Our new addition to our family arrived on January 19, 2010 at 10:30 in the evening. He was beautiful and perfect.....almost perfect!
The following is my journal of Chase Eric Moody's first two weeks of life (as best as I can remember while still fresh in my head) We were not going to take any pictures but the nurses recommended we do and I am glad we did:
We woke up Tuesday morning on the 19th like any other morning. Amy was up early getting ready for work and Cam and I were fighting getting out of bed. Cam had just had his big birthday weekend and we celebrated a bit more just the day before as Monday the 18th was his actual birthday. That night he complained of a headache and was acting a bit lethargic. I had managed to put off work travel as we knew we were getting close to having our little guy and I did not want to be gone so I was working from home. We decided to let Camden stay home with me to see if he would start feeling better.
Amy had her weekly doctor's appt to check on the baby this morning and one of the things they were looking at closely was the amount of amniotic fluid in the womb as this was a problem when Camden was born. With this pregnancy her fluid levels had been perfect so we were not having any concerns at this point.
Her appointment was at 9:30 in the morning, at 10:12 am I got the following texts from her:
"looks like we r having a baby"
"Barely any fluid"
Obviously this prompted phone calls by me! Her fluid levels had dropped severely in one week and the baby's head had dropped into position for labor. Amy came home, we grabbed a few things for the hospital - but it is only about a mile from our house so we were not too concerned if we forgot anything. Our friends Tony and Kristi volunteered to take Cam for us - he loves being with them as they have older kids who love to keep Cam entertained.
We got checked into the maternity ward of the Hood River hospital and so far things were going very smoothly. Amy had been having regular contractions for days now and with the news about her fluid levels her doctor decided we should take some steps to get things moving. As with Camden, Amy wanted to have a natural birth so we preferred they do the minimum to get labor started. They gave Amy a small dose of a cervical ripening drug called "Miso". They did this in two steps. The second application was at 4:30 pm and by 5:30 Amy was having major contractions as real labor had begun. The staff was great helping us with our natural birthing plan - much better than our experience in UT with Camden where they looked at us like we were alien when we told them we wanted a natural child birth. Here they helped us with different labor positions, showed Amy how to use a birthing ball (yoga ball), filled the tub for her and were just very positive, nice and helpful throughout the whole experience.
Amy labored for about 4 - 4 1/2 hours before she was ready to start pushing. She was amazing and I will always be impressed with how brave and strong my amazing wife is!! It only took her about 3 really big pushes and Chase Eric Moody was born at 10:30 pm! They set him on Amy's chest while I cut the umbilical cord. We were so happy and Amy was delighted to have her new little one open his eyes and have her face be the first thing he sees in this world.
Within just a few minutes Amy commented that Chase looked kind of blue. The nurse took a look at his lips and agreed. "Nothing to worry about, a lot of newborns look a little blue at first" she says while she unwraps him a bit to get a better look at his body and limbs - all were turning blue! They took Chase over to the newborn station to get a better look at him. When they first put a pulse ox on his toe to read his blood/oxygen saturation it read alarmingly low and they were saying it must not be reading correctly. They called in his doctor (Dr. Becker) and put him on an oxygen tube under his nose to help increase the O2 flow to his lungs.
Dr. Becker arrived quickly and examined him. They could not get an IV into Chase's arm to do a blood draw to test him so Dr. Becker took him to the nursery and put an arterial line into his belly button. They ran a test on his blood measuring his gases and when the results came back I heard Dr Becker say "Wait. What was that number? 54? Hmmmm. 54 Hmmmm. I am going to make a quick phone call into Portland. We may send him in for some more observations just as a precaution" At the time, I had no idea what the number meant or what a good number would be - boy was that going to change soon!
Poor Amy was alone with a nurse in the birthing room and was going crazy trying to figure out where her new little boy was. With the help of her nurse she was able to come into the nursery where she found her son with a tube under his nose, an IV in his belly button and a swarm of nurses and a doctor moving furiously around him.
The number that alarmed Dr Becker was a CO2 level in his blood. It meant that his lungs were not performing as they should be so he called in the Panda team from OHSU (Oregon Health and Sciences University) in Portland to transport Chase into their NICU. The Panda team was incredible and very professional. They got right to work getting in a good IV in his arm and installed a cpap to force O2 into Chase's lungs. It was now 4:30 am and we were en route to OHSU - an hour away. Amy road in the ambulance with Chase while I followed in our car. I managed to call and wake up her parents to explain what was going on and that we were going to need their help for a few days with Camden who was still having a fun sleep-over with Tony and Kristi's family.
Wednesday morning at OHSU was the start of the hardest week I have ever had in my life. Here they got Chase stable and started the process of figuring out just what was wrong and how to fix it. We were told this had every characteristic of some sort of infection and they had started treating as so. Amy was tired and sore from just giving birth and we had to find a place for her to lay down and rest as they had released her from the hospital in Hood River so she could be with her son.
A social worker from OHSU walked me over to the Ronald McDonald house next door and we were able to get the last room they had available. By Wednesday afternoon Amy had not slept at all since getting up Tuesday morning so I finally convinced her to go lay down for a bit as Chase seemed somewhat stable. Also by now, Camden's grandparents made the trip to Hood River to pick up Camden for us. He was still acting as if he was not feeling well too and we figured he was just tired from not being at home and in his usual routine. They brought him by the RMH to see us where the incredible volunteers there gave him a huge Hotwheels set just because his brother was in the NICU! It was just what he needed. Once Amy was settled in, I went back to keep an eye on Chase.
His first 24 hours of life seemed very hard as each breath looked VERY labored. You could see his little chest just heaving up and down for each breath and I was constantly asking how much longer the little guy could work so hard. They had also started hooking up every machine possible to Chase to keep monitoring, supplying fluids, O2, etc. By 11:00 pm on Wed our nurse, Shelby convinced me to go get some sleep as it has now been over 30 hours since I had any rest. I took her advice and crawled into bed next to Amy for a few hours of a nap while Shelby monitored Chase. No sooner had I laid my head on the pillow and my phone rang. It was Nurse Shelby telling me that Chase could just not work so hard to breath on his own any more and they were going to have to hook him up to a respirator to breath for him. I jumped out of bed before I got even a moment of sleep and was sprinting back to the NICU! This is how Chase looked after one day of life:
I stayed with him most of the night and after Chase seemed stable with the respirator breathing for him, I finally managed to go lay down with Amy for about 3 hours rest early on Thurs morning.
That morning we went back to Chase together and Amy's eyes immediately filled with tears as soon as she saw her son (which made mine start as well) All we could do to comfort our son was to put a hand on his head
And even that was hard as Chase was constantly changing and fighting for life so there was always a flurry of nurses/dr's swarming around him and most of the time we felt like we were in their way.
I can not say enough about the team of professionals that cared for Chase and us at the NICU in OHSU. If ever there really were angels that walk among us, these people were them. We must have worked with close to 20 people in our 2 weeks here and every one of them was just as amazing as the first. Not only do these people work to save the lives of newborns all day but they also do it while consoling with and dealing with crazy parents. We witnessed how they dealt with emotional and distraught parents like ourselves to even how they remained professional, sincere and caring in dealing with some of the young, naive parents who were there because they made the wrong decisions in their life and pregnancy that caused their problems with the newborns. Some of these parents were not only young, but had chemical dependencies or financial problems that interfered with the care of their child and yet the staff here managed to block out the comments, derogatory remarks and get the job at hand completed while still offering positive words of encouragement.
Seeing some of the other cases in this department was also hard on Amy and I. We started asking ourselves what we did to have this happen. We looked at our peers in the NICU and saw young parents who hardly even came during the day to visit their babies. We listened to their stories and could see why their child was in the state it was in so what was it that we did to be here? We did everything right during Amy's pregnancy. Didn't we? Amy started asking herself questions: "did I eat too much shellfish early in this pregnancy", "did I not drink enough fluids", etc., etc. The incredible staff at the NICU reassured us that this was not caused by anything we would have done, but they also could not tell us what did cause it so it was very hard to reassure Amy!
At this point we did not dwell too much on what caused it but remained focused on what needed to happen to get Chase better. There was not much Amy and I could do but we tried to keep Chase as comfortable as possible by trying to shift his weight from side to side or by just laying our hands on his head.
It was hard to even find a clear spot on him to shower him with kisses as he had some sort of IV, monitor, etc attached to every spot of his body
Of all of the things they were doing for Chase to recover, the one that visibly was the most disturbing was the amount of fluids they were pumping into him. In the picture below he is almost 2 pounds heavier than his birth weight of 7 lbs 5 oz - that is a lot of weight at that size. He was so swollen that his arms stuck straight out and his ears were beginning to stick out too. It made our motionless son even harder to look at and we began to wonder if he would ever be just a normal boy!
By Thursday night, even with the respirator pumping 100% O2 into his lungs Chase could not maintain proper O2 saturation levels in his blood so they decided to add yet another machine for life support. This one was to add a Nitric Oxide mixture to the air he was breathing to help his blood absorb O2.
They have also done a procedure now that was something the body normally does on its own during labor. They injected surfactants into his lungs to trigger them to start working. During labor this happens naturally and tells the body to relax the blood vessels carrying blood to/from the lungs so it can start processing O2 for the body. For a reason we are still not sure, they believe Chase did not do this on his own. Looking back, I believe this was a major turning point for Chase!
By now Chase has 13 different tubes/wires/machines hooked to him. Here is a list of the things I can remember in the picture below starting in the bottom left corner and moving clockwise around Chase:
1. Electrolytes Fluids for nutrients
2. Lipids or fats for baby growth
3. Maintenance Fluids - this is a chaser to some of his meds
4. Dopamine - a blood pressure drug he is very dependent on at this point
5. Morphine for pain and to keep him from squirming
6. Versed - another pain killer
7. Monitor (top left) showing HR, Resp Rate, O2 Sat pre/post, Blood Pressure, CO2
8. Heat lamp monitors body temp and surface temp
9. Bolus - fluids helping blood movement
10. Antibiotics
11. Extra IV for emergency procedures
12. Respirator that was breathing for him (Blue unit on right)
13. Nitric Oxide (far right of picture)
That is a lot of machines for one little body. He is so swollen and lifeless that it is hard to look at the little guy and feel so helpless!! We just want to pick him up and console him!
All of the things poking into him just looked terrible and I so badly wanted to take him away from all of this.
He is now a few days old and all he knows of this world is to be poked, sedated, monitored and hardly touched.
His little, puffy fingers would barely react to touch. These were very hard days for all of us. I tried to portray a strong father as I was raised to be a man by my WW2 veteran grandfather. It is my job to remain strong through all of this, to talk to the Dr's, to support my wife and other son, to be a rock during this emotional roller coaster that was our son's life but the truth is that I was becoming an emotional wreck. I would do my best to support my amazing wife and try to convince her to get the rest she needed to heal after his birth. I would try to spend every second possible by my new son's bed to make sure I would be there for any changes but when Amy was resting and I had five minutes to be alone, I would find somewhere to hide and just break down crying. I was facing the harsh reality that there was a good chance we were not going to be taking this little boy home with us.
How was I going to console his mom? How was I going to tell Camden he was not going to get a brother after so much time waiting for him? How was I going to go back to a normal life? I did not want to plan a funeral for a son I never got to play with or even know. I did not want to put on a fake smile and thank you to the condolences from my friends and peers. Was I just being selfish? This would be even harder for Amy. Buck up Eric! Be a man! Get back to your boy and support your wife.
I had these moments more than a few times during Chase's first week!
Yet, all we could do is sit with him and wait to see if he gets better as the Dr's try one trick after another to see how he reacts.
We were warned about there being a rocky road to recovery and that it may seem at times to be one step forward and two steps back but this never seemed more of a reality until Friday night, the 22nd of January. Our nurse at the time was Debbie. A VERY experienced nurse who has nine kids and when she is not saving the lives of babies for work, she is busy fostering them at home - a true angel!!
She was doing a simple procedure where they change some of his meds from one IV to a new one as they go bad over time. She was due to move the dopamine and got everything ready for this simple task. She pulled it from one and inserted it to the other tube. In the aproximately 10-15 seconds without dopamine Chase crashed! His body shut down and his lower extremities turned green in color. It was a reaction by the body where it shuts down blood flow to the extremities to keep O2 rich blood to his vital organs. We found just how dependent he was to these life supporting drugs.
Before this setback his Dr's had started to try and ween the O2 levels in the respirator and some of his meds - they were all dialed back up to the max to bring him back. We knew then we were going to be here for a long time and again questioned if we would ever take our boy home.
He now looked more and more swolen and nothing like the little boy Amy gave birth to just four days ago.
On a sunny Saturday afternoon Amy's parents and sister (who flew in from CA when she got the news about Chase) brought Camden down to the OHSU campus to spend a few hours with us. One of the things we've been trying to balance through all of this is our relationship with our first born. He is still not feeling well and starting to question why his parents want to spend all of their time with the new baby and not with him.
We had a great couple of hours with Camden. We rode the tram down to the Willamette River where we hopped on a trolley into downtown. We had no plan for where we were headed and picked a random stop to hop off. As luck would have it (for Cam at least) we were right in front of a big toy store. We got Cam a treat and had him pick one out for his new little brother - even though he had still not seen his brother and would still ask Amy if he was in her belly. I only showed him the picture of Chase laying on Amy immediately after he was born and did not want Camden to see Chase with all of the tubes sticking in him and swollen.
Below is the view of downtown from the tram on our way back to OHSU - you can barely make out Mt St. Helens in the distance:
On Sunday the 24th we had a good surprise from Chase - He opened his eyes!!
This was good and bad. They have been weening Chase off of the morphine and versed and he was starting to come out of his deep sleep - this was good as it meant he was getting healthier. They were also decreasing the O2 and Nitric amounts and his lungs were keeping up, barely. The bad was that he was now conscious and starting to feel things.
This was some of the most helpless feelings we had. We could see the poor little guy's eyes swell up with tears while he wrinkled his little forehead:
Just for his mouth to open and try to cry but no noise would come out! the respirator tube was down his throught and between his vocal cords. We wanted so bad to just scoop him up and console him
But the most we could do was to cup his tiny head in our hands and whisper to him that we were there and he was going to come home with us soon - we hoped!
We really tried to spend every moment at his bedside and jumped at every chance to have some interaction with our son, even if that was just to change a diaper. This was no easy task either as we had to constantly fight the wires and tubes everywhere.
Chase was starting to initiate his own breaths before the respirator would and was reacting well to the decreased amounts of O2 and Nitric. The more they decreased his sedatives, the more he started trying to move and breath on his own. Also on Sunday they were able to finally take the Nitric off of him totally - one less machine attached!
By the end of Sunday he was off of all meds except ibuprofin for any pain he might be experiencing and a very small amount of Dopamine which is a diaretic that will help him pee off some of the water weight. During rounds today it felt great to see the Dr's and nurses cutting up and joking. A good sign that Chase was doing better. Up to this point rounds were intense and serious as they tried to figure out how to get Chase better.
At this point, Sunday was the best day Chase had and we were amazed at how well he was doing. We couldn't wait until rounds on Monday morning to see what was next for our little guy. He was doing so well that they have now decided to take the respirator out and let him breath on his own!!
By 9:30 Monday morning his respirator was out and he just had a small tube for a little bit of O2 under his nose to help him keep up his blood/O2 saturation levels. He is still very swolen but has come a LONG way in a very short amount of time!
This was the best he has looked since he was born - albeit a little hungover look from a long morphine induced sleep!!
Monday was a tough day for Amy as a mom. She was spending as much time with her newborn yet now her first born was still sick and has developed small blemishes on his face that his grandma thinks looks like chicken pox.
Amy and her mom took Cam back to Hood River to see Dr Becker after she got to see Chase have his respirator removed. Cam was diagnosed with a viral infection and she got him started on some antibiotics. Mostly I think the little guy was just as stressed as us and just needed to be home. Once he was back at our house and getting to play with all of his new b-day toys, he immediately started to get better.
Finally on the 25th of January and on Chase's 6th day of life, Amy finally gets to hold and comfort her new little guy!
Both mom and son could not be happier at this moment!
The OHSU campus is really a beautiful place. In our first week here I was like a zombie walking between Chase and our room at the Ronald McDonald House. Now that Chase was getting a little better I was able to get out on a nice sunny day for a walk and took the Camera. It is built on a mountain overlooking downtown Portland and the Willamette River just south of town.
This is near where the tram comes into the hospital and is a great place to sit and watch the sun rise to the east over Mt Hood
The top of the tram with the skybridge in the background to the left:
More of the same - different angle:
The skybridge connecting OHSU to the VA Hospital:
Chase is doing very well and has now even gotten to the point where he does not require 1 on 1 care around the clock. He now has a feed tube down his throat and is taking small amounts of Amy's breast milk. He finally can be swaddled in a blanket and looks comfortable!
Over the next couple of days he improves rapidly yet is still monitored constantly. He has a catheter in his penis so they can closely monitor the amount he is peeing, they weigh every diaper to measure his stool output, he is still hooked to an O2 senser to make sure his lungs are still improving and they are constantly watching his respiratory rate, blood pressure, pulse and temperature.
He is peeing well and shedding the two pounds of water weight quickly:
He sleeps great - mostly from exhaustion of the past week and the fact that he can be wrapped up snug and warm:
On Tuesday the 26th Chase finally was able to start taking small amounts of Amy's milk through a bottle. He is having to learn how to suck,breath,swallow all over again and his feeding right now is a combination of feed tube and bottle.
In two more days on Thursday the 28th they have now taken the tube under his nose away and he his maintaining his O2 levels 100% on his own! The last thing he has to accomplish now is to get rid of the feed tube in his nose and be able to gain weight by eating from a bottle or breast feeding. Amy has been great working with him on the breast feeding but this is a bit more work for our weak little boy and going to take some time.
We continued to take turns working on Chase's eating and spending time with Camden through the weekend. Finally on Sunday the 31st Chase was eating so well on his own that when he took it upon himself to yank the feed tube out of his nose, they left it out. NO MORE TUBES attached to our little guy! This also meant I finally got to do the job I did for Camden when he was first born - I got to give Chase his first bath!! He loved it and did not even begin to cry once!
Check out that smile:
A very happy mom after just breast feeding her son. At this point it is the first time Amy got to see her son without any tubes attached to his face other than his first 15 minutes of life!
He is one BEAUTIFUL little boy!
He was doing so well on Sunday that they told us he would probably be going home tomorrow if he was able to maintain his weight overnight.
We quickly cleaned our room at RMH and Cam spent Sunday night with Tony and Kristi's family so we could get everything in order to go home.
By noon on Monday, Feb 1, 2010 Chase Eric Moody had passed his last exam from his Dr's and was packed into his new carseat and ready to go home!!
Monday afternoon around 2:30 pm Camden FINALLY got to meet and hold his little brother. He was so excited and did such a great job!!
Chase is like a new toy he can't put down. He has already tried to share his toys, helped feed him and read him a book in just his first couple hours of being with his new brother!
I'm excited to see what the future holds for these two boys and can only hope they are best friends for life!!
I know we are transfixed as a nation with helping Haiti recover from a devastating earthquake but please do not forget about our local charities that do so much for those in need right in our own back yards. The Ronald McDonald House and The March of Dimes were phenomenal in helping us get through this nightmare.
Please make a donation to Haiti and while you're in the giving spirit please make a donation to one of these great charities as well:
I'm still racing bikes and the whole family always comes
While Chase is constantly improving, Amy and I have started on a schedule of splitting our time evenly between our two boys. We did both manage to get together for a play date with Camden again now that he is feeling much better. The March of Dimes gave us a pass to OMSI (Childrens Museum) and we got to play with our boy and even saw Deep Sea at the Imax there.
Samson - The T-Rex on exhibit at OMSI
