Emmet's Birthday Story

It all started on October 15th when I woke up and realized my water broke! Called Jake at work and told him to get home so we could go to the hospital. Arrived at the hospital at about 11 o'clock and was dilated to a 3 so I decided to walk around to speed things up. Two hours later was at a 5 so I decided to walk again thinking it helped the first time. Two hours later again was at a 6 so I got really disappointed. My mom left to get lunch thinking it would be a few hours until Jake had to call her to get back to the hospital. I went from a 6 to a 9.5 in 20Minutes!

At 4:48 PM our little Prince was finally here. Instantly he was passed around the room for all the family to see him. Then the nurses came and took him to get cleaned up and measured. When the nurses came back to see me they were empty handed. They explained to me that Emmet needed a little help breathing, and that he was grunting a lot so they had him on oxygen and that they would bring him to me as soon as he was breathing on his own. At first I was really worried until they assured me that this kind of thing was really common and I would be holding my baby soon.

I waited and waited until I finally fell asleep. They brought him in at about 3 o'clock in the morning telling me that he had been off oxygen for an hour now and was perfectly fine except for the grunting which carried on throughout the next day. He seemed fine to me but I thought it was a little odd that they never came to check his vitals throughout the day. I never said anything because I felt they knew what they were doing, who was I to tell a nurse what she should be doing? Finally that evening at about 8 they came and took him to get checked over. It wasn't but 15 Minutes later a Dr. comes in to talk to Jake and I telling us that our little boy's lung was collapsed and he was barely breathing. He explained they were going to have to fly him out to Tucson or Albuquerque in able for Emmet to get the care he desperately needed.

After a chest X-Ray it confirmed that his left lung had a tiny hole in it and the oxygen had leaked into his chest. The leaking oxygen had built up in his body taking up the space needed for his lung to work. It had also worked its way over moving his heart and right lung over. If they had not caught it when they did I don't even want to think about what could've happened. The Dr. had to insert a chest tube and use a syringe to constantly pull the leaking oxygen out of his chest to try and get his lung working again. They did this for 2 hours until a team of NICU nurses from Tucson were able to arrive.

Once they arrived they came to talk to Jake and I and let us know what was going on and that they had to insert 2 more chest tubes into his body because the 1 wasn't pulling out enough of the air. The flight nurse told us that this was a very sick baby and that she would do everything she could to get him to Tucson because once he was there his chances were very good. She told us she was going to get out of there ASAP. Well we waited and waited and waited for 4 LONG hours wondering what was going on. Nobody was coming and updating us, so being impatient Jake went for a walk and found the window to the room they were working on Emmet. They had the blinds shut but there was a tiny crack in one just enough to see our little boy. To this day I regret ever looking in that window. No mother should ever have to see their baby in the condition I saw mine. He was just laying there looking helpless, with about 6 nurses/doctors hoovering over him. He was hooked up to so many monitors with every one of them beeping every 2 seconds. I am happy to say the Emmet will never Remember this but I will never forget.

At about 4 in the morning of the 17th the flight nurse finally came in and said that she was sorry it took so long and that she was unable to tell us anything, but it took that long to get him stabilized and it took all of them in the room so there was no leaving him. Jake and I left as soon as the chopper did. Half way to Tucson I received a call from the flight nurse saying they arrived and everything was OK. She explained that the whole 2 hour flight she had to continue to manually pull the air from his chest, but now he was where he needed to be to get strong and healthy again. And of course he did! He ended up staying a week in the NICU and sent home a perfectly healthy little boy.