The nurses laid him directly on me and we let the cord finish pulsating. My OB delivered the placenta and we did the normal "fix mom up" routine. Afterwards, the nurses took Eli across the room and started to weigh him, measure him, and do all the tests that they normally do after a baby's birth.
After about ten minutes, my nurse comes up to me and says, " I don't want to alarm you, but we hear something going on in Elijah's heart that we need to evaluate further. We hear a murmur, but we need to further evaluate him because we are hearing something else that doesn't sound normal."
I consider those women heroes. If not for them, this would not have been caught early, and who knows what would have happened.
Anyways, they took Eli to the NICU and we waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, the doctor came in and said that there are a few things they are looking at. One was Teratology of Fallot and another was Pulmonary Stenosis. I knew what both were and my world just came crashing down. The doctor stated while Eli was in the NICU, a nurse put her finger in his mouth to calm him and he turned blue and his O2 sats dropped into the 50's. They had him on oxygen and were working hard to find out what was going on. Brandon, my parents and Brandon's parents then went to the NICU to go see Eli. I had to stay in my room because my epidural had not worn off yet. Brandon came back in about thirty minutes later and we just sat together and cried and prayed. Our parents all retured shortly and finally about an hour later, Brandon and our nurse took me up while our parents went to my post partum room to wait on us.
Eli was in an incubator and he looked so tiny. He had all kinds of wires hooked up to him. While we were there, another doctor came up to us and talked with us about his condition. She said they confirmed that he had Pulmonary Stenosis. I was very relieved that it wasn't TOF.
Lifeline then came and picked up Eli and took him to Riley Hospital. It was a short drive since we were already in the city. I then had to back to my room for the night. Brandon was able to go over to see Eli quite a bit that night.
I was discharged the next day. My OB came in to see me and she was so shocked that there was something wrong. She was very comforting and I just love her for discharging me so I could be with my baby.
When we got to the NICU at Riley, we were very comfortable because we knew a lot of people there. We both work at Riley, so it was like second home. Our co-workers came to see Eli and that was a comforting thing.
Eli ended up staying in the NICU for seven days. During that time, I stayed in the Ronald McDonald house. I am so thankful they have that, but it was also a lonely time. Being alone at night knowing your other children are at home and they miss their mommy was so heartbreaking. I cried a lot that week. However, I was able to go home after a couple of days and see them and we ended up getting into a better routine to go to the hospital to see Eli.
Eli had a heart catheter place when he was three days old. It did not help the way they needed it to. His O2 sats were not staying where they needed to be. He would be up to 94 and then dip down to 75. They ended up scheduling him for a Valvotomy on April 2. This is where I will stop for now. The next few days were really scary for us.
Here are a few pictures of him in the NICU....
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