One month ago today...

Billy and I with our boy, Lucas Michael, on Saturday, February 13...the day he was discharged out of the NICU into our room :)

One month ago today, our precious son, Lucas Michael, was born. The first two weeks I didn’t want to think about our story. It was rough and hard to think about for a while. But I have been replaying our birth story over and over in my head for the past two weeks thinking, “I need to write this down so I don’t forget.”

In church we just finished a series titled, I Will. It was awesome and once again challenged Billy and I to step out and trust God in new ways. When I think back on our birth story and the weeks following I am reminded of the children’s song that we have referenced multiple times throughout our series at Southbridge Fellowship that I single daily to Luke: My God is so big, so strong and so mighty there is NOTHING my God cannot do. This is the essence of our story...get ready, this is going to be a long one :)

I was induced on Monday night, my water broke on Tuesday morning. Everyone says that it’s a huge gush. No gush action here. First clue of the day: Baby is way over due. They broke my water again later in the day. Again, no huge gush. Hardly anything. 2nd Clue of the day: baby is way overdue. Because of this and the color they knew that Luke had a BM in my womb and would have to have the special care nurses come in after delivery to help with cleaning him off - no big deal, it happens often....

Throughout the day the Dr’s and nurses would feel my belly and guess how much Lucas weighed. Everyone guessed in the 8 lb 3oz range, estimating that he was very long but very lean. Around 11:00 am they decided they were going to increase my petocin significantly because Lucas still wasn’t dropping and I was exactly where I had been for the past 4 weeks....nowhere. My contractions thus far were really mild, but something kept telling me “Get the epidural just in case...” Praise God. The epidural was quite a pain (heh) and after the 2nd try getting it in and a wet drip that caused a migraine and vomiting for the next three hours, I was pain free and getting ready for pushing... After two hours of pushing, this is what I remember: “SHOULDERS!” - nurse slams a button, jumps on my stomach, 3 more nurses come running in, lots of blood, and everyone screaming “PUSH!!!” I close my eyes because the look on Billy’s face is slightly frightening...I scream back, “I am pushing...and so is the girl on my stomach and the three other nurses!!!!” Then I remember a vacuum and my Dr’s hands reaching in and pulling Luke on out - can we say praise the Lord I got an epidural??? He didn’t cry at first, which is good because of the meconium he was covered in. They tried to remove all that they could, but it was too late. On his way out he got stuck on my pubic bone (hence the “SHOULDERS!”) and inhaled a ton of it. I got to hold our son for a minute, and then they took him away. Billy decided to go with him just in case - not knowing the extent or severity of his issues. Oh - and when they weighed him, we did NOT have a 8 lb 3 oz. baby...try 9 lbs. 5 oz. Again - praise the Lord for the epidural.

After they took Luke out they had a lot of repair work to do on me, but they gave me a ton of pain medicine so I was happy as a clam. Looking back, it was kind of eery and I’m sure my family thought I was insane - my son was just taken to special care because he can’t breath on his own, I lost 1/3 of my blood, they’re using 6 spools of stitches to fix the damage...and I’m smiling and giggling telling everyone, Lucas Michael is here!! I think I even put on lip gloss and some powder to freshen up as they were taking care of my stitches??

I told you this was going to be long :)

A few hours later everything started to sink in. Billy was wonderful and stayed with our son while I got some food and my family came in to see me. He was very careful with the pictures and information he sent me until he was able to be in our room without any company. That night around 11:00 after all family was gone and Billy and I had a change to eat and talk about our excitement and the fact that our little boy was here (though still in special care) the neonatologist came in. The look on his face = not good. at all. He pulled up a chair and starts telling us everything that’s going on. Luke wasn’t able to get a full breath because his lungs were completely coated in meconium. He was so worked up and his body was trying so hard that it was like he went into distress. They decided to sedate him and were forced to intubate him and put him on 100% oxygen. Then the kicker - they didn’t think they had the type of facility that Lucas needed so depending on his status over the next hour or two, they would likely need to transfer him to UNC or Wake Med. While mom stayed at the hospital to recover. They estimated that the earliest time of Luke being able to come home with us would be 10 days. As it started to sink in I was just kind of shocked. I think I was more concerned about not being able to go home with him than the oxygen thing...and then the pediatrician came in. Pulled up a chair, and broke it down for us even further. At that point I think all meds started to wear off my brain and Billy finally processed with me everything that happened and that was taking place. After the pediatrician left, Billy came to the bedside and knelt down by me to pray. We closed our eyes...and silence. Nothing came out except tears. Our little boy was truly fighting with every bit of his body to try and breath on his own but just couldn’t get it. We cried out to the Lord, we asked very specifically that He would breath LIFE into Luke’s lungs, that He would heal our son and do only what He can do, that the only explanation of our son recovering would be the Lord’s mighty hand.

Through the night we slept what we were able but around 3:00 am I started to feel every bit of what happened in the previous hours. My body felt like it took a beating and NONE of the pain meds were working. I was shivering and couldn’t find any way to lay, stand, or sit that would relieve any pain. My nurse decided to take a look at everything to make sure nothing was wrong - good thing she checked. She noticed a small hematoma, which can be common and wasn’t a huge deal. But as the morning went on and I couldn’t manage to go to the bathroom, the pain only got worse and worse. For a couple hours I just laid in the bed shivering and trying to take deep breaths hoping that maybe I could relax enough to just fall asleep.

That morning at 9:00 am, the neonatologist came in and said, “We were able to take Luke off the intubator, he’s breathing on his own.” What a very specific and incredible answer to prayer! The next few hours were pretty critical. He was still under an oxygen hood and was having some assistance with the breathing, but the fact that they could remove the intubator was way more than the dr’s anticipated. My God is so great, so strong and so mighty...yep, you know the rest :) There is NOTHING my God cannot do.

A few hours later my wonderful nurse came in to see if I’d gone to the bathroom. When she realized I hadn’t gone to the bathroom yet, she quickly drained my bladder - over 1 liter!! I felt SO much better. The pain started decreasing immediately and I started to feel normal. I was determined to go visit our son. I got dressed and ready, and was feeling pretty good...considering :) The Dr’s and nurses down the hall kept saying, “Wow, Lily you look wonderful like a new person!” They were cheering me on as Billy pushed me down the hall in the wheel chair - the staff in our pod was always such an encouragement to us. We got to visit with Luke a little bit and my dr. decided to follow us. She started asking me several questions while we were visiting with Luke and for whatever reason, based on my answers, she decided she wanted to start monitoring my blood levels and immediately put me on IV antibiotics. Every two hours I was getting blood drawn. Praise the Lord for such an attentive Dr...my blood levels were rapidly dropping. That hematoma that was previously oh so little, started filling up with blood as soon as my bladder was drained. As the afternoon and evening went on, it was very obvious that I was losing blood. I wasn’t able to stay awake or focused to even have a conversation with my dr. and I couldn’t hold Luke for more than 5 minutes before my eyes would start to close. Just as soon as our son began to turn around it was like I started fading faster and faster. The next Dr. on call came in with scrubs on and broke it down for Billy and I after they did a CT scan...my hematoma was the size of a sheet of paper. It looked as though it had stopped bleeding but in order to turn around I would need a 2 pint blood transfusion to restore all that I’d lost. If the blood transfusion didn’t work, then I would go to surgery in the morning and they would seal it, then drain it. If it did seal off on it’s own, then we would watch to see if I could get by without an infection - 25% chance. If I got an infection, they would go in and drain it. After he left I just cried and cried...again? Something else? I finally start to feel better, and something is wrong. My son is doing better yet I’m not even strong enough to hold him or talk to him because after 5 minutes of anything I feel faint. Through the night it was a waiting game - checking my blood every 2 hours while getting the blood transfusion. Seeing how my white cells and my HH levels were doing. I slept through pretty much all of it and in the morning I anxiously waited for the Dr’s report. We did it...we made it through the night and my hematoma stopped bleeding! Again...God carried us through and stopped the bleeding. Throughout the day I really did start to feel a significant difference in the pain as well as my energy.

The next amazing thing - our son was moving out of the NICU into the “lesser” NICU - for us that was a big deal :) He was completely off of all oxygen, was breathing totally on his own, his lungs were free of the meconium, and he was alert as can be. When we went in to go visit, the neonatologist wanted me to try and nurse him - what?! A - there’s no way I have any milk seeing as I have been without most of my blood for the past 24 hours, and B - he’s been on IV fluids and lipids, sucking a passy for the past 48 hours...there’s no way he’s going to be able to nurse. Wrong and Wrong - against ALL odds, he learned to nurse immediately and I randomly had milk to give him. All together now - My God is so great...so strong and so mighty.... :)

Again monitoring my white blood count and my HH levels, things were looking pretty good but we were just trying to stay out of the 25% and get past the infection zone. Our Dr. came in to talk with us and said we would likely be discharged on Sunday or Monday depending on how I did through the weekend. Billy and I were spending a ton of time in the NICU with Luke and loving every minute of it. I was still trying to regain strength but it was so wonderful to finally get to hold and take care of my little one. Then, it was like Christmas. The neonatologist discharged Luke to our room...and an hour later, our Dr. came in and said we could go home that day....!!! There is NOTHING my God cannot do.

We are now home, 1 month later...and it has been a joy. The first couple weeks were pretty uncomfortable but God has been so gracious and so faithful in bringing Billy and I through this. Looking back at our nurses and dr’s, we would not have made it without them...they were truly incredible not only medically, but what an amazing support and encouragement they were to us the entire time we were there. God provided a huge support of family and friends that covered us in prayer during our stay and lifted myself and our son up to the Lord. We truly believe that our story is an amazing testimony of our sweet and powerful heavenly Father who walked us through every step of the way.

Many have wanted to blame our dr’s or wonder how this happened and why they let me go so long. My pregnancy was pretty textbook (minus the first 20 weeks of morning sickness...). I never measured above average, the first two ultrasounds were pretty normal, just a couple days off here and there (which is normal) and my body showed absolutely no signs of delivering any time soon. They did a fetal stress test late in my pregnancy, extra labs and an extra exam after a little bleeding and everything was normal. I always felt that I was further along than I was on paper, but I had nothing to show for it, so they kept the original due date. After looking at him, his size, his development, they are estimating 2-3 weeks late. We truly believe that the Dr’s took magnificent care of us and that with everything Luke and I both went through, they were the best practice for the situation and we would hands down allow them to deliver our next child.

So why am I sharing all these lovely details with you? Because I hope you will see that God, the creator of all things, the great physician, the great I AM, the wonderful counselor... should receive all the glory for our story. He brought Billy and I into this world, He reached down and chose us as HIs children and saved us, He allowed us to meet and He brought marvelous people into our lives to encourage and build us up before we were married. He has given us a community of friends and family that are constantly challenging and building us up in our faith...and now, He allowed us to give birth to our son Luke, and despite the insanity that happened while we were in the hospital, we were able to find trust in Him because of all that He has done for us in the past. He provided excellent nurses and dr’s, he took our son off oxygen and discharged him faster than any dr. in that hospital would have expected, he kept me from having surgery and with every single thing that came up, He blasted us with His goodness and kept our eyes on Him.

This past Sunday we sang a song, Tis so Sweet to Trust in Jesus. And friends, what a sweet sweet blessing it was during this trying time to truly trust in Jesus.