I'm home from the hospital.

Wednesday night, just before I went to bed, I started having contractions. They were kind of regular, occurring about every half hour, but they weren't very strong and the never got any closer together. This went on all night, which meant very little sleep for me, not that I would have gotten a lot anyway since Alison was in a sleeping bag right next to my bed. The contractions stopped for the morning, started up again in the afternoon, stopped for a few hours in the evening, and then started up again. They were still only half an hour apart, and never got any closer together, so I didn't really think too much about it, until I had a little bit of spotting. That's when I started calling doctors. Because of where my incision from fetal surgery is located, I'm really not supposed to labor. I started with my local doctor to see what she thought might be going on. She said she could have me come in to our local hospital and get checked out, but she would probably end up transferring me, so it would probably be better to go to the hospital I would be delivering at right off the bat. I paged the doctor who was going to be doing the delivery and he agreed, so I quickly threw some things in a bag, kissed Alison goodbye after telling her I was going to the hospital, and off we went to the hospital.

Once at the hospital, I was hooked up to a monitor and got an IV. It didn't appear that I was in active labor, but no one was going to send me home, either. My doctor arrived and checked me out. We decided that, since we were scheduled to deliver on Tuesday anyway, as long as the contractions didn't get any worse and the baby was doing all right, it wasn't necessary to deliver immediately and we would wait until Friday morning. There would be more staff available in the morning to help with the baby. The contractions must have slacked off at some point during the night, or I was just really, really tired and didn't care, because I managed to get a couple of hours of uninterrupted sleep.

I was squeezed in for delivery and was taken to the delivery room at about 9:30. Matthew Charles was born at 10:04 am. He weighed 3 lbs. and 6 oz. We heard him cry twice before he was intubated. Kevin wasn't expecting that. He got to see him and take a couple of pictures before he was moved up to the NICU. I was able to see him for a quick moment just before he was whisked out the door. It took another half hour for them to finish up with me and then I was moved to the recovery room. Kevin came back to let me know what was going on. Matthew had been improving, but then his sats started dropping again. They found a small hole in one lung and had put in chest tubes to see if they couldn't get his oxygen levels back up. They did rebound a bit, but not as much as they were hoping. His heart damage was compounding the problem with the oxygen levels and we were fast approaching the time when he would suffer brain damage from lack of oxygen. We also had to decide about whether or not to start dialysis. We agreed that, if nothing could be done about his lungs, there was really no point. As it turns out, a renal ultrasound showed he had no kidneys (or bladder). After we talked, Kevin left to tell my family what was going on and to bring my mom back up to stay with me.

I had to stay in recovery for an hour. During that time the staff was trying to figure out how to get me up to the NICU to be able to see Matthew. I was moved to my regular room and it was decided that when I could stand up and get into a wheelchair, I could go up. In the meantime, Kevin took my mom and dad up to see him and my brother brought Alison in to visit with me. One of the ministers from our church arrived and stayed with us. My parents came back and my mom took my brother up to see him. My dad stayed with Alison. She was so off her schedule and was totally wired and being a real handful. By about 1:30 I could finally move my legs and told them I was ready to go. As it turned out, I was pushing it a little -- couldn't really stand -- but the nurses managed to get me into the wheelchair and we went up.

I was able to spend some time with him, just holding his hand or playing with his foot. During this time, the staff set up an empty nursery so it would accomodate all of us instead of limiting us to two at a time. My dad went down to get my mom. My brother didn't want to come back up, so he stayed with Alison. We decided that she was too wound up to be in the NICU and she wouldn't understand what was going on anyway. Once we made the move to the new nursery, I was able to hold Matthew. He was so small. The NICU staff had taken some pictures of him with Kevin, earlier, and they took some more pictures for us. We had him baptised and then decided it was time to let him go.

The ventilator was turned off and the doctor removed the tube so that we were able to really see him, for the first time. I just held him....and we waited. The doctor checked for a heartbeat several times. Matthew's gasping breaths got farther and farther apart. Towards the end, we'd think he was gone and all of a sudden he'd take another big breath. Finally I told him that it was ok to give up and to let go. And then he was gone. It was 2:54 pm.

The doctor and the rest of the staff gave us some time alone. Kevin held him for a little bit, and then my mom and dad had a chance to hold him. I held him again for a little bit and then let him go forever.

Throughout it all, the NICU staff was great. As we were leaving, they were headed in to clean Matthew up and put a little outfit on him. They took some pictures of him in his little outfit for us and then gave us the outfit and the blanket he was laying on. They made a mold of his feet for us and they gave us a keepsake box with his hospital bracelet, a little bit of his hair, and his footprints. It seemed like every time we turned around they were bringing something else to us.

I spent two more days in the hospital. As I was able to be up and walking the halls, we occasionally passed a room with a crying baby in it and that was a little tough. My doctor was ready to let me go this morning, but I developed a cramp in my leg overnight and we had to rule out a blood clot. That took a while. It didn't take long to get the ultrasound done....almost as soon as I (finally) got into the shower the tech arrived to do the test. It took several hours to get someone to actually (officially) read it and decide if I could go home or not.

Leaving the hospital was hard, harder than I thought it was going to be. But I'm glad to be home.