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Happy Birthday, Benjamin James Halpert!
He is finally here and doing very well for his age and weight. Whew! The little guy came out weighing 3 pounds and 2 ounces (4 pounds less than Cece), and measuring 16 inches long. He still needs a bit of extra help breathing, but no worries... he is doing just fine. Pam is doing okay. She’s still dealing with a lot of pain and discomfort. Her belly is extremely sore and her legs are still swollen. She’s trying to get some rest, but is very anxious to see Ben (she only got a flash of him in the operating room before he was whisked away for further care).
I got to see him a couple of times already. He is very small. I can already tell he will be a total beach bum. Both times that I’ve been up to the NICU he’s been completely stretched out under the special blue lights like he’s laying out at the beach … to funny!
We already got some great news. The doctors sonogrammed his brain to determine if there were any “brain bleeds” (these brain bleeds are known to cause cerebral palsy and are common in premature babies). Evidence of a few brain bleeds would not have been surprising. Well, the GREAT news is that Ben doesn’t have any brain bleeds!
There’s only one little issue that the doctor’s have picked up. They’ve noticed a faint heart murmur, which means that one of his heart valves is leaking. Again, this is something that is common in preemies, but can develop into something more serious. We hope that Ben’s little heart will heal up on its own, without intervention from the doctors.
Little Miss Cecelia is super excited to be a big sister. She can’t wait to see Ben (she needs to be totally checked out before going into the NICU). Penny got her a shirt that says ‘big sis’- not that she needs help with the announcement since she’s been notifying anyone around her that she’s a big sister. I’m very proud of her.
I’m on cloud nine right now. The high seas that came with Ben’s delivery (and pregnancy) seem like a distant past. I can’t describe the feeling of... relief? Yeah, I’m relieved.
Here is a little rundown of what went down earlier today.
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Ben was alert and kicking all morning, moving all around Pam’s belly like it was a bouncy castle. As I mentioned before, the kid is relatively complacent and fussing is not his style. Hence, it didn’t last long. After lunch, he settled in his place of comfort - under one of Pam’s ribs.
It was only by mid afternoon that Pam began feeling a different kind of pain. She said this pain was low, very low, and it wasn’t the pain that was concerning to her, it was the intense pressure that she felt down there. So we called the hospital and they told us to come in.
When we got there, the nurses immediately brought Pam in and began examining her. Then they wheeled the ultrasound machine and began scanning her belly. After a few minutes I was beginning to panic because no one was saying anything and I could sense something wasn’t right.
“Is everything okay?” I ventured.
“We are double checking.” The nurse replied.
Pam was wide-eyed looking between me and the sonogram screen. I could see the blood slowly draining from her face the more nervous she got. I pulled a chair next to her and whispered in her ear, “Everything is going to be fine.”
She closed her eyes and nodded.
They checked her down there and noticed she was bleeding a little bit. They asked her if she had noticed any bleeding earlier, but she said no.
“It seems your placenta has begun to separate from your uterus.”
“W-what does that mean?” She asked.
“It means we have to deliver this baby very soon. We’ll wait for your labs to come back and if everything looks good we’ll get you prepped for a c-section.”
“W-whaaat? Really? I-I….” I began to utter, but there was so much going in my head that the words weren’t coming to me. Ben is coming today? Did he say that?
“Right now the abruption is not severe. You’re currently at grade one. Hopefully you’ll not advance any further until your labs come back.”
“O-Okay.” She said.
I just stood there watching everything as if I was hovering, looking down on myself and Pam from above.
“You okay over there?” Pam asked.
“Yeah, I-I am… Ben’s coming today,” I said. Despite all that could go wrong, I was extremely thrilled to meet my son.
“I know, It’s kind of crazy, huh?” she said.
“Yeah…crazy.”
The events that followed have a dreamlike quality in my head. Pam’s condition aggravated and Ben’s heart rate began to drop and my heart began beating so hard and so fast I thought it would tear itself clear off my chest. I had to give myself a good talking-to (the nurses who passed me in the hall probably thought I had gone insane). I was losing my focus.
But it wasn’t long until Pam’s labs came back and she was wheeled to the operating room. Time stood still then. Every minute was separated by infinity of seconds until the moment the doctor told me to look over the blue partition and see my son being born.
“Look dad,” the doctor said.
“Oh my God, Pam… He’s…here!
They immediately began working on him, attaching tubes, wires, and some sort of baby bubble wrap over him. Although he didn’t cry, he was very fussy, waving his arms and feet all over the place. The nurses kept saying, “We got a live one here.” Unfortunately for Pam, she did all the work and missed out on seeing him.
I followed them up to the NICU, where I got a quick lesson on all the tubes and other apparatus Ben was attached too. When I went back down to the recovery room to check in on Pam (at that point, I hadn’t seen her since I left the operating room), I walked into where she was and with tears in her eyes, she asked, “Is he ok?”
With adrenaline still coursing through my veins I exclaimed, “Yes, he’s doing great!”
She responded with the pleading emotion I think any mother would have in her heart given what she’d just been through, “Really? You’re not just saying that? He’s really okay??”
By that time, both of us were a mess of emotions and the tears were rolling as I told her, “Yes, he’s ok.”
We’re all okay.
Pam will probably get to hold him starting tomorrow. They will do a skin to skin for a few minutes. They say contact helps the baby grow better and helps Pam’s milk to come in better. It also allows Pam to come into contact with the germs that Ben is exposed to which will cause her body to build up antibodies to fight these germs. Pam will then pass these antibodies to him through her milk. Unfortunately, since there is no medical benefit to Ben, I won’t get to hold him for a few more days.
I haven’t slept in two days and I probably won’t for the next couple of months. It’s going to be tough going home without Ben. He will stay at the hospital until the doctors say so. They have to play everything by ear and once they feel it’s okay to bring him home, we will.
This whole experience taught me how to be grateful for the small things in life…you know, health, happiness, and all that good stuff. Call it maturity, call it parenthood, call it the lessons learned from the logic of life, if you like; but the past 4 months taught me to look at life with a different pair of eyes. I’m certainly more grateful for what I have than I ever was.
I have a wife, I have a beautiful daughter, and now I have a handsome baby boy. I feel utterly and blissfully complete.
That’s’ all I have for now. I’m here at the hospital writing this post while Pam and Cece sleep. (Yeah, Cece’s with us. We are going to try to get her up to the NICU to see her brother.) Hopefully I’ll update this with more good news.
-Jim
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© 2006-2023 More Than That | Skin created by Kali
© 2006-2023 More Than That | Skin created by Kali