatest trials of our lives would come in like a flood, linger for a few weeks, and then pass after just 3 weeks. Francine went to secondary heart block upon Dr. Fish’s analysis. He had her wear a heart monitor for 18 days. She had to have a hulter monitor she wore for 24 hours a day as well. We got a call on 3/24/15 when Francine was 3 weeks old and they said that she no longer has to wear the monitor. She will follow up with Dr. Fish every 6-8 weeks to see how things are going and we can talk pace maker or not down the road. To God Be the GLORY!
Not that my trials are all gone…these past few weeks have been the most emotionally and physically hard days for me personally too. The adjustment I am facing now is two kids. Also the fact that having two kids causes me to never want to leave the house alone ever again. Francine might be walking by the time I get out on my own with both of them. However, I know that these seasons are not forever. Right now its sunny and 75 degrees. 4 weeks ago it was a snow storm. Just like the nature seasons we get to see outside, God somehow brings us through personal seasons and we are able to reflect on the “snow storm” days and the “sunny” days and see God’s hand moving. In fact, more than ever I now can see God’s hand even stronger in the “snow storms” because that is when I am not trying to hold it together on my own or try to do it all on my own.
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