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I began having contractions about 8 am on December 24, 1999. While contracting all day, I was busy running around the house, trying to get things ready for the Christmas party at our home that night after Dakota's Christmas Program at our church. After about an hour of contractions, I paged Wade to tell him I thought that today was the day but I emphasized him not to come home because I wasn't sure. Well, he came rushing home anyway! Around 2 pm, the contractions were becoming closer together and I had had a bloody show and lost my mucus plug. I tried to teach Wade how to check my cervix and he thought I was about 4 cm. So, he insisted we rush to the hospital. Well, first we had to stop at his parents home to drop off Dakota and we told them we would be home in the morning for Christmas with the Klessigs. We got to Rhinelander and decided to stop at Shopko to buy a radio for me, since I forgot to bring one. We also had to stop at Wendy's for Wade to eat!
We arrived at the hospital around 3 pm. My contractions had really started to peter out. The nurse checked me and said I was barely 1 cm dilated (yeah, Wade, good job!!!) So, I elected to stay for a short while longer in case I was to go quickly, since Dakota was a quick labor. I walked around for an hour and at 4 pm, I was still 1 cm, no change! The contractions were becoming stronger and I was walking up and down the hall to help me get through them. They certainly felt stronger than when I had Dakota.
My mom, dad, Dakota, Bryan, Tina, and Robyn were all there with Wade and I. Sometime during that hour, Wade and Bryan left to go get more food for everyone. At 5 pm, I asked to be checked again as I felt the contractions were getting stronger. I was checked and was still not changed. I told the nurse I wanted to go home! I could do this at home and not in the hospital. So, we sent everyone home and said we would be right behind.
Because of my history of CMV+, the physician on-call wanted me to have a nonstress test done on the baby before leaving. Well, after three glasses of apple juice, baby still was not reacting the way he should have on the monitor so Dr. Bentley insisted I stay in the hospital.
Around 6 pm or so, the nurse tried to start my IV because they thought that I was also partially dehydrated and that I needed extra fluid. The nurse was unable to start my IV and called up an EMT from the ER to start it. While he was working on the IV, my water broke and there was meconium in it. The contractions were coming much harder at this point and I had to use heavy breathing to get through them. Dr. Bentley came in and checked my cervix, as well as placing a scalp electrode on baby's head to monitor heart rate, inserted an intrauterine catheter to measure how strong my contractions really were, and started an amnioinfusion to wash all the meconium out of my uterus and from around the baby. I was finally 4 cm and Dr. Bentley had to break a forebag of water. I recall begging them to give me an epidural. I didn't know that transition would only last ten minutes or so. Dr. Bentley and the nurse kept making excuses to me to avoid the epidural, they were not going to let me have one anyway!
At 7:55 pm, I was 6 cm. With every contraction, I could feel the baby descending further and further until suddenly I had the urge to push. That feeling is awful! Even when you blow through the contraction, your body automatically tenses up and tries to push. It is awful trying to stop that from happening! I yelled for someone to check my cervix again and at 8:05 pm I was completely dilated. Three short pushes later, at 8:08 pm, Jeb was born.
Jeb was 4 pounds, 4 ounces, and 17 inches long. He was covered hed to toe with petechiae and purpura (red marks and bruising under his skin), also called the blueberry muffin syndrome, as a result of his low platelet count, enlarged liver and spleen, as well as enlarged heart, and calcifications in the basal ganglia of his brain. Because of the meconium at birth, Jeb's throat was suctioned out really good before he could breathe in a breath of air to prevent aspiration of the meconium into his lungs. Dr. Bentley quickly cut Jeb's umbilical cord and Jeb was placed under the warmer right away, I did not get to see him. While we were waiting for my placenta to deliver, Wade went over to Jeb and took some pictuers. I remember them giving him blow-by oxygen. The nurse wrapped him up and brought him over to me for a one second kiss and then he was whisked away to the nursery, where Dr. Stanga began an IV line in his umbilical cord.
All the while, I did not know that Jeb was sick. I only knew that he was much smaller than Dakota. After about a half hour of waiting, my placenta still did not want to come out. While waiting, Dr. Bentley began to stitch up my episiotomy. Dr. Bentley was then called away from my bedside to the mom next door whow as ready to deliver, and away she went leaving me stuck in bed with sutures hanging out of my bottom. I guess it was maybe 45 minutes or so before Dr. Bentley came back to finish me. My placenta still had not delivered so she manually removed it with her fingers. OUCH! That was worse than childbirth, but still doesn't beat the pain of a migraine headache!
I was finally allowed to get up around 10 pm to go see my baby through the window. What a horrible feeling as a patient not being able to go to my child. As a nurse who used to work there, I wanted to be in the nursery with my babe so badly. There was such a whirlhind of activity going on around us that we, as the parents, were kind of forgotten and no one really told us what was going on. I found out that the helicopter was coming to take Jeb to Marshfield's NICU by accident, overhearing two nurses talking. Wade found out from his brother, who had just happened to come up and see us.
As soon as the helicopter left with Jeb, my brother, Bryan, drove Wade to Marshfield right away. I was not allowed to leave the hospital until the next morning. It was Christmas Eve, and I was all alone. My new baby and husband were 2-1/2 hours away, and the rest of our family was at our house celebrating without us. Before the helicopter left with Jeb, they took a few polaroid pictures of Jeb for me and I laid in bed with that picture in my hand all night long, dozing and crying, while I had the VH-1 channel on the TV. They were playing Christmas videos nonstop and I just remember them replaying over and over "Oh Holy Night" by Celine Dion.
I managed to make it through the night all right and Dr. Skye came in to discharge me in the morning. She spent a long time talking with me about CMV which really helped. My parents came and picked me up, along with Tina and Robyn. We all went to Marshfield. It wasn't until this point that I really cracked by seeing my new baby up close and in person for the first time.
Jeb's neonatologist, Dr. Jody Gross, sat Wade and I down to talk about Jeb's illness. They were assuming he had CMV, but the definitive cultures had not returned yet. Dr. Gross had to tell us how critical Jeb's condition was and that his prognosis did not look good.
During his stay in NICU, Jeb received three platelet transfusions and two immunoglobulin infusions. Jeb's platelet count finally stabilized and they sent us home. Marshfield felt that Jeb's CMV illness was not as severe as they had initially thought and he was stabilizing. They felt he did not need to risk treatment with ganciclovir. We just were not comfortable with this so with my parents urging, we had our local pediatrician refer us to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN for a second opinion.
Going to Mayo was the best thing, we think. They were not afraid to use the ganciclovir at all and were comfortable with him using it. He completed two months of treatment with no apparent side effects at all! For a boy who was not supposed to be with us, he is doing very well. At one month of age, they had us start supplementing his breast milk diet with Portagen formula. We had to increase it to 28 calories/ounce. Jeb was breastfed until 4 months of age when, while at Disney in Florida, he decided to reject the breastfeeding to bottles only. Broke my heart! Even though Jeb was born very sick, he seems to be coming along very well. He is a very happy, stubborn little guy. Big brother Dakota can't seem to stop kissing him. 
Jeb in Marshfield's NICU
December 25, 1999 
Jeb in Marshfield's NICU
December 26, 1999
These two photos really show his jaundice and "blueberry muffin" look of CMV disease. |
