My precious babies birth story (Rachel)

A little bit on Rachel for those who don't know. She was born at 38 weeks gestation, due to too much amniotic fluid. I was HUGE!! They thought I would rupture if we let it go any further, so induction commenced. Labor started out fairly uneventful, and we were making progress. The doc decided to break my bag of waters, and that was a fun task. Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink it seemed. He was yelling for towels, and I could stop the flow with a kegal, but the minute I would let it go, more would gush out. They decided that the uterus was clamping down on her and was causing her distress, so we did an amnio infusion to put water back in. That was also fun (not). Then her heartrate started to decel and they forced me on my side...where it was most uncomfortable. I was trying to do this naturally.... Once her heartrate stayed okay for awhile, then I was allowed on my back. Only to have her decel again. I was back on my side, they did an internal monitor on her head, everything was fine, except I couldnt bear the pain. Epidural ordered, and was installed, only to have her crown before it even took effect.

She was born very~very fast and had a cord wrapped around her neck 2 times, which seems like a big deal, but I have always had cord babies...always. Never a problem. She was not breathing, and so they kept having to mess with her, ie shaking her a little and giving her oxygen through a little tube close to her face. She would pink up but once they stopped, she would turn blue again. This went on for what seemed like eternity, but my husband said it wasn't very long. They took her to the nursery and put her under a little tent, and we were allowed to see her sometime after that.

She was bruised on her face and actually had a bruise on her labia which was odd. The pediatrician said that was very common in fast births and that it had nothing to do with lack of oxygen or anything like that. She insists that if she had hypoxia (oxygen deprivation) that she would have not perked up as quickly and would have likely been intubated.

She was a poor eater very early on, because all she wanted to do was sleep. That, combined with the bruising gave her jaundice. She was in the hospital 4 days from that, discharged, and promptly became jaundiced again...in for another 3 days. Right after that, I developed a blood clot in my leg due to laying around in the bed while she was in the hospital. That was 4 days of sure agony. Then after about 1 month, we were back in again because she developed pneumonia and was diagnosed failure to thrive. She hadnt gained any weight, and while she nursed, it just wasnt much. She still preferred to sleep. I would wake her, and try to force her to eat, but it was only on her terms that she cooperated. They convinced me that my milk wasnt fat enough for her to grow on, and then I got to bottle feed her.

She still didnt grow. She still wanted to sleep most of the time. We increased her calories by giving her more formula than you were supposed to put in a bottle....we changed formulas...we gave her rice. Nothing....still wouldnt grow. Then we got to go to doctor after doctor to find out what was going on.

Her head measured 13 inches at birth, and stayed that way. Her fontanelle closed before 6 months old, but they did an MRI and it told us that her sutures were still open. So, it became a wait and see.

One doc thinks that because of my diabetes, it messed up her brain development and that was why we had to much amniotic fluid...she wasnt smart enough to swallow it and process it, basically. I have had diabetes with the last 5 children...never a problem, but he said it was random.

Pediatrician and OT still thinks that if it was from birth, she would show white matter in her brain from dead cells, and that she would have been worse off. Neuro thinks the same. Why can't I believe this?

My hand is tired, so I will leave you with some pics. The first pic was right after birth, the second pic was probably a couple of hours or so later. The third pic was in the hospital during jaundice treatment and the last pic was how she looked for about 2 more weeks, bruised in her eyelids. Beautiful, but still hard for me to see now.