My best birthday gift

I had a very easy pregnancy with V, never got sick or anything, and actually wouldn't have known I was even pregnant except for the expanding belly. I did everything by the book. I stopped drinking caffeine, alcohol, artificial sweeteners; gained weight exactly as the dr said; everything. But I still felt like something was wrong. I refused to buy anything for the baby. I didn't want a house full of baby things if something happened and I was sure something would. At my 20 week ultrasound, H and I were still arguing over if we would find out if baby was a boy or a girl (he wanted to know, I didn't) so we agreed that if I would agree to names before the u/s we wouldn't find out and we could find out the sex of the next baby--although I fully expected H to love not knowing so much after we did it that he wouldn't want to know next time. So we had the u/s, tech said everything looked good, baby was spread eagle, but she didn't tell us boy or girl. I still felt like something wasn't right.

At my 35 week appt (also the first appt I went to alone), my OB did a vaginal exam to check for dilation. She then said "that's not a head I feel. It's either fingers or toes" and ran out of the room. She came back in with an u/s machine and confirmed that our little one was breech. Double footling breech, which is said to be the most dangerous breech position. Fabulous!

Before I left, she made sure to tell me to check for the baby moving a lot since baby's position was so dangerous. She also told me about a patient she had who was about 35 week pregnant when she didn't feel her baby move all morning. She had an appt that afternoon so she waited until then to see the dr and by the time she got there here baby was gone. Scared the shit out of me, especially because I hardly ever felt my baby move (the whole time I was pregnant, I felt baby maybe half a dozen times).

Now, prior to this appt, I had planned on having a vaginal, drug-free birth. We took the hospital birthing classes and everything! In our classes they actually gave us these little pieces of paper that said things like "vaginal" on one side and "cesarean" on the other, or "boy"/"girl" or "medicated"/"unmedicated" and we had to put all the cards on the side for the way we wanted our birth to go. Then we had to turn 2 over, then 2 more, then 2 more and so on until all but 3 of the 12 cards had been flipped. Our last three were "vaginal", "unmedicated", and "husband present".

The OB then said we would schedule a c-section for 38 weeks. Schedule a who for what? I thought. I walked out of her office and called H on the way to the car. I couldn't speak. I just cried. I finally told him we would not have the birth we wanted. I cried.

At my 36 week appt, I told my OB that I had researched about footling breech babies and I read that they can turn if I get into different positions. She said that that hardly ever works but if I wanted to waste my time I could.

I trusted my OB. I mean she was my DOCTOR. She CARED about ME, right? She only wanted what was best for me and my baby, right? I decided trying to turn my baby was pointless.

At my 37 week appt, I asked about external version. She said she would try it, but chances were that I would end up with an emergency c/s and my husband wouldn't be able to be there. Still, I had hope that my baby would turn.

I had another appt at 37 weeks, 6 days. She did one last u/s and confirmed my baby was still breech, but had pulled one leg up. (side note here is that while she was doing the u/s she was telling us where arms and legs and whatnot were and she said and here is the scrotum-I mean foot. I didn't tell my husband she said that so at least he could be surprised). She said baby was stuck and I scheduled my c/s for 2 days later, the day after my birthday.

I cried. I cried a lot. This was not what I wanted for me or for my baby. I didn't want to be sliced open. I didn't want the drugs. I wanted to breastfeed. I wanted something totally different. Totally and completely different. I was scared.

I didn't sleep the night before my baby was to be born. I couldn't sleep. I was hungry (no food after midnight) and thirsty (nothing to drink either) and scared. I was really scared. I was scared for me and I was scared for my baby. I felt like no one cared.

We got to the hospital and I had them check one more time to make sure my baby was still breech. Baby was, and I was wheeled down the hall to the operating room. I cried the whole way. Sitting on the operating table in a cold cold white sterile looking room, I cried while the anesthesiologist tired 3 times to get the spinal in. H said they had told him they would come get him in a few minutes after they had me prepped and it was close to 30 minutes. Finally he was standing by my head and the surgery began. I remember H standing up and watching the whole thing. It was very surreal for me. I remember the OB saying baby was really stuck and H said they had to keep putting baby in and pulling back out before I heard H say "I see a penis! I see a penis!" I said "we have a son!" and we both cried. They had told me after baby was born they would lift him over the curtain for me to see. I waited for this, but it didn't happen.

My baby wasn't breathing. My OB had told me he might not be breathing because of the position he was in (I later found out that babies born by cesarean often having breathing problems). All of a sudden, I saw a swarm of people rush to one side of the room. H ran over there and was trying to see what they were doing to our son. He wasn't breathing, not crying, nothing. Medical records say he was blue. After a few minutes (which felt like hours) I heard a meek little cry and then a full-blown cry. After some oxygen he was breathing on his own. Thank God.

I got stitched up and the three of us left the operating room as a family. We announced to our families that we had a son and everyone went off to the nursery with the baby. I went with the anesthesiologist to recovery. I felt alone. Terribly alone. Then the anesthesiologist left and I was completely alone in the room. About 15 minutes later, my sister came in and said everyone had just realized that no one was with me.

I should also note that when V was born, his head and his left foot were very misshapen. The doctor said it was just the position he was in for so long and it would fix itself.

About 2-3 hours later, the nurses brought me my baby. We tried to get him latched on to nurse (I made everyone except H, my mom and the nurse leave--my mom said soon I would be nursing everywhere, and I said not me. ha!). Nursing was hard. Really really hard. He didn't know how to latch, I didn't know how to hold him and I just hurt. It was hard to hold him over my incision and I felt helpless. If I wasn't so angry, I think I would have given up.

I decided that the medical people took my birth and they were not getting breastfeeding.

The second day of his life, while the pediatricians were checking him out, they heard a heart murmur. Later that day they did an ultrasound of his heart and I forced myself to walk down to the nursery to be with him. They took him in the nursery and I rested outside and when they came out the doctor told me that they found 3 holes in my baby's heart. I went to pick him up out of the bassinet and they told me I couldn't hold my baby in the hallway, only in my room. My room felt like miles away (and probably a good 15 minute walk for my in pain 24 hour post cesarean self) and I cried. I cried for my baby and I cried for me.

We took V home and got settled. I made an appt with a pediatric cardiologist who ran a bunch of tests on my 6 week old son and decided that we would just keep an eye on the holes. He thought they might close on their own (which they did just before he was 12 months old).

When V was 4 months old, H and I decided we wanted another baby. We figured we got pregnant with V right away so we would this time too. We started TTC in October of 2007 when V was 4 months old and even though I was menstruating (despite EBF), I did not get pregnant until November 2008, but more on that later.

When V was about 6 months old, the pediatrician noted that his head was still misshapen. She thought that maybe he had craniosynostosis which is premature closing of the cranial sutures. Basically that he didn't have a "soft spot" like he should. Off to more specialists only to find that some of the minor sutures in the back of his skull had actually closed prematurely. We opted to just leave his head alone.

The pediatrician had also worried about V's weight gain, or lack thereof since he was a few weeks old. He lost more than 10% of his body weight at the hospital when he was born and they urged me to give him formula. I refused, so the pediatrician had us coming in for weekly weight checks because he was not gaining fast enough for her. When he was 11 months old, she told me that he was "off the charts" and she was diagnosing him with Failure to Thrive. FTT??? That is for kids who have no will to live. Not happy, playful boys like mine. Not children who are taken care of and loved more than life. I felt like I was branded. I had this huge sign hanging around my neck that said "I suck as a mom."

I should also add that I had told the pediatrician time and time again that something wasn't right with his digestive system. He spit up every single time he ate and he screamed bloody murder while pooping even though he had normal stools. He was always gassy and he just cried all.the.time. She said he was fine for a long time, but finally after much insistence from me, she scheduled us to see a pediatric gastroenternologist.

The GI told me my son was not gaining weight because he wasn't getting enough calories and he was crying when he pooped because he was constipated. She prescribed pediasure and miralax.

At the same time the pediatrician was threatening me with hospitalizations where I wouldn't be able to nurse my child and insinuating that I was starving him. She threatened that if something didn't change my child could be taken.

He also had some developmental delays in his gross motor skills (he didn't start crawling until he was 11 months old and didn't roll until he was 12 months old) and communication (he had no words at all until about 15 months old, but he started signing at about 10 months).

All he could keep down was breastmilk. If I gave him food, he either threw it up, undigested, even hours later, or he pooped it out looking just like it did when it went in. It was horrible. I kept logs of how often he nursed and for how long and how much solid food he ate down to counting out cheerios. She looked at my logs and said he was getting more than the number of calories he needed, but he was just not gaining weight. Something was wrong.

Eventually, he started eating better and stopped the screaming when he pooped. He still cried sometimes, but it was not as bad as it had been. I figured he just outgrew whatever was hurting him.

He also always got horrible horrible diaper rashes that we treated a million different ways but they would not go away. The pediatrician finally said he just has really sensitive skin and the only way to get the rashes to go away was to get him out of diapers.

At about 31 months old, he stopped wearing diapers, but the rash was still there. He had also started screaming when he pooped and saying his penis hurt when he peed. I talked to the new pediatrician about this and we finally, went back to dairy. The old pediatrician had told me when he was 3-4 months old that it couldn't be a dairy allergy, but mama instinct brought me back there at 31 months. I cut out the dairy in his diet and within days the rash was gone, the crying when he pooped stopped, and the crying when he peed stopped. My son is allergic to dairy.

Now what aggravates me most about this is that the poor child has been suffering for over 2 1/2 years and all I had to do was stop the dairy in his diet (and mine when he was nursing). It makes me mad at myself and mad at that pediatrician.

Now, V is 34 months old and so bright. He speaks in sentences and walks and runs and everything. He has completely caught up developmentally and I am fairly sure that in a few months he will start putting some weight on since he is off dairy (he weighs about 25 lbs now).

This child has changed my life in so many ways. He is certainly a handful, but he is so worth every second. I can't thank God enough for bringing my sweet boy into my life. I feel so blessed to get to be the one he calls Mama.