On January 13... coming up on a year ago... I found out I was expecting a little bundle of joy. I was one of those people who knew when I was ovulating and knew the first day the at home test would be able to detect a pregnancy. Zachary had watch on the 13th but that was the magic day. He had gotten home from deployment at the very end of October. I was so scared that I would have fertility issues. I have no basis for this fear... I've just watched too many Private Practice episodes. So I wasn't expecting a positive already in January. I didn't want to take the test alone in case it came out to be positive. I didn't want to have all this joy and no one to share it with but Zachary called me from the ship and really wanted me to take it. I told him I was sure it was going to be negative so we should just wait 'til next month- pregnancy tests are expensive! I had taken one in November and December... and by one I mean several each month just to make sure it was negative- maybe my perfect calculations were off.
So I took the test, said a quick little prayer and laid the (covered) stick on the counter. The last two months I sat and watched as one line appeared but not the other so I thought I'd try a different approach and just leave it. I tidied up the apartment while I talked to Zachary on the phone. He had to go real quick but said he'd call right back. I couldn't help it- I had to go peek.
TWO LINES! Immediately tears started streaming down my face and I clumsily called Zachary. He said when he saw I was calling him instead of waiting for him to call me, he knew it was positive. He answered the phone very excitedly and I told him the good news. He said he'd call back again and ran to ask whoever was in charge if he could come home and they let him! He called his brother on the way home and I called my parents. My mom's response was a curse word. For an instant I felt like an unmarried teenager telling her parents but then I remembered... I've been married for a year and a half- I'm allowed- by almost anyone's standards- to have a baby. I'm still not sure why that was her response- I guess I just caught her off guard. When Zachary got home we shared a tearful hug and we skyped with his parents. I recorded their response with my iPhone... I had tried to do the same with my parents' responses but it didn't work. Maybe that was for the best.
We went that night to get What to Expect When You're Expecting. We started talking about when we would tell people- I was leaning towards waiting but Zachary had already told some people on his ship. I got him to agree to keep it quiet until I at least got the blood test at the doctor to make sure it was real. At that point our parents told our aunts and uncles and a few days later I sent my Cadence loves a message telling them there would be a baby cadence and a few days later posted the news on facebook for everyone to see. I started eating healthier than ever before and walking every day- I had been trying to walk consistently in preparation but now that I knew there was a tiny human growing inside of me it became much easier to remain motivated. I was determined to do everything I could to make this little thing as healthy as possible (and determined not to be one of those women who gained 50 pounds).
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| 9 Weeks Pregnant! |
The first thing I had to tackle was regular blood tests. When I went to get my shots for college (the last time a needle had been inserted in my arm up to this point), the doctor had to threaten to restrain me if I didn't stop popping up from the chair and pacing around the room. I knew just from watching thousands of A Baby Story episodes that this would become a normal part of my life. The first one came and I warned the guy I had a phobia. He was very nice- he joked around with me and didn't count like everyone seems to like to do. I've never understood why people count- you're going to hurt in 1...2...3! He just struck up a conversation with me while I had my eyes closed and tears were streaming down my face and it was over just like that. I hadn't had blood drawn since I could remember and my idea of how awful it would be was very exaggerated. Each time I brought a little less drama to the blood drawing room.
The second thing I had to tackle was a 24 hour urine collection. I know this is gross- believe me. I know this is gross. They give you this jug and recommend you go get a slurpee from 7-11 (not on my pregnancy diet plan) and use the empty cup as a collection tool. Every single time you have to pee- it has to be put in this jug. That meant no bathroom breaks at the grocery store unless you want to bring your jug (that had to remain refrigerated) and your slurpee cup along with you. It is so embarrassing to have a collection of your bodily fluid in the refrigerator just chillin' next to the orange juice. The first few times it worked out that Zachary had watch on the days that I had to do this collection so that was nice. I had to do this several times because the protein level found in this lovely collection of mine was high and that was a sign of not so great things to come. High protein levels are a very strong indication that pre-eclampsia may be headed your way. I had to get blood tests even more often to watch the function of several organs, mainly the liver and kidneys and if those levels were off, we would have to deliver early and probably by c-section. I knew from the very beginning I wanted to avoid a c-section at almost all costs so this was upsetting news but I knew at that moment no matter how this baby came into the world, it would be okay as long as he or she was healthy.
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| 10 Week Ultrasound |
The clinic on base had an ultrasound machine in the exam room so the midwife would show us the baby each time. Every single time I held my breath after she turned on the monitor until I heard my baby's heartbeat. I was a bit paranoid. One week, she said if the baby would cooperate, she might could see if it was a he or a she! We got really excited but there was no cooperation from baby's end. So we went home a little disappointed. Zachary asked if there was anywhere we could go and get a ultrasound done so I did some research and found a place for the next day. We were so excited. I was convinced my motherly instincts were telling me it was a girl and Zachary would not budge- he didn't care which one and he didn't have a feeling either way- he was just excited to find out. We played games on the way to the office- if we saw more blue cars than red, it would be a boy... if the place where on the left instead of the right, it would be a girl. We were just so giddy. We got there and I got on the table... we looked at his brain and his heart and his arms and legs... and then she went to the mystery area and said, "Oh! Okay... are you ready?" And we said yes and she said "definitely a boy." Zachary was a very proud dad at that moment. I really was shocked but never disappointed. We called all of our parents and let them know and I felt a new bond with my baby boy just knowing he was a he.
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| 13 Weeks Pregnant |
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| 18 Weeks Pregnant |
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| 18 Week Anatomy Scan- It's a Boy! |
We started talking more seriously about names at this point. If he had been a girl we knew the name- Malia Rose but the boy name was a little more complicated. We liked Joshua Sean and Christopher Michael ... I liked Kaiden but that one seemed too trendy for our taste. I liked Connor but Zachary didn't... Zachary liked Eli but it wasn't my favorite. We had both been thinking over the name William. I knew I didn't want a baby named William... that's not a baby name but I liked the idea of Will. Zachary's dad's name is William and my grandfather, who was a very large part of my growing up, was named William also as was his father. I also wanted to use the name James because that's my dad's and brother's middle name. So we decided on William James Holliday and we'd call him Will. We started calling the baby Will and it just didn't fit. It still wasn't "baby" enough for me. So Zachary mentioned calling him Liam and I was instantly sold. It felt different than when we thought we had come to a decision before. We also changed the full name... we thought William James McMurray Holliday flowed better and Zachary has four names so that would be neat. I guess I have four names too. So we told everyone the name and everything became so much more real with people referring to him as Liam instead of "the baby."
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| 20 Weeks! Halfway There (well.. in theory) |
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| 22 Weeks! |
The next thing I had to tackle was traveling. Zachary had to go to a school in Dahlgren, Virginia so I moved up to Graham to stay with my parents because we didn't feel comfortable with me being alone for seven weeks in Florida. Also, this way, I could stay in Dahlgren with Zachary occasionally. Traveling while pregnant is no fun though. You have to stay hydrated which means lots of bathroom stops. I usually make the trip from Florida to North Carolina with one stop in the middle- I fill up on gas and grab something to eat at the same time and then keep it moving so having to stop four times was not ideal. And each time I drove the four hours to Dahlgren, I had to stop twice. Zachary and I would go for walks around the base and we had to stay very close to the hotel because I couldn't make it through the whole walk without having to take a trip to the bathroom. It was ridiculous. But it was nice being able to spend that time together.
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| Taken in the Dahlgren Hotel- 27 Weeks! |
We got tickets for the metro in D.C. to save me from having to walk all over the place but I wanted to walk as much as I could. I had been doing my research and had a list of everywhere I wanted to go and in what order made the most sense. We walked to the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, the Smithsonian- there were a few places I wanted to go but we didn't get a chance to- more for next time! We rode the metro to lunch and walked to the zoo- Zachary tracked us and this pregnant lady walked almost eight miles that day. Boy was I sore the next day. We went to Arlington the next morning before heading to Quantico where Zachary's brother was in OCS.
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| At Arlington National Cemetery |
When we got back to the hotel in Dahlgren, I got in bed and stayed there for quite a while. Dahlgren, VA is in the middle of nowhere... you had to drive 30 minutes to get to a restaurant so we went to the closest Outback to celebrate our anniversary on the actual day. I got a virgin strawberry daiquiri instead of my customary Wallaby-Darned.
Then the baby showers began. I will never understand why it is the woman's job to open all the presents and write all the thank you notes but that is how it works out. Our first shower was in Wilson at Zachary's dad's church. Zachary's family moved to Wilson after our freshman year of college so we hadn't been to West Nash UMC that many times but the members were so very generous to us anyway. There was a terrible storm that started at the end of the shower that caused windows to bust open and thankfully the men showed up and carried all the many, many gifts to the car in this crazy storm.
Next came the shower in Mebane at Hebron UMC. Zachary's dad preached there when we started dating and so a large part of our relationship was formed and spent there. Everyone there loved Zachary and his family so much and it showed. We got so many things for Liam it was overwhelming. I had several friends from my beloved Cadence come and it was so nice to be able to spend time with them during this special time of my life. I wrote the many thank you notes on the way back to Florida the next day.
Our last shower was in Orlando, Florida and was hosted by Zachary's aunts, Cathy and Debby at Debby's house. She is known for throwing beautifully decorated wedding and baby showers and ours was no exception. Zachary and his brother and cousin went on a run in the hot July weather and proceeded to lounge by the pool while we were inside opening gifts and playing games. We played the "guess how big Melissa's belly is and measure it out on this string and we'll see who is the closest" game. Good thing I'm not easily offended because the vast majority of the guesses (including my own) were double the actual measurement. Zachary's great aunt Dot came the closest and was very close. We also did a word scramble (which I am really good at) and guess how many lifesavers are in a bottle (which I am terrible at). We celebrated Zachary's cousin, Michelle's birthday afterwards with a lasagna dinner which was delicious and then we headed back to Jacksonville with yet another car full of gifts.
With all the showers we were given a crib, stroller, car seat, Rock 'n' Play (which will get it's own blog entry), swing, enough clothes to clothe a town full of babies, pacifiers, toys, bottles, enough diapers- we still haven't run out- a changing table, diaper pail, diaper bag, play mat, books, crib sheets, changing table covers, a boppy and all the covers that go with it and enough gift cards to get anything else we would ever need- including the top of the line breast pump. We were so very blessed and will always be grateful for the generosity shown to us.
A few days after this was the last (if you don't count the birth and all that followed) obstacle I had to tackle- bed rest. My protein levels remained high and all of the sudden, my blood pressure hit the roof. I was put on modified bed rest. Because we live on the second story of an apartment I was told I could let the dog out once a day- one trip up and down the stairs was enough. My mom came to help me because there was no way Jeannie was only going to need to go out once. The day after the last baby shower we visited a Sunday school class of a church we had been planning on visiting. We thought there was an early service at 8:45 but it was actually a Sunday school class. The people we met were so very nice and really took us in so on Sunday my one trip up and down the stairs was dedicated to going to church. We only stayed for Sunday school because I needed to be reclined as much as possible but it was worth it. I went stir crazy. I have never watched so much television in my life. I read and did word puzzles but I was so very bored and was counting down the days until I was 37 weeks. Two of our three doctors said I could go off of bed rest at that point because 37 weeks is considered full term and if the baby wanted to come then, he would be okay. Finally 37 weeks came. We had a mini baby shower in our Sunday school class where we got even more adorable baby clothes and I got in the pool and went grocery shopping- I felt like a new person. Monday night I did a google search on if there are any signs that your water is going to break. Family members were making bets on when the baby would come- the doctors had told us it looked like he was going to make an early entry into the world but I was convinced we would make it to 40 weeks. But I was curious about what to expect when my water did break if it did. My mom had both me and my brother on our due dates after her water broke- all of which is very rare but I thought maybe it's hereditary!
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| The afternoon before my water broke |
So I found that there were no signs pointing to your water breaking soon but maybe you do get a feeling because the next morning at 3:40 am I thought I had had a little accident. I had read about women who this happens to and I thought to myself oh noooo, not me! And then it hit me- "Your water is breaking, stupid!" So I shot up out of bed and ran to the bathroom. I sat down right in time as a gush of water came out- I know. Gross. I opened the bathroom door to see Zachary sitting on the edge of the bed. While being pregnant, and even before, I got out of bed to go to the bathroom several times each night, never waking Zachary up. I hadn't been noisy or anything this time but somehow, Zachary knew to get up. I came out with a huge smile on my face and said, "It's time! It's time!"
I called the Labor and Delivery department at the hospital and told them my water had broke. The lady asked if I was sure. Ha. I was sure. It was raining so she told us to take our time but that we needed to head on in now. We called both families to let them know it was time and they both headed out pretty soon after the call. We got to the hospital and they had to test the abundance of fluid to make sure it was my water breaking and not... I don't know what else it could have been but that's the protocol. After it came back positive they started the Pitocin right away. When your water breaks, there is a bigger risk of infection the longer the baby waits to come out so they wanted to speed up the process. From the beginning of my pregnancy I wanted to avoid Pitocin because I've read that it leads to a higher rate of c-sections but that's what they felt they needed to do to protect Liam so that's what we did. They didn't want to examine me very often because exams introduced even more of a risk of infection but they did need to see how I was progressing. I had already been dilated a centimeter. We knew this from my weekly non stress tests and it took quite a while for me to get farther along. From previous visits I knew they liked to deliver the baby within 12 hours of the water breaking so when our families got there around lunch time I thought the baby would be there soon. The contractions had started a little earlier because of the Pitocin. They weren't bad at first but all of the sudden they got unbearable. I had known that the epidural would be my best friend through this process but they wanted to wait until I was four centimeters before giving me the epidural. I was progressing so slowly though that eventually they felt bad enough for me that they gave it to me anyway. The epidural was a Godsend.
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| After the Epidural. The epidural is your friend. |
For about an hour. All of the sudden I could feel the same pain- but significantly more intense- in one leg. I told them about it so they had me lay on the side where the pain was... it didn't help. They had the anesthesiologist (wow, I spelled that correctly on the first try) come in and mess around with the needle, hoping that would help. It didn't. So they had to take the epidural out and do it all over again. For anyone reading who is scared of getting an epidural one day- the worst part was when they tore the tape off that was holding the catheter in place. And I have a needle phobia. So they did it again and it was a Godsend. For an hour. They went through the process again- turned me on my side and messed with the needle. Then they decided to test me with a bag of ice. They put the bag of ice on my arm so I could feel how cold it was... Then they put it on my side which was sufficiently numbed. I couldn't feel it. They put it on my leg where I told them the pain was and- surprise!- it felt just as cold as it did on my arm. They did this several times for some reason and finally decided a spinal tap was necessary. After the spinal tap we pushed. They brought a mirror in and asked if I wanted to use it. Never in a million years did I think I would want to see what was going on down there but when it came that time, I did. It actually could have been helpful because I could see which pushes were effective and which were not which helped me make the most of the million pushes I suffered through. After pushing for about four hours however, we called it a day. You could see in the mirror that with my pushes, he would come down but he just couldn't fit over this one bone and it had been long enough- well over the 12 hours I thought we had. So around 1:00 am they decided it was time for a c-section. I thought if this moment came I would be sad or scared but I was determined to do whatever was best for my baby and if that meant dashing my dreams (exaggeration), then so be it. My birth plan (which I wisely never typed up) was ruined anyway so what the heck.
They put the net around my hair and made sure the spinal tap was still in effect before wheeling me into the OR. I didn't get scared until they put the oxygen mask on me. When I was in the delivery room I had oxygen on but I could hear the machine it was hooked up to. In the ER I couldn't hear it and I was convinced they had it turned off. I thought I couldn't breathe. I was convinced I was dying... slowly suffocating. I kept telling the anesthesiologist, "I can't breathe! I can't breathe!" to which he calmly and kindly replied- if you're talking, you're breathing. I got absolutely zero updates. I heard the baby crying but I don't know if he was born minutes before then or right then- I never heard a "happy birthday" or "it's a boy" or any of that like I had seen in all my shows. I was terrified and utterly confused and I couldn't express how I was feeling. It was honestly one of the scariest times of my life. Apparently during this time, Zachary cut the umbilical cord. He had said before that he didn't want to cut it- he gets a bit squeamish but the doctor took the camera from him and gave him the scissors and said cut here!
Zachary asked if I wanted him to stay with me or go see the baby after they had taken him out. Since I had never been aware Zachary was in the room with me from the beginning of the surgery I gladly let him go be with Liam. Probably an hour after the c-section I finally got to see my baby. My surgery was a little more complex than most because he was so far down the birth canal they had to basically dig him out- so the sewing back up was a little more complicated as well.
I got to hold him but he was making this strange sound. They asked me if I was a singer because they likened the sounds he was making to singing. We thought it was funny and Zachary posted that Liam had arrived and was as healthy as could be. His Apgar scores were right on track but a little later when the sounds hadn't stopped- they examined him again. They realized he was breathing really fast and it was taking a lot out of him. When they took him to examine him, that was the last time I'd get to hold him for days. They put him in this makeshift nursery because they don't have a NICU. They had a tiny oxygen mask on him but assured me it was okay because they didn't have the levels up very high- they were just helping him a little bit. I could start worrying when the levels got higher. It was really difficult for me to go see him in this nursery because I was recovering from major surgery but they said the more I walked around the faster I would heal so I would walk to nursery pretty often to see my baby boy. It was terrible seeing your newborn with an IV in his head and hooked up to all these machines. Zachary and I would place our hands on him and hold hands and say prayers over Liam. The chaplain came to pray over him and before they left, Zachary's parents had a prayer with us. We both cried on that one- I had cried during every prayer but the one by his dad got Zachary too. They told us they had to increase the oxygen but not to worry because it still wasn't as high as it could go. Then it did go as high as it could go. But it was okay because he wasn't on a ventilator. Then they called Shands- a hospital with a NICU- and decided he needed to be on a ventilator. I will never forget or be able to express the feeling of hopelessness I felt when the actual pediatrician- not a nurse or a resident- came in to tell us he would need the ventilator and that he would need to go to another hospital that was better equipped to take care of him. I mustered up the strength to walk to the nursery one more time- this was at 10:30... only 9 hours after he was born but it felt like days. We learned through trial and error that he didn't like to be rubbed; he preferred being patted. He was okay with us giving him a finger to hold as well but he really didn't like much more than that. So that's what we did and we just waited for the transport team to come take him away. They came around 11 and we had to leave so they could get him in his new bed that was safer for traveling. They brought him by one last time before they left and I cried and cried but told him I loved him and would come see him as soon as I could in the strongest voice I could.
A few hours later they called to let us know he was settled in and that the parents could come visit him. There was no way I would have been able to go at this point in my recovery but I happily sent Zachary to go check on the little guy. He took videos and pictures for me and for the next two days he went back and forth between the two hospitals- and home to feed Joey. Jeannie was at doggy day care thank goodness. Finally on Friday they discharged me. The corpsman that took me downstairs had quite a time. We ran into the door of the elevator and then when the elevator doors opened on the bottom floor a very important individual- no clue who he was but if I knew what all the insignia on Navy uniforms meant, I might would have an idea- was giving a speech. We ran into a column in front of him and all of his doting fans. We made it outside and Zachary helped me get in the car and it was off to see my little man!
Oh the NICU procedures. You have to do a three minute scrub with this bright pink soap. That may not sound like a very long time but when you're dying to see your newborn, it's forever. So I scrubbed and rinsed and rinsed and scrubbed- put on the very fashionable robe that is required and marched through the swinging doors with no idea where I was headed. Zachary led me to the bed Liam was in and I looked at him to make sure I was looking at the right baby.
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| My first sighting of Liam since he was born. |
He looked nothing like the baby I had said goodbye to days ago. But I placed my hand on his little back and he was mine and I was his. For the first several days, because he was on the ventilator, we weren't able to hold him- we just stood by his bed and patted his butt or let him hold one of our fingers. I couldn't stay for very long because I had to take my medicine regularly and eat regularly and pump breast milk regularly. It broke my heart to leave him each time but we visited very often and I know now, although I refused to admit it at the time, he probably didn't know we were there anyway. But it's very unnatural for a woman who just gave birth- or had birth given to her- to go home without a baby and home I was home I was wishing I was at the hospital. There was a phone number we could call to check on him and we definitely took advantage of it. Sunday night we called and they let us know they took him off the ventilator. I thought this meant I would be able to hold him the next day when we went in and I was right!
They had been putting my breast milk in his feeding tube and the next step was to start seeing if he would take a bottle. This was a tough task because he would wear himself out trying to learn to suck on the bottle and then swallow- tough lesson for a little guy to learn since he had been getting his food deposited right in his stomach. So the next day they warned me he was probably going to have to go back on the ventilator because he had just lost so much energy and even weight in the process. They told me I could hold him one last time before they put him back on it and when I did- his respiratory rates went back to normal and there was no ventilator talk after that.
Now that his respiratory rates were where they were supposed to be the concern was his eating. We obviously wouldn't be able to take the feeding tube home so before we took him, we had to make sure he could eat enough out of a bottle to sustain him. We would find out later that at this point it would have been helpful for us to bring in a bottle of our own because the problem was this bottle's nipple was too stiff for him to get anything out of and that's why he was worn out after a minute or so of trying to eat. Hindsight. So for a few days I would make sure I was there for his 9:00 feeding and every feeding after that (every three hours) and Zachary would join me after work for the evening feedings. We got kicked out for shift change so we would go home and grab something to eat and then come back for his 9 p.m. feeding. We wanted to be there for as many as possible because if only the nurses were there, there was only so much time they could devote to waiting to see if he would eat. It wasn't working- he would get too tired from eating and we'd have to give him the rest of his 51 mls through his feeding tube. Finally, one of his nurses, Blair, had an idea for us to go to a step-down room for 24 hours and try nursing. It took a day for the message to get to the attending for his approval but that was okay because he knocked it down to 12 hours. He said if we could survive that 12 hours and he wasn't screaming out of hunger he must be getting enough and it would be fine for us to go home. This room was... through my studying for the GRE I know quite a few adjectives but none are adequate to describe this room. It had a double bed in it and a broken recliner. It was freezing. There was an alarm that went off every ten minutes or so that was a mystery to the three people I called to come fix it. It was quite an experience. But Zachary and Liam got to watch their first football game together and we got to go home around midnight on Monday the 17th.
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| It was so cold we had him in five or six blankets. If he spent too much energy trying to stay warm, he'd lose weight and we wouldn't be able to take him home. |
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| Our nurse, Isabella, had to put rolled up blankets on each side of him in the car seat so that he wouldn't slide around in there. He wasn't a fan of the car seat. |
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| In his rock 'n' play- finally at home! |
