Ok I just want to start this post off with saying it's late and I'm exhausted so I didn't proofread this post. Please excuse any spelling of grammatical errors.
If you follow me closely on snapchat and instagram, you saw that a few days after we brought our Jackson home we realized he was struggling breathing on his own. You all have been so sweet and supportive so I wanted to give you all an update on my little guy.
It all started exactly one week after Jackson was born. I woke up early Sunday morning (around 4:30am) and was surprised when I checked my nursing app that Jackson had gone 5 hours without eating (the longest he had ever gone previously was 3 hours). I got him out of his bassinet and started waking him. I changed his diaper, undressed him but I was having a hard time waking him to eat. Once he finally latched, he only ate for about 5 minutes before pulling off to sleep again. This was so unlike him but I figured he was just going through a growth spurt and was really tired. Then another four hours went by and he was still sleeping, not waking to eat. So I tired to wake him up to eat again and the same thing happened, he ate for only five minutes but then after he threw up. My mama alarms started sounding when this happened. I knew something was off.
Right around this time Drew left to go to church is Isla. I was inspecting Jackson, looking at his coloring, I put my finger by his nose to make sure air was coming out. The few times he opened his eyes that morning, they looked really yellow. His coloring didn't look normal. He looked like something was wrong. I started wondering if maybe he had jaundice. I called the doctor on call and told him I needed to go to the ER immediatley to get Jackson tested for jaundice. The doctor reassured me it could wait until the morning so I decided to not worry about it until the next day.
Shortly after I started feeding him again and he threw up. Again. Then for a second I thought maybe he wasn't breathing. I called Drew and told him to come home from church and look at Jackson. I was starting to freak out and my mind was racing thinking of every possible thing that could be wrong. I couldn't quite figure out if I was going crazy or if there was something really wrong with my baby. By the time Drew got home Jackson had finished nursing on the other side and kept it down and was napping so I thought maybe I was just going crazy.
We went up to dinner at my parents house and when we got home we decided to put a monitor on him that we got when Isla was newborn (it monitors babies heart rate and oxygen levels). This is not sponsored in anyway but I owe a lot to this company because I would have never known he wasn't getting enough oxygen if it wasn't for this monitor. If you're interested in it, it's called the Owlet Monitor. The monitor was on for only 10 minutes before the alarm sounded that his oxygen levels were low. At first I though maybe it just wasn't reading right, then five minutes later it sounded again. And then two minutes later it sounded again.
I told Drew to put his clothes on, we woke up Isla and dropped her off at my sisters house and rushed to the ER. When we got there I think the nurses thought I was crazy until they hooked him up and realized his levels were too low. They immediately moved us into a new room and we started monitoring him again. There was one point when his levels dropped again the nurse told her assistant to hook him up on oxygen, page a respiratory doctor and a pediatric doctor immediately. After hearing the urgency in her tone I started to freak out. I stood up to pace around and I got so light headed and thought I was going to throw up. I sat back down and could barely lift my head or move my body and I was just sobbing. I have never felt that helpless or worried in my entire life. My hormones were way out of whack and I was watching my 7 day old baby boy be hooked up on all these different monitors. It was absolutely terrifying.
After spending the entire night in the ER, drawing blood, running an IV, doing chest X-Rays and almost being admitted to the hospital, we got to go home for a few hours before heading back to the doctor to see our pediatrician.
That next morning my pediatrician explained to me that either Jackson had under developed lungs that was an oversight in the hospital, he aspirated on breast milk and from that made his lungs swell or get fluid in them so the oxygen couldn't easily pass through or there could be a bigger problem with his lungs or heart. That whole week we spent in doctors appointments doing more lung X-Rays, heart echoes and other tests. I'm so extremely grateful that all the major issues were all ruled out. The conclusion the doctor came to is he has some fluid in his lungs, he can't really explain from what exactly and that he needs to be on oxygen until he can keep his levels up on his own.
Jackson has been doing really well this week. We've been monitoring him on the pulse ox and he can keep his levels up perfectly during the day but for some reason at night they are still dipping too low so for now he's still on oxygen at night but hopefully that will only be for a few more days.
I'm sure all of you mama's know there is no worse feeling in the entire world than seeing your baby suffer. It definitely put me through the ringer but I'm so grateful it's just a matter of time for his lungs to clear out and other than that he's perfectly healthy. Thank you all for being so sweet and showing your concern and love. All of your comments were so comforting and I'm so grateful and lucky to have such amazing women (all of you) who read my blog.
xo, Rach
