Liam's Birth Story Part 2

… so you know how during certain places in your life your mind takes a mental snapshot, and it’s so vivid you feel like you’re sitting right there all over again… experiencing the sounds, smells, emotions all over again? You never forget your wedding day (or wedding days, if that’s path you’re on), you can see your husband’s face looking down at you, you can see your family beaming at you, hear the music, smell the flowers, feel the wind in your hair, ruining all of your stylist’s hard work… all it takes is a quick flash of a stored mental image. You never forget the births of your children, the rush of delivery, of the last few moments that you hold their lives within you, and the longing for them to be out and to cradle them in your arms. And when your child is finally in your arms and you see their precious little faces and feel their slippery skin against you and the sound of their first cry fills your ears… you realize you are forever changed.

There are many mental images that I have cataloged over the years, some good, some not so good… but there is one that just doesn’t fit in any category previously held – the moment I saw Liam for the first time. It doesn’t matter how many children you have, you spend your pregnancy wondering what your baby looks like. Does he have Dad’s ears? Does she have my nose? Will he have my crazy fang? We hope upon hope that they are born perfect and whole and healthy and because we live in America and eat bread fortified with Folic Acid and take our prenatal vitamins and abstain from drugs and alcohol, we assume that this will be the case. But I digress… Here’s the picture - The moment our son is placed on my chest, I am concerned. He is purple. Dark Purple. He is hard-core screaming and his face is incredibly swollen. My mind is already beginning the process of folding in on itself and at this point I see his lip. Something doesn’t look right. I look closer and sure enough, my fears are not unfounded. I immediately think of my husband and feel enormous guilt. Did he see? Was he blaming me? What had I done? What had I not done? A hundred questions race through my mind in the blink of an eye. After what seems to be an eternity I finally work up the courage to look at Bill. He hasn’t moved, he is still just over my left shoulder. I look at him without really seeing him and hear 2 words I desperately need to hear. “It’s ok”. I hear other voices and slip back enough into the real world to realize that the midwife and the nurse are in the room with us. I hear the midwife whispering about how swollen he is without sounding offensive, just commenting, really. I hear the nurse whisper something to her and I hear Noreen say, “what? Ohhhh… awwww…”. I can’t look at any of them.

After a few minutes it is apparent that he is cold so we get out of the tub and into the bed. I hold Liam while they wrap us in warm blankets and begin the post-birth process. The entire time I’m trying to wrap my mind around everything. I can’t stop asking myself what I had done wrong. I feel Bill next to me, I feel his strength, I feel like he’s protecting us. That feeling never went away. I sweep my finger across the roof of his mouth when no one is looking. It feels ok. Noreen asks me if I thought it was his palate, too and I tell her I don’t think it is. They call the Neonatologist. I try to nurse Liam before I have to allow him to be examined, but he’s having trouble latching on. The nurse takes him and starts looking him over and starts making loud observations about how wide-set his eyes are, how far apart his nipples are. She starts listing syndromes. I want to grab my baby and punch her in the face. I don’t want to think about all the could-be’s right now, I want to get back in the tub with my baby and do the whole thing over. I want the picture I had painted while I was pregnant, of me and Bill looking down at him as he’s born, me lifting him to my chest, of us both seeing the baby we created in love, of him seeing us. I don’t know whose nightmare I’m in.

My Mom arrives and I send Bill out to the hall to “prepare” her. She comes in and stands right next to me and strokes my hair. I can tell she’s trying not to cry. Bill is standing by Liam, taking pictures. The Neonatologist comes in and examines Liam and says he has a cleft lip and palate. So many things are going through my mind and I can’t stop my brain for a second to try to get a handle on any of it. I hear my Mom tell me it’s going to be ok. That she’ll be there if I need her to go to appointments. I hear the midwife and nurse and Neonatologist talking and I feel myself fading in and out. I hear Bill’s voice, he’s telling me something, I look at my Mom, she repeats it. “He looks good. He thinks it’s just his lip and palate.” I’m not sure. His eyes ARE very wide-set. His neck is really thick, his face is so swollen we haven’t even seen his eyes yet, other than a quick flash when we could see that they were completely bloodshot. I am praying like I have never prayed before. I am praying for this to be all that’s wrong. I am praying for forgiveness for whatever I have done to cause this, and I am praying for my baby.

The next day or so was a whirlwind. By about 6 AM I was able to nurse him and he continued to nurse until they came in to check his bilirubin levels. This would become a common occurrence in our hospital room. I wanted to check out AMA like I usually did, but his bilirubin was so high from his excessive bruising that we needed to stay until it was under control. We had a constant stream of medical personnel “visiting” us, and a lactation consultant that basically set up camp in our room for the entire day. Nurses and patient advocates brought us countless internet printouts and pamphlets. I nursed him as much as I could, but he was so sleepy. It was such a challenge to get him to wake up enough to even latch on and once he did he fell asleep. I consider myself a nursing pro. I’m borderline militant. I have nursed 4 children and have helped dozens of other women nurse their babies. I got him to stay latched and listened for the swallowing and when they came in to weigh him I was not concerned. I was in for another surprise… he had lost almost a full pound. I doubled my efforts and begin pumping just in case.

Wednesday came and we were due to go home. They checked his bilirubin levels and they had skyrocketed to 17. They wrapped him in a biliblanket and told us it should work. He looked like a glo-worm. I continued to hold him and nurse him as much as possible. By Wednesday evening it became apparent that Liam’s bilirubin levels were not declining and due to the breakdown of his excessive bruising, his levels were only getting worse. Our nurse, an angel sent straight from heaven to our room that day, held me while she told us that our baby was being admitted into the NICU and that we would have to leave. Without him. I completely lost it at that point. “I’m not the kind of mother that just LEAVES her baby!” I told them. “There’s just no way I can do that!” I begged them to find another option, but when faced with the reality of the true danger of high bilirubin levels, I had to relent, under the condition that they allowed me to sit next to him in the NICU. After a few conversations with the patient’s advocate and some string-pulling from our angel-nurse, they agreed.

At 11 PM I walked Liam into the NICU and Bill had to leave us at the door. Bill had stayed by my side almost constantly, leaving only to eat and shower. Without needing to be asked he became our shield and my filter. He greeted visitors at the door, he made phone calls, he held my hand and wiped my countless tears. Having to leave his wife and new baby at the hospital after all we had already been through had to have been heart-wrenching. Watching him kiss Liam good-bye that night tore my heart in two. Had we not suffered enough?

That night in the NICU was rough. I wasn’t allowed to sleep so I stayed awake reading magazines and counting the hours until the doctor came to release Liam to go home. 7 AM, I can make it that long. 7 AM came and I was asked to leave so they could do rounds. When I came back at 8 I learned that the pediatrician had already come and gone and said that Liam’s levels were still too high and he would have to stay until the evening. I literally collapsed. At this point, I hadn’t slept more than 45 minutes since Saturday night. I was emotionally drained and this was just too much for me to take! I thought we’d be finally taking him home that morning!

Bill showed up minutes later and we decided it was best if I went home to get some sleep. I hadn’t seen my kids since Sunday evening and I knew they were worried. We went home and showered and I tried to lay down, but my sister and my stepmom were there taking care of the kids and I really wanted to visit with them. We had some good laughs, which I REALLY needed and soon after we left to go get Liam. When we arrived at the hospital they told us the doctor had been by and again did not clear him to be discharged, he’d have to stay another night. At this point, I was SO numb. I still hadn’t slept and I just gave in and accepted it, realizing there wasn’t a whole heck of a lot I could do. Let go and let God, right? We stayed to give Liam a bottle, since being introduced to the Haberman in the NICU, he was refusing to nurse, I pumped so he’d have food for the night and we went home to bed.

The next morning, we received the call we’d been waiting for – Liam was going to be discharged that day! We showered and dressed as quickly as possible and made it to the hospital in record time. We were told Liam had one more blood draw at 1 PM and then he’d be cleared. It was the loooongest 3 hours of our lives! At one point while we waited for the results we realized we hadn’t eaten since sometime the day before so we ran down to the cafeteria to get some food and when we returned we were greeted by the most wonderful sentence I have ever heard… “Daddy, get the carseat, baby’s going home.” After being there for 5 days, Liam was finally being released!

Once we arrived home, Liam met Isaac, Gabe, Jack and Hannah and Bill went to pick up Van and Logan… they all gathered around him on the floor and took turns holding him… they were so gentle and loving… I had been so worried about how they would react to their still puffy, red-eyed, purple baby brother, but each one cradled him with love and affection, each one kissed him tenderly and told him they loved him. They accepted him readily into our fold… it was if we had all, banded together as a family, side by side, holding hands, opened our circle and pulled him right into the center…

An ounce at a time... how I came to let go of my anger and embrace my pump.

My pumping journey began because Liam was born with a cleft lip and palate and couldn’t nurse effectively. We tried at the hospital, the LC lived in our room for 3 days. He wasn't transferring well at all. He lost a full pound in 3 days. I had already started pumping so they could show us how to use the Haberman bottle. I pumped and pumped the entire time we were there. I pumped while I sat next to his isolette in the NICU. I pumped when I went home to shower and change. Every time I turned the pump on it broke my heart. It hurt to the very core of my soul just as much as it hurt physically. I had breastfed each of my babies for 2+ years and this was my LAST baby and I felt like something had been stolen from me. I was devastated by the loss of that bond and the experience I had anticipated for 9 months. I felt cheated. I was angry.

I kept pumping. We brought Liam home from the NICU after 5 days and settled in at home. I spent an entire weekend trying, unsuccessfully, to get him to latch. I kept pumping. I pumped while we watched TV, I pumped while Liam slept, while Bill slept, while I felt *I* should have been sleeping. I pumped while Bill fed him. I pumped while I fed him. I felt like I was pumping ALL the time. I started having terrible dreams, I started getting angry and snapping over insignificant things. I cried in the shower. I kept pumping.

If it weren't for Bill reminding me that no matter how he got it, he was still getting my breastmilk, I don't know how I would have let go of that anger. My anger morphed into a strong determination... yes this SUCKED. This wasn't at all what I had signed up for, but it wasn't ABOUT me. It was about Liam... and he hadn't signed up for any of this either. I was going to do what I could for him, to give him the best possible start. It was the only thing I felt like I could control. It took some soul-searching and perspective altering but I turned my anger around. I kept pumping.

3 months went by and I was pumping in the car, at parties, in bathrooms. I was proud of every ounce. Bill became my own personal cheering section and he still never fails to recognize a really productive pumping session. I still had twinges of frustration, bouts of panic when I wasn't producing enough and my husband was feeding him and ounce at a time as fast as I was pumping them. I still cried in the shower from time to time... but as each day passed I tried to put yesterday behind me. I had to adopt a day-by-day mentality, similar to the last days of pregnancy or the one contraction at a time mindset that gets me through the toughest stage of labor. After 3 months I knew I had made it through the hardest part. No matter what, I knew all along I was going to get to a year at the very least... I just didn't know how! But alas... I kept pumping.

Now we are at 5.25 months. I am (magically!) down to 4 pumps a day. Liam is sleeping through the night. I am sleeping through the night. I am one with my pump. We are a team, providing Liam with my breastmilk. I didn't expect to have a teammate, albeit a mechanical one, but this is the path we are on. I can look back and through the haze of my anger and frustration and shower-tears I see the positive aspects of this unexpected journey. Bill gets to enjoy the bond of feeding his son, Liam gets to enjoy that bond as well. I am sleeping much more than I ever did when I was nursing my other 4 (probably combined!). I feel SUCH a huge sense of accomplishment. Yes, I could have thrown in the towel. I could have decided that it was just too much, I could have come up with 2 dozen valid "excuses". But my parents gave me many wonderful gifts and the one that I called to action in this circumstance has gotten me through quite a few hairy ordeals. Stubbornness. I put it in my mind that I wasn't going to quit. Yes, I still have days that I hate pumping. Yes, I'm still gut-wrenchingly sad that I didn't get to nurse Liam and I'll never have that experience again. But until that single candle is blown out on his cake in February, I'm going to keep right on pumping...

Liam's Birth

Liam’s Birth Story

Liam “Shoeshine” Hannan made his grand entrance into our lives at 11:44 PM on his Grandma Jan’s Birthday, February 22nd, 2009.

We had been receiving texts and phone calls throughout much of the day asking how I was feeling. My original due date of 2/14 had come and gone and we were now operating under the assumption that he would arrive somewhere around the second date they had given us during all three ultrasounds – 2/22. That day had arrived and it being his Grandma’s Birthday, the whole family was hoping he would decide to join us. The afternoon passed and while I was having a few contractions, there wasn’t anything going on that would lead me to believe that he would be here anytime soon. At 6:00 we sat down to watch the Academy Awards and during the host’s opening act my contractions started to pick up. I began timing them and noticed they were about 6 minutes apart. They quickly became closer and were suddenly 3 minutes apart and fairly strong. At about 7:36 I had one very long, relatively strong contraction and felt my water break. I immediately looked at Bill and told him what had happened and realizing that I was sitting on a leather couch he ran and got some towels.

We made it into the bedroom and my water continued to leak out. I started to panic remembering that all of my kids were born within minutes of my water breaking. Bill started making phone calls to ensure that someone would be with the kids when we needed to leave for the hospital. He then phoned the midwife to let her know what was going on. She told him we had about 2 hours and while I was slightly reassured by this I knew we were still at home with 4 kids and no one there at that moment to watch them should we need to leave post haste. I lay on the bed while Bill ran around collecting all of our last minute necessities and as my contractions started to pick up again, the kids all came in one by one and held my hand through them. It was such a moving experience to have them trying to help me as I worked hard to bring (or at that point NOT bring) their brother into the world.

At some point Bill’s sister Nikki arrived, followed closely by my sister who must have driven like the wind! I was able to relax a little and within a few minutes we were ready to leave. We laughed and joked on our way out the door, but quickly got into the car and started on our way. The ride there was a little rough. Through every contraction I tried to keep Bill informed of what was happening and what I was feeling because I needed his reassurance. I just kept thinking over and over that I didn’t want to have the baby in the car on the side of the road! At one point I told him, “I feel pressure!” to which he responded, “You don’t feel any pressure! No pressure!” Now I can laugh about it, but at the time I wanted to hit him. I KNEW what I was feeling, and it was a LOT of pressure!!!

Within 25 minutes we arrived at Rush Copley and went straight upstairs to Labor and Delivery. We were checked in immediately and were told which room to go to. I immediately panicked when we walked in and there was no pool set up for me. I had had 3 waterbirths and wasn’t about to do it any other way. Just looking at the table loaded with cold shiny instruments put me into a cold sweat. My contractions were coming a little slower now but were gaining in intensity and I knew I was reaching a point where I was going to need to be IN that water and it wasn’t even ready for me!

The nurse came in and told us that Noreen, our midwife, would be there soon. When we asked about the pool, inquiring when it would be set up, she told us it was broken and wouldn’t be usable to me. I immediately became very upset and told her, “I’m not dealing with this shit! We’re going home, I’ll have this baby in the tub!” Luckily Bill stepped in and told me,”We’re not going anywhere” and asked the nurse to please call Noreen to tell her what was going on. Noreen arrived a few minutes later and investigated the problem with the pool. When told that it wouldn’t drain she informed the nurse that that simply wasn’t our problem, to fill the pool and if need be, she’d go to the hardware store herself at 2 AM to get the necessary part. Within ten minutes the pool was set up and being filled.

In the meantime I was checked and found to be about 5 cm. It was about ten PM. While I waited for the tub, I got into the shower and Bill called his sister to check on the kids and give her an update. She could hear me screaming in the background. ☺ He came in every minute or so to rub my back and tell me what a good job I was doing, but for the most part I felt like I needed to be alone. I felt myself slipping into transition, and felt the need to really focus not only during the contractions, but in between as well.

After what seemed an eternity I was checked again and told I was at 7 cm. I slipped into the tub, which was scalding hot, but at that point I just needed to be in it. I knelt and periodically dipped my lower half into the water. Realizing how warm it actually was in the pool, Bill and Noreen ran back and forth with buckets of ice and cold water from the shower to try to cool it down some. After about 30 trips it was finally bearable and I was able to completely relax in between contractions. I went from vocalizing during the peak of my contractions to completely silent. I felt like I was about 3,000 miles inside of myself and while I knew that they were there with me and found comfort in that I needed to be exactly where I was mentally in order to stay on top of the contractions.

At some point my contractions flipped and I was starting to feel a little pushy at the end. I reached down and checked myself (I was in the driver’s seat at this point, I needed to feel completely in control of the entire thing) and felt the baby’s wrinkly head and a little lip of cervix. I informed Noreen where I was and she told me, “Listen to your body, what is it telling you to do?” to which I replied, “RUN!” She and Bill laughed at this but I was completely serious. I was terrified! I knew what was next, I knew that baby was coming out and I was going to have to push him out and I knew all of the sensations that went along with that and I was NOT happy about it.

I fought that push. I fought it to the bitter end, but at one point I knew my fight was over and I was not the victor. I reached down again and felt the baby’s head, felt the hair of the baby that we had grown to love over the past 9 months and felt him move against my hand. I remembered how badly I wanted to meet him and hold him and see the face that my husband and I had created together, in love. I felt the life that was given to us to cherish, the gift placed in our care when we least expected it and looking up I saw the clock. 11:30 ish, I could only see the hour hand from where I was and I knew the 22nd was ending soon. I wanted so badly for our baby to share his Grandma’s Birthday, I knew what it meant to Bill and his entire family, and because of that, what it meant to me. My body was the vehicle for making that happen and I had to get over my fear and bring this baby into the world to meet us.

I, reaching down still, pushed a little and felt him moved down. I felt the cervix slide out of the way and I felt his head move past it. The entire time Bill and Noreen were encouraging me, cheering me on. I felt their support and I knew I could get through the end. They reminded me to change positions so that I could watch his birth, never having been able to do that before. I turned and rested my back against the side of the pool and pushed again. I felt him move down and as his head grew closer I kept both hands there to feel his progress. I, being a doula, and seeing the effects of over-zealous pushing, slowed down my efforts in order to allow him to pave the way for himself. With my eye on the clock above me and a constant prayer in my heart I pushed until his head emerged. I waited as Noreen told me to let his head rotate around and began again as soon as that process was finished. Soon it was evident that he was a little stuck and I needed to push with everything I had. Noreen told me if I didn’t get him out in one push I was going to have to get out of the tub and finish delivering him on the bed. I knew there was no way THAT was going to happen.

I gathered every ounce of strength from the bottom of my very soul, and at 11:44 PM, with his Daddy next to me cheering me on, surrounded by the love of an entire family eagerly awaiting his arrival, and under the protection his Guardian Angel whose Birthday he would always share, our precious son was born, his body left mine and was placed tenderly against my chest. From that moment on our lives would never be the same. We were more than just husband and wife. We were the parents of this beautiful, perfect, screaming, purple baby…

(…to be continued)