As I sit here with a total loss of words, I have no idea how to begin or how I want this story to unfold. There's just... so much. So much happened on the day of our child's birth. What should've been the most special and beautiful moment turned into the hardest day of our lives.
It was late Sunday evening on November 6th when I started feeling contractions around 10:45 PM. I knew in that moment they were real labor contractions. Michael was on shift at the fire station so I had to call him to wake him up. My contractions were quickly becoming very intense and way closer than last time I was in labor. Everything progressed very fast. My contractions went from a 3 to a 10 on the pain scale within minutes. I was gripping onto the sides of the bed as nurses flooded my room. One of them put an IV in my arm and I don't even recall that happening because I was in so much pain and nothing could distract me from it. I'm not kidding when I say I had NO gradual increase of contractions beforehand. It was like one minute I was reading my book and the next minute I was crouched over with cramps that felt like everything inside of me was ripping apart.
It wasn't long when they brought me to a labor delivery room. This was a total tease because I knew they'd be sending me to the operating room when I had to start pushing. I had to accept reality real quick that I wasn't going to get the birth I so badly envisioned and prayed for. I kept reminding myself this is God's plan for a reason.
My contractions were SO intense and happening in such close intervals, I could barely catch a breath between them. They checked my cervix and I was dilated to a 4. The pain was unbearable and as I was cussing and gripping on to my nurses arms, I pleaded for an epidural. Soon the anesthesiologist came in and gave me my epidural although when you're in the middle of so much pain, it felt like an eternity by the time he got there. Michael arrived not long after the epidural was in and I was now able to hold his hand. As my legs and midsection started feeling numb and painless, I told him he missed out on all the fun. He totally bypassed the 45 minutes of me screaming out in pain and squeezing my nurses' arms instead of his. Lucky him.
They checked my cervix again and I was now at a 7. Things happened so much quicker than the labor I had with Dustin. I laid there as the feeling of an epidural came right back to me. It took the edge off the pain but you can still feel pressure down in the anal area every time a contraction happens. And wow did I feel A LOT of pressure down there. Like... A LOT. I knew it was time to push soon.
Once I was dilated to a 10, they wheeled my bed to the operating room. I started pushing and I swore I felt shit come out of me. Now, I know this is totally normal and happens to most women in labor but gosh I was embarrassed. This did not happen when I pushed Dustin out! There's just nothing like having your feet up in the air, legs spread wide open and a male doctor wiping your ass while poop flies out of it. What in the actual hell.
I pushed for about 25 minutes and baby came out. The nurses knew how badly I wanted a moment to touch my child and see him or her before they were taken away... and they honored that. I was able to see he was a boy and I just felt so much happiness but also so much concern at the same time. He wasn't breathing and he did not look good at all. I was scared for him. He was taken away pretty fast and brought to the resuscitation room. We shared his name out loud: Colton. Colton Patrick Jordan.
I laid there as the doctor was pushing on my stomach to help extract the placenta but started getting this strong sense that something was wrong. Michael felt it too. The resuscitation team seemed to be taking a long time to come give us an update. Something felt off. Very off.
Finally the head doctor who was working on Colton came back to me and Michael and said he had to intubate him. His nose was pretty smashed so he was unable to breathe. This was the exact thing that happened with Dustin so although it's not ideal, we weren't surprised. But then he went on to deliver us some really hard news. News that no parent wants to ever hear.
& this is where everything changed.
He told us Colton has some distinct physical features that are really concerning. He started throwing words at us like "genetic testing" and "syndrome" and said, "I suspect your son has an extra chromosome" ....basically something that'll affect his and our life forever. He seemed so sure of his words and was confident there's a genetic issue. I wish I could sit here and tell you what I said in that moment but I don't recall even moving my mouth at all. I kept looking at Michael but he couldn't say a word either. It's like we were both paralyzed with shock as the doctor's words kept rolling over us. It didn't feel real.
I remember staring off into nothing... surprised I had no tears rolling down my face. I'm usually a really emotional person but this was different. I've never been this at a loss for words or emotions. I couldn't even process what was told to us.
Michael and I eventually went into the resuscitation room to see our son. As we looked over his body, my heart sank. Something was very wrong.
A handful of nurses and doctors were just standing there in total silence, waiting on a reaction from us. The room became silent and time froze. I didn't know how to act or what to say. I was still in so much shock, I don't think I managed to say anything in that moment. I think Michael eventually broke the silence. Or maybe it was the doctor? I'm not sure. But one of them did.
We started discussing the concerns... Colton's head being the main one. It was very deformed. It was elongated in a way that was so severe and it drooped downward with a very flat slope. His ears were really low, which made sense because they followed the path of the deformity. His toes were crossing over each other, his feet were pointed inward, his nose was flat, and the doctor said he was concerned about his muscle tone.
Michael asked if the bones of his skull could mold back into a normal shaped head and the doctor said, "We see babies with cone shaped heads but those get elongated upward, not down and back. Normal cone shaped heads feel a little soft and squishy and go down on their own but Colton's feels like solid bone so I don't expect much change in shape... it's very unlikely."
The doctor grabbed Colton's arms and moved them around and said he felt "rubbery" as if he didn't have any muscle tone - which was actually Michael's biggest concern.
It was hard to have any ounce of hope when the doctor we should be trusting the most was so confident with the information he gave us. It was as if there was no other outcome for his future and we will have to wait on a genetic test - which results could take over a week long.
We were immediately overwhelmed.
The next few hours were very foggy. The birth of your child should be the happiest, most joyous moment of your life and we didn't have a single smile to give. I know that may sound bad because ultimately we should love our children no matter WHAT... & of course we would no matter the diagnosis. But in the moment when the news felt so shocking and raw, it was hard. It was extremely hard. In fact, it took everything in us to even start talking to each other about it.
When we were finally alone in the post-recovery room, Michael and I sat there and held hands in total silence. There was so much heaviness in the air and so many unspoken emotions tearing through our hearts. I'm not sure which one of us spoke first, but we started talking. I remember Michael saying, "Rach, what if our son will never be able to tell me he loves me? What if Dustin will never be able to have a brother he can play with? What if his medical needs takes away from Dustin's needs?" Just so many thoughts. So many "what ifs." So many scenarios. It's hard not to go down the rabbit hole when you're in the thick of it. It's even harder to stay off Google.
We had to make difficult phone calls to both our families informing them of the news. These were really hard conversations to have but we did it with as much gentleness and love as we could and said we'd update them with more information later. We were both going off 30 hours of no sleep... so between the lack of sleep and the physical exhaustion I felt after labor, our bodies were desperately crying out for rest but neither of us could shut our minds off to do so. So we went down to Colton's NICU room to see him, get updates and talk to some specialists.
For the sake of this blog post, I'm going to bypass some details because there's just SO much to dissect and quite frankly, it's all a blur as I sit here trying to think back to the first half of that day. But by mid-day, we started getting answers and things were looking up.
Things were looking up you guys.
Colton had an ultrasound done on his brain and the results came back normal. His brain developed normally and there were no signs of a brain bleed. PRAISE THE LORD. Because the shape of his skull made us worried that something was also wrong with his brain. We were also worried about a possible brain bleed because of how severe the bruising was on his head.
He had an echo scan done on his heart which also came back normal and healthy. THANK YOU JESUS.
He was showing good muscle tone in the way he'd react to things and the way he moved his body. One of the nurses described him as "fiesty"...which was a great thing! They want to see that. It means he has the awareness when they're doing something to him (like changing his diaper or taking his blood pressure or checking his cords, etc...). The concern for low muscle tone when he was first born is actually a common temporary thing due to trauma coming out of the womb and/or due to medication the mother had. So the fact this was no longer a concern was relieving. His feet also made big improvements. They weren't drastically turned inward anymore. His left foot straightened out quicker than his right but then his right foot (the more bruised one) started showing more progression as well. Now they look like normal baby feet!
Colton was having wet diapers which showed good signs that his kidneys were working properly. And his nose was already looking SO much better than it did at birth.
This was all great and reassuring news. They said usually when a baby has a genetic chromosomal issue, they will see red flags with the heart, brain and/or kidneys. So the fact that all three of these looked great for Colton was a promising sign. The nurse we had that day was also phenomenal. She gave us so much reassurance. She thought Colton would be just fine and didn't see anything that alarmed her. Even the deformity of his skull was something that didn't phase her at all. She said she's seen much worse. They see babies come into the NICU with deformed heads pretty often and how the bones naturally mold back into a normal shape over time.
By 4:00 PM (13 hours after birth) Colton's head was drastically better. I mean, DRASTICALLY. We could not believe how much his skull molded so much in such a short period of time. His ears were also higher up and already looking close to normal in placement. So as the bottom of his elongated head started to shift upward, the ears were shifted upward too. He looked like a completely different baby. This gave us an incredible amount of joy and hope.
They also extubated him and put him on a cpap nasal cannula. This made us SO happy! He was able to breathe on his own but with some oxygen to assist him. Most preemies need a nasal cannula because the lungs are the last to develop so this was no surprise and didn't even phase us. I mean honestly, nothing really phases you in the NICU when it's no longer your first rodeo. We experienced 54 days of Dustin being in the NICU/ICC... so we became very familiar with the terminology they use, the different medical equipment, the rollercoaster of emotions that come with this journey, etc.
As sad as it is leaving your baby in a NICU room and having to go home/back to my post-delivery room to sleep, we were happy to have so much relief and hope. The doctors and nurses didn't seem too concerned anymore and that allowed us to finally shut our eyes for the night.
The next day we got a call from the geneticist. I had some anxiety as our conversation started but we got the most amazing news. The genetics team came to Colton's room to assess his physical features and they had no concerns. There was nothing that stood out to them to feel the need to run genetic testing on him. THANK YOU GOD. This truly was the "cherry on top" moment for us that we needed to truly BREATHE again.
The geneticist - among many nurses and other doctors we spoke with - all agree the concerns that were once presented at birth resulted from two things: the shape of my uterus only giving him half the room to grow + the last 3 weeks of my pregnancy he was inside a womb with extremely little amniotic fluid around him due to my water breaking so early. Essentially there was so much trauma happening to him the longer he stayed inside of me because he had no cushion of fluid around him.
WOW. Here I thought him staying in these extra 3 weeks as I laid in the hospital was a good thing. But now looking at what happened to him, I am so relieved and happy that we did not make it to our goal of 34 weeks. He clearly needed to come out and get away from more possible trauma. Him being out of me is the best thing that could've happened. He will grow much better being out of the womb than being in.
Because of the lack of amniotic fluid he had and the restricted area to grow, his head was severely bruised. When I say severely, I mean... purple-ish black coloring all over the right side of his head, his right eye and his feet/toes. In fact, his feet/toes looked like they had total frost bite. It was a very sad sight to see the first few days of his life. Even as his head started molding back into a normal shape, the bruising made me cringe just looking at it. It made my heart just ache for him.
But the bruising has subsided substantially and he's just the most precious little baby. We feel SO blessed to have added him to our family. I'm totally outnumbered in the house but I am totally OK with it. I love all THREE of my boys so much. And we are 100% at peace with this being our last child. I cannot emotionally put myself through pregnancy ever again after everything we've been through with Dustin and now Colton.
I have to add... navigating the NICU life right now is the most surreal feeling in the world. To be back in the place we were 3 1/2 years ago, it's like I can still walk around with my eyes closed and know exactly where to go. It's a sad reality being so familiar with a place like this. A place full of so many fears and unknowns. A place full of intimidation and sadness and tears. But also a place full of so much hope, strength and unconditional love.
The NICU is a world of its own. It's not meant for the weak - it's mean for the strongest damn parents in the world. And I know that's exactly what me and Michael are. Strong. Strong in our parenting, strong as a family unit and strong in our marriage. Because the NICU life is the hardest journey to ever live through as a mom or dad.
Right now we have a lot to navigate. Our NICU journey is a lot tougher to coordinate than last time now that we have DJ at home. Having two kids in two different places is extremely hard. It's like no matter where I am, I feel like I'm in the wrong place. At the hospital with Colton or at home with DJ - I feel guilty. And it tugs on my mama heart so terribly.
Being away for almost a month makes it even harder to want to leave DJ right now. He's had to process A LOT in the last month. For a 3 year old, that was hard enough. But now he's having to process a whole new season of life... having a baby brother he can't even see and a mom who is finally home after all this time but leaving every day for a few hours to spend time with her other son. It sucks. I feel bad for Dustin but I also feel bad for Colton if I just neglect his needs too.
Michael and I agree that we really need to prioritize DJ during all of this and make sure he doesn't feel any less loved than before. We don't ever want him to think baby is replacing him in any sort of way. So it's definitely a tricky balance for us to figure out right now. It's also hard in the sense that me and Michael will rarely get to be down at the hospital at the same time. We're going to utilize family to watch Dustin for a few hours some days so we can go down and visit Colton together... but again, it's a tricky balance with that too. We don't want Dustin to think we're just dropping him off all the time so we can pick baby over him. Ya know? Ugh. PARENTING IS SO HARD.
Speaking of hard... being an exclusive pumper is so much work. I forgot how exhausting it is to pump around the clock every 3 hours. There's just so much planning involved to stay on a consistent pumping schedule. Bringing a cooler around everywhere you go to keep the milk cold. Bringing your pump bag with you everywhere you go that also stores a ton of syringes, little bottles, sticky labels and pens (the NICU gives you labels with your child's name on them with date and time you pumped), nipple creams, snacks... just all of it. I pump at home, I pump in the car, I pump in Colton's room, I set my alarm to pump during the night...
But I will always make the sacrifice. I did this for Dustin and I'll do it again for Colton without question. The best thing you can give your baby.- especially preemies who have even weaker immune systems - is mama's breastmilk.
Anyway... if you made it this far, thank you. Thank you for being so invested with our story. It's been so nice to come on here and share all my thoughts through writing. It's been very therapeutic for me during this difficult season of life and I know I have SO many of you supporting us. I read and reply to every DM that floods in on my Instagram. I read and reply to every text I get. I appreciate every one of you that showed an effort to care so deeply about me and my family. And SO many people noticed my lack of presence on social media for 4 days straight. I got flooded with many messages of concern, prayers and checking in on me. Thank you thank you thank you.
I'll continue to blog and share more about things as the days and weeks go on.
We'll chat soon! xo
Here are some photos of Colton and how much his head has changed. These comparison pictures are 4 days apart but most of the change happened in the first 15 hours of life. Truly INCREDIBLE. God's miracle that happened right before our eyes.
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