The news

The doctor sat Steve and I down and told us that Hunter did have a bicuspid aortic valve, like Corben's, but his had severe/critical stenosis, meaning it was extremely narrowed and hardly any blood was getting through.  He would need to be transferred to to Phoenix Children's Hospital's NICU that night and on Monday, a plan would need to be made.

Hunter's first car ride

I was able to ride with him in the ambulance and Steve followed behind.  We got settled at the hospital.  There was a room I could stay in for the night (I slept about 45 minutes...In fact during Hunter's first 4 days of life, I slept a total of about 4 hours)

 He had jaundice so under the tanning lamp he went

 Off of oxygen!

 My big eater no longer needed a feeding tube

 Giving your newborn his first bath in the middle of a pod in the NICU is so unnatural

My guy

Monday morning we met with the cardiologist and interventionalist.  They decided that Hunter would need a balloon valvuplasty catheter procedure. A catheter would be inserted through the vein in his groin area.  It would be led up into his heart and to the aortic valve.  They would then blow up the balloon, tearing the leaflets of the valve and allowing blood to flow.  They had him scheduled for first case on Wednesday morning, July 18.  Hunter would be 6 days old.  

In the meantime, I had a room at the Ronald McDonald house in Phoenix.  I couldn't sleep in the NICU but did not want to be that far from the hospital.  I also couldn't handle the thought of being home and sleeping in my bed without my whole family there.  I would come home when Hunter did.... period.... end of story.  

I enjoyed a couple of quiet days holding and enjoying my son and prepared for one of the more difficult days of my life.... 

The calm before the storm

The two days following Hunter's birth were slow.  We just focused on holding our new guy, feeding, and waiting.  His oxygen flow kept getting turned lower and closer to room air.  He had an NG feeding tube as he would tire out before taking a full feeding.  

 Corben meeting his little brother for the first time

Late night in the NICU

Saturday, July 14, we were getting closer to room air, we still had the lingering question mark of the heart murmur, but things were looking like they were headed in the right direction.  They ordered his echo for later that afternoon.  I made small talk with the nurse and the sonographer during it.  I told the nurse about Corben's valve defect.  Assured her that Hunter didn't have that because we did a fetal echo already.....

After he was done with the echo, the sonographer quickly gathered up his machine and went to send it to the neonatologist.  I asked if he saw anything and he quickly said "he has the same defect as your other son..." and left.  

WHEW!  Relief!!! That's all??? Awesome! Nothing to worry about! 

Stupid, Stupid, Stupid.  Seriously, someone go slap that Lindsay..... so smug and confident that her baby was just fine with that.  

We just had to get him off of oxygen and we would be going home in a couple of days!  

Then we got the call..... the doctor wanted to talk to Steve and I together (he had gone home to put Corben to bed).  My heart sank.  What could it be?  This defect was not a big deal?  What could possibly be newsworthy?

Oh Lindsay........you have no idea

July 12, 2012

Well, let me back up to July 9, 2012.  I had my weekly appointment.  I went in and my blood pressure was up pretty high.  As I said before, my dr knew how worried I was about something and now my blood pressure was starting to show as well.  She sent down to labor and delivery triage so be monitored.  They took blood there and tested for pre-eclampsia and it came back negative.  My blood pressure wasn't as high  as it was in office and they weren't going to admit me.  I was having pretty regular contractions and I was beginning to dilate but they weren't going to do anything that day.  My doctor came to see me there and wanted me to come back to see her on Thursday, the 12.

That morning was like any other.  We got up, I fed Corben breakfast.  Steve stayed home with him just in case I was to be admitted.  I got to my appointment and sure enough, my BP was high again.  My heart rate was also very elevated and Dr. H decided right then and there that it was time.  She called down to the hospital and they had room for me.  She said she would see me in a few hours.

It was around noon then.  I called Steve, who arranged for my dad to leave work and come stay with Corben.  He left shortly after and met me at the hospital.  I was already in the process of being induced.  Looking back, the actual delivery of Hunter was such a non event.  I started feeling contractions, I got my epidural, it only worked 100% on my right side so I felt EVERYTHING on my left side but it was so fast it really didn't matter.  I called the nurse, who had just left the room and I was at 7-8 cm, and told her it was time.  She reluctantly came back and checked me....sure enough it was time.  We didn't do any practice pushes or anything as Hunter was right there.  They called my Dr to come back to the hospital, she had just left to take her daughter home. I didn't know if I could wait.  The nurse even told me she had delivered a baby or two before so don't worry!  A few minutes later my doctor got there, quickly threw a gown, gloves, and mask on and told me to push.  One push and Hunter was here!

His umbilical cord was wrapped twice around his neck and also had a knot in it.  My doctor kept telling me that was the mommy instinct I had.  Had we not induced him at 37 weeks, that knot could have pulled tighter.....things could have been very, very different.

He looked like a normal 8lb, 20 inch baby...

I'm so glad I have this picture, but hate it at the same time.  Someone who is about to have 

their whole world turned upside down shouldn't be allowed to look this happy.  

but something was off.  He cried, I held him, but Steve and I both kept asking if he was ok.  We just knew something was up.

They took him from me to clean him up and assess him.  I sent out a quick picture of our sweet boy to the world and literally right when I hit send the nurse told us she wanted to take him to the NICU as his breathing was too fast and he was grunting.  She also heard a heart murmur.  I was a crying mess.  No, my baby is fine.  He isn't going to be taken from me.  But he was, and Steve went with him.  I was alone with a nurse who had just come on her shift and I am sure she wasn't quite sure what to do with me.
Because my epidural was so concentrated on my right side, it took a bit longer for me to be able to walk.  But I had to see my baby.  So I changed into my sweats and they wheeled me to him....

Because he was born a few weeks early, his lungs still had some fluid in them.  He had TTN or transient tachypnia of a newborn.  Basically, just breathing way too fast.  His oxygen saturation was at about 80-84% so they put him on a nasal cannula of oxygen flow and it went to 99-100%.  They said usually after 72 hours the lungs clear and he would be fine.  The heart murmur would be addressed in a few days if it was still there.  A lot of babies have their PDA stay open and it can take a couple of days to close.  They figured it was that.

THAT, is the only thing that really upsets me about his first few days.  Now that I am a heart mom, I know of a much more severe heart defect... basically a baby born with half of a functioning heart.  AND, they are finding a correlation between the heart defect that runs in our family and this other defect. An echocardiogram should have been done right then.  If he had it, and his PDA was left to close, he wouldn't have survived.  But, thankfully that wasn't the case.  Just upsetting and I believe to be an irresponsible choice on the neonatologist's behalf.

By this time, it was the middle of the night.  I had nurses lecturing me to go rest.  I did just have a baby hours before.  I couldn't.  I couldn't leave his side.  The last time I was in that hospital and in a post partum room, I had my baby WITH me.  Being in the room made me sick.  I had to be with my son.  So I stayed and the nurses were very unhappy with me.

I wish I could say that I look back at Hunter's birthday as a happy day but I don't.  Yes, it was the day that I met my strong warrior for the first time, but it's not a day that I would say was happy.  It was the beginning of a very rough road that at the time, I had no idea I was on.  That's the part I hate.  I was so unknowing and naive that day.

But that is Hunter man's birth story.  More on the days following.......

Just in case

Corben had his one year check up at the cardiologist when I was about 18 weeks pregnant.  Since Corben's bicuspid aortic valve defect is so mild and the defect that runs through Steve's family is so mild, to me it wasn't a big deal if the baby ended up with it.  So I asked the cardiologist the chances of new baby having it and he told me the chances were very slim, 4-5%, of having another baby with a defect.  Ha.... more to come on Hunter's history with those percentages.....
We set up a fetal echocardiogram anyway at 22 weeks, just in case.  Knowledge is power, right?  I wasn't nervous at all. I was just looking forward to seeing my baby's sweet face again.  If Hunter did end up with it, we'd have two kids going to the cardiologist instead of one.  No big deal.  Gosh I wish I could go back and smack myself.  How naive.  How incredibly naive.
Hunter's heart came back perfect.  We looked SPECIFICALLY FOR this valve defect.  It wasn't just a general fetal echo (which looks at the heart very in depth anyway), but we were on a hunt for something specific.  Perfect heart.  Perfect valve.
We weren't meant to know.  That's the only sense I can make of it.  But we still looked....just in case.

Our sweet boy from that day

The Pregnancy (abridged version)

I was 150% convinced that the baby was a girl.  NOTHING was the same.  I was so sick up until 18 weeks..... thank goodness C orben took great naps and played well on his own because I layed down and slept a lot.
As soon as the nausea subsided, all of my ligaments began to loosen way too early so I had chronic sharp, shooting pains constantly.  When I moved it was worse.  All day, all night.  Awesome.
So at 20 weeks when we went for our anatomy scan, I just knew it would be a girl. So when we got there, since we had Corben with us, we asked if she would be able to look for the babies "stuff" first since we didn't know how long our 12 month old would last in the room.  She, of course, said she would try but it just depended on how baby was laying, etc.  She put the transducer on my belly and the very first image that popped on the screen was baby's "package"!  I said,"Is that what I think it is?????"  She laughed and confirmed what we were looking at.  We would be getting another little boy.

Since we didn't find out what we were having with Corben, we thought it would be fun to find out the second time.  I am so glad we did because I was already buying girl clothes.... that's how sure I was!
Plus, in hindsight, Hunter gave us enough surprises (more on that to come) so I am glad we knew at least something ahead of time.
Once my third trimester hit, my blood pressure started driving up.  Every appointment was stressful.  I just didn't feel myself.  I was constantly telling my doctor how worried I was.  I was worried he would be too big, was worried about her vacation the week of my due date, just overall worried.  Ha...how's that for mother's instinct?
So as I approached my 37th week, Dr. H knew, as well as I did, that the baby needed to come soon.  We were chasing the inevitable with the pre-eclampsia and it was time.
To be continued on the delivery.....

I don't have a whole lot of pictures from when I was pregnant with Hunter.... but here is one from 8 days before he was born.....gotta love the belly!

The planned surprise

When we had Corben, I immediately knew I wanted to do it all over again right away.  I had the best pregnancy, delivery, newborn, infant.  This thing was easy.....people who say having a newborn is hard are crazy!  I had it all figured out.
When I had half of my thyroid removed when Corben was 5 months old, my body didn't react well.  It took awhile to find the right dosage of Synthroid that my body liked.  Everything was thrown off.  Still, we knew that we wanted to try to have another baby soon.  Around the end of October my hormone level started balancing out and we decided that we would like to try for baby #2.  We didn't know how the thyroid stuff affected my body, so the plan was to try until February and if it didn't happen we would hold off for the rest of the year (we have a high deductible insurance plan so the goal was to have a pregnancy and delivery in the same calendar year to avoid paying two years of deductibles).
Two weeks later....... we found out I was pregnant!  Talk about meant to happen!  We didn't even know if I could get pregnant, let alone that fast!

Corben announced the big news!

July 29, 2012 we would be welcoming a new bundle of joy.........

It's been a long time......

But I am ready to get back to writing.  This past year and a half or so has been pretty wild.  I didn't have the time nor energy to write, but I think it is important to get the story of this year written out.  I would like to have everything printed and put into a book for my boys eventually and the events of this last year make up a significant "chapter" of our lives.  So the next few posts will be me catching up..... stay tuned!