So the nurse is wanting the doctor yesterday and I'm freaking out, still not showing it though....They wheel me into the operating room and one of the nurses tries to sit me up for an epidural. And I'm like "lady, I have a foot coming outta me, i can't sit up." The doc comes in and tells the nurse there's no time. So they are prepping me and this guy starts getting all pissy wanting to know why I still have on my bra, then informs me that if they have to use the paddles on me the under wires will burn me, great! So I tell him "cut the fucking thing off then." I was starting to lose my cool. So the anesthesiologist puts the mask on me and tells me to start counting backwards. I hear the doc ask for a scalpel and then a second later he goes "okay, let's do this." WTF The anesthesiologist, it like "whoa, she's not out yet." Thank you! Then it all goes blank and I'm in this dream state and feel like I'm choking, they must have been intibating me and I started to wake up...I had bruises on my arms and legs where they had to strap me down...
the next thing I remember is waking up asking if the baby was dead. She said no, that Children's was on the way...they wheel me into a room and tell me they are bringing the baby in....I don't know a time frame, I was DRUGGED UP. I do the emergency C-Section only took 14 minutes total and it was the first they had done, they had only done drills for a delivery like mine, they are not equipped for them and usually have time to send mom to OSU...
In the room they wheeled an incubator and Sister Bernadette baptised Elliot. I am so thankful for this. I really didn't get to see him, like I said I was JUST out of surgery and kind of out of it.
That night Colleen called me from Children's to let me know Elliot had arrived. I don't remember much but her telling me her name.
DH, FIN and Mom went to Children's with Elliot while my sis stayed with me.
I was pretty drugged up for quite some time.
On Wednesday, I got to see Elliot for the first time through a web conference thing the hospital had just set up, we were the first to use it this way.
There on that monitor was my DH and my baby, all hooked up to a lot of stuff I didn't understand. Dr. B came onto the screen to explain to me about Elliot's brain bleed, it was a stage three but they were being hopeful. I DID NOT understand any of this at the time, I wasn't there and had NEVER been inside of a NICU, I didn't know the first thing about preterm babies.
While at the hospital, God sent me an angel in the form of a PCT, Kayla. Kayla had a son at 24 weeks and she told me although it was a long rough journey her son had made it and she believed Elliot would too. The last day I was in the hospital, she brought her son to meet me. This gave me sooooo much hope.
Friday I was released from the hospital and we journeyed to Columbus and got settled into the Ronald McDonald House. DH had been there all week, I don't know how he did it!
The first time I saw Elliot I was SCARED AS HELL. He was hooked up to all of this stuff, I was just freaking out, I couldn't see his face, he looked so frail, it was scary. I cried so hard, how could I have done this to my beautiful baby boy???
We sat there for a long time while I met with his nurses and doctors and they started to explain things to me...It was a bit overwhelming.
Saturday is when he had a pen rose put in because he had a perforation in his bowel. On Monday he ended up having surgery. Dr. King came into the room they had stuck us in, this God awful room, and told us he was going to do the surgery, but Elliot wasn't going to make it! This same night they had tried to put an A line in his femoral artery on his right thigh and screwed it up...his leg looked like a little sausage link. DH and I lost hope, we were sure we weren't going to have a baby by the end of the night. We cried and held one another. Dr. King ATE his words when he came back and said Elliot make it through just fine. I expressed my displeasure with DR. King to everyone I came in contact with.
Days went by and were full of ups and down. I was having problems with my milk, not producing a whole lot. And DH was running out of leave.
Elliot had opened his eyes that Sunday and DH got to hold him, I had a cold and couldn't. I can't tell you how happy that man was to hold his son. I did eventually get to hold him a few days later.
Elliot had a shunt put in his brain on August 27 to try to help with the brain bleed. He made it through surgery fine. He was on the vent, he had been put on CPAP within 24 hours of his birth but it started to breakdown his skin and they took it off him. Over the weekend, things weren't quite right. We got a phone call in the middle of the night that they were testing Elliot for an infection, his temp was out of wack. The test came back negative.
DH went back to work on Monday and i was there alone. I had started to read this book about a couple who split up after losing their child because they couldn't handle one an others grief...I wonder in some odd way if god was preparing me. In a library full of books, I chose this one and this fact didn't come out until close to the end of the book....wierd.
On Wednesday when I went to the NICU like every other day with my "supplies" to hunker down for the day, to sit and stare. Elliot wasn't acting right. On Monday we got a new team of doc with the new month. I expressed this to his doc and the nurse several time and they told me he was acting appropriate. Not for him though and they wouldn't listen. I held Elliot for about 20 minutes and then started freaking out and asked that he be put back, I had a panic attack without reason, I really think I knew something was wrong. DH laughed at me, Elliot was being awful still and he was out wriggler, always moving and pulling his lines off, but today he was still.
That night when I called to check on him, the nurse told me she was waiting on the doc, when she had gotten there, she didn't think he was acting right...Hmmmmm sound familiar. This was Colleen who had had him several nights. She told me she would call me shortly. Like HELL, I threw my sandals on and hauled ass over to the hospital. She told me I should call my husband and I did.
What happens next seems like it was a short time but was in fact over a 5 hour period. DH arrived as soon as he could get there. There were a TON of people around Elliot, they all kept giving me this sad look and rubbing my back. I thought everything would be okay. Elliot's vitals were slowly dropping and they were giving him this that and the other and running a bunch of tests. The alarms kept going off and I couldn't watch any more. The started chest compressions on Elliot and did them for about an hour, he was stuck with 7 epi pens...it all seems like such a nightmare. I had my head buried in DH's arm saying the rosary begging God not to let my son go, to take me instead. After 7 epi pens and an hour of chest compressions DH and I made the hardest decision of our lives. We looked at Elliot and he had a blank stare and was dusky, he was already gone...DH and I held him as took him off life support. I was holding my baby when he became an angel, September 3, 2009 at 3:45 am.
No parents should EVER have to go through this. After he had passed they took us into a room where we got to hold him without all of his tubes. I got yo see his beautiful face and admire his tiny little nose that was exactly like his mommy's. Then we made "the calls."
My mom was able to come and see Elliot before we gave him back. The nurses took pictures of him which I cherish now, but wasn't so keen on the idea at the time.
God it all still feels like a bad dream.
We gave Elliot back to the nurses and went back to the RMH. There we napped for a few hours and headed home. My mom made phone calls for us. We went to the funeral home and made arrangements and the rest is on my blog.
What a horrid journey. And I still ask, why us? We are good people, we did everything by the books, why us? Ands was god trying to prepare me with the book and my milk not producing like it should have? I will never know...
I just pray to God that I never have to go through this again, and those of you who have had this experience multiple times, may God Bless You.
A replica of Elliot's blankie that his Godmother Lori made for him. When I think about the frozen ground and my psycho mind starts worrying about Elliot being cold, I remember this loving gift and know he is snuggled in his blankie and his mommy has one just like it! The little hat I made, see below, is on there so you can see how little it is....
My necklace from myforeverchild.com. Thanks to Mike, this turned out perfect. Susan's work is soooo GREAT!!
Elliot's headstone is finally correct and decorated for Christmas!
Creepy cat hanging out at the cemetery... Can you spot him?
Hat I crocheted to donate to the local NICU...That's a quarter beside of it so you can see how small it is. Hoping to make LOTS more!
Beautiful Ornament from my GF Sarah from Things Remembered. The outside says " We never lose the ones we love- they live on in our hearts." The inside says "Our Angel Russell Elliot Miller." And of course I haven't found the perfect picture to put in it yet!
Ornament from my GF Audra. Isn't it beautiful!! It came from intimeofsorrow.com. It's hand painted! It says "Baby's First Christmas in Heaven" and is personalized on the back.
