The Tomlin Family: 2014

As I mentioned in my last post, we were waiting for the results of the amnio at 36 weeks. We found out he failed and failed pretty badly, at least according to my research. I was extremely disappointed since I was so ready to have him. That news also made me very scared because I just knew I would go into labor before the next test (9 days later due to Labor Day) since I had gone before that time with both girls. I was scared about going into labor because of GBS, but also because of his lungs since I now knew they weren't ready.

After a brief cry session and letting our prayer army know, I began to feel better. I actually slept that night, and I know that was due to all of the people praying for us. I felt much more peace throughout that week than I did the week before. I had been praying that if he was ready, he would pass and since he didn't, I had to let it go and not worry. Easier said than done, but with everyone's prayers and lots of reminding myself what I had been praying for, I was able to be more at peace.

Monday night, September 1st, I thought I was going into labor. I was the last one up and started having contractions. Not much different than I'd been having, but they usually came when I was up doing stuff. These started while I was sitting on the couch watching TV. I also thought there was a possibility my water had broken. Of course, that was another issue throughout the pregnancy, so I wasn't sure. After a few more contractions and checking my underwear and seeing wetness, I went to wake up Adam and we went to the hospital. By that time, I was convinced my water had broken and I was in labor. But, no. After several hours at the hospital, they sent us back home. Thankfully we had our amnio the next day and Baron passed that one! We found out about 10:00 Tuesday night that we needed to be there at 8:00 the next morning for scheduled delivery at 9:30!

The next morning we got there and got set up in our room only to be told that they were running behind and didn't know when I'd get back for delivery. They hooked me up to the monitor and a round of antibiotics and we waited. We had a bunch of visitors throughout the morning to keep us company though. About 1:00, I finally decided to take a nap, but wouldn't you know, they came to get me about 15 minutes later! It was go time!

Goofing off while we wait

They took me back to do the spinal and get things ready for the surgery while Adam suited up. Going back there, especially by myself, was very stressful. I started crying almost immediately. I don't know if the people in the room knew my history or not, but they kept asking me what was wrong.

While I loved the hospital and the care we received, I was at a teaching hospital and the residents were performing the spinal and surgery. The resident giving my spinal took FOREVER. He said it was the first one that day he didn't get the first time. Why that had to be me, who knows! I could hear the fellow and the attending behind me guiding him. I thought, "Why don't you just do it at this point??!!". He finally got it in and they laid me down and started turning up the anesthesia. I finally couldn't feel anything below my chest and they went to get Adam.

Ready to go!

A lot of these pictures are blurry because Adam would just barely peek above the drap and snap a picture.

Even though I had a c-section with Leah, I had been in labor and she was further down. They had to lean on my chest and push Baron down. When the nurse was doing that, I couldn't breathe! I was not expecting any of that! Leah was out in no time at all and it took a while for Baron to be delivered. A while is probably just a few minutes, but it felt a lot longer compared to how quickly Leah was out.

I lost it even more when I first heard him cry. He only cried once and then I didn't hear him again for a minute and got super nervous. Then, he let it out and didn't stop. The only person really paying attention to me was the Fellow anesthesiologist since he was by my head. One set of nurses and doctors was working on me, another set on Baron and Adam was with Baron. I just wanted someone to bring me my baby!

Ha! Peeing everywhere already!

Finally getting to see my baby boy!

So happy! So overwhelmed with emotion!

While we were waiting to go back for delivery, I told the nurse that I wanted to do skin-to-skin as soon as possible, so they brought him over after checking him out. They were still sewing me up!

I put make-up on that morning just for pictures,
but with all the crying leading up to delivery and
between when he was born and brought to me,
my mascara was everywhere!

Lots more post-birth pictures below!

Cutting off cord

Getting footprints!

Taylor was so ready to meet her baby brother! She decided she had to be there to introduce everyone else to Baron and would go back and forth to the waiting room to get the next person. She was so funny! The first person, after Taylor, to come back was Hilary, then my dad. I asked them how they got past the grandmothers!

There were too many cute pictures of Taylor holding Baron for the first time that I couldn't pick just a couple!

We are so grateful he made it here and healthy! We had a little scare while in the hospital though. We requested blood cultures after a consultation with a neonatalogist early in pregnancy. At about 30 hours, the culture came up positive! The nurse came in about 9:45 the second night telling us that they were positive and she needed to take him for a lumbar puncture and to get an IV inserted to begin antibiotics. She told us the bacteria was gram positive rods, but that didn't mean anything to us. I asked if it was GBS and she said yes. Well, I thought she said yes, Adam thought she said "maybe". I lost it! We had done everything to prevent that from happening and he hadn't had ANY symptoms of infection. When the ped resident came to talk to us, he said it couldn't be GBS gram positive spores, not rods. We started researching and possibilities were anthrax (not likely), listeria (more possible), or a contaminant (most likely given his lack of symptoms).

The pediatrician we had seen so far continued to take care of him. When she came in the next morning, she said she couldn't believe this had happened to us, of all people. It was most likely a contaminant and in her 10 years at the hospital she had only seen that about 5 times. Of course it happened to us. Although, if we hadn't requested blood cultures, it wouldn't have happened. She came in to see us before she left for the day and said that if something happened with his IV she would likely cease the antibiotics after 24 hours instead of the full 48 since everything was pointing to a contaminant, although the tests couldn't conclusively tell us that. His second set of blood cultures were negative at 24 hours and he still had no symptoms. His IV did come out and she did stop the antibiotics even though we STILL hadn't heard conclusively. We were beginning to discuss going home on Saturday, but since hadn't heard back about the bacteria, she suggested we stay the full 96 hours. They ended up having to send the sample off to another lab on Monday to do some fancy checking on before they finally, conclusively determined that it was a contaminant. Whew! That was some additional stress that we could've done without!

Even through that experience, I saw God working a lot throughout our delivery and hospital stay. The simple fact I made it that long (37.4 weeks) was a huge way God worked. The MFM that attended my delivery was one of my favorite doctors I saw throughout my pregnancy. He was a Fellow and the first one I saw as an MFM patient. He is on Baron's birth certificate and even came to see me when I went for my post-partum check-up although he wasn't in clinic that day. He also went by the waiting room after delivery and told our families and friends that Baron was here and great and I was great. Having that continuity of care isn't guaranteed at a hospital like that. In addition, the pediatrician was amazing! Also, I never took anything stronger than ibprophen for my pain, after the initial doses of morphine, which was very different from Leah's c-section. I had been very concerned about bonding with Baron, although I didn't express this concern to anyone. I was so adamant about the skin-to-skin for this reason. But, there was nothing to have been concerned about, I bonded and attached to him immediately. I also had a great experience getting him to nurse and he's continued to do fabulously!

Thanks to everyone for your prayers throughout this pregnancy and delivery. I wouldn't have made it without them, without my friends and family that listened to my crazy and encouraged me, or without my counselor that just let me cry on her couch as I would finally let ALL my crazy out.

We are overjoyed with our healthy and happy baby boy!

As I mentioned, the last 20 weeks started off with me testing positive for GBS at 30,000 colonies, up from 5,000 4 weeks before. Thankfully, they ordered penicillin for me. Unfortunately, it didn't completely eliminate the bacteria from my urine. I still had 18,000 colonies at my next appointment at 23 weeks. They didn't give me more antibiotics then, but they did test me at my 25 week appointment. In those two weeks my colony count had gone to 50,000!! Super frustrating!! Thankfully, they decided to give me more antibiotics. This time is was ampicillin 4X per day for 7 days! A lot of antibiotics. I also began taking probiotics and will continue taking those throughout the rest of the pregnancy. I asked at just about every appointment about taking those, but none of the doctors thought it would do anything. I had finally decided to see if it would hurt, even if they didn't know if it would help. They said it would be fine, and at the 25 week appointment, the doctor was very encouraging about taking them and said she took them for all of their benefits.

Unfortunately, the ampicillin did nothing! I had over 100,000 colony count at my next appointment. That's when they treat anyone with GBS in their urine, but they usually wouldn't know it at that time because they don't test as often as they did with me. They ordered another round of antibiotics, and I quit using the probiotics to see if it made a difference. My culture after that round was contaminated, so it's hard to know, but after the next test, it was still over 100,000. Even though I told the doctors I surrendered on the oral antibiotics because obviously they weren't doing anything, they did order one more round. This time they decided to use Keflex. Guess what!!?? It finally worked! The only bacteria I had in my next culture was lactobacillus, which is a good bacteria found in dairy and probiotics.

Since GBS would not get out of my urine, and therefore allow me to feel like my colony count was at least reduced, I asked them to move up my amnio for fetal lung maturity to 36 weeks. After much discussion, they agreed and if he passed, they said would deliver the next day. This is an attempt to keep me from going into labor, more for my anxiety than medically necessary reasons since they don't believe the same thing will happen. Good luck convincing me of that! As I'm writing this, I've had the amnio and am waiting on the results to find out if we go in tomorrow to deliver a baby!

One of the things I've had to give up and grieve in addition to the loss of Leah, is having "normal" childbirth. Getting the thrill of going into labor, doing what I believe is best for baby and mom and having a vaginal birth. All of that has been taken away too. I know I could try, but I really don't believe my anxiety level and mental state could handle knowing he's exposed to GBS, even for the short amount of time from our house to the hospital and until getting antibiotics started. I'm not sure anyone can understand this part of grieving unless you've been there and not gotten the birth you expected, nor can you ever really have one. I wanted to try a VBAC, but most doctors weren't big on it because of my high colonization of GBS, previous loss, etc. But, after having such a high colony count of GBS for most of the pregnancy, I decided I couldn't really do it either. I'm thankful I got all of that with Taylor, but I still wish I could have it again. It's much harder than I imagined to lose that option.

Another difficulty during these last 20 weeks was that several friends had their second little girl and seeing all of their pictures on Facebook and Instagram of the sisters. Pictures and memories I never got to have. This will always been the case for me, and I guess over time it will hurt a little less. I'll also never know why God chose us to bear this burden, this suffering, when so many other people get both of their children, their sisters...

Having said all of that, we are extremely excited and ready to meet our baby boy! I can't wait to have him in my arms. I will still be a little paranoid and anxious for several months due to the possibility of late-onset GBS, but hopefully I'll be a little bit better.

Below are the last 20 (16) weeks of pregnancy pictures. Taylor took most of these! I look so much bigger at 36 weeks now than I did with Leah. I hope that means he is a big boy! Last week they estimated him to weigh 5 lbs 13 oz. I'm hoping he's at least 6 lbs!

~24 weeks