10.04.09 - Day before the Big Day

Liam's surgery will be tomorrow morning. We spent the whole day up at the hospital, as we have been doing since Friday, and it was a good day today. The nurses let Dustin and I feed him and change diapers when we are around for it, so that is great because it is the closest thing to actually holding him. We get to prop him up in his bed to eat and burp him. I never knew I would actually appreciate getting to change his diaper, but I really do cherish those times with him. Dustin does as well, and Dustin even got a taste of the little boyhood today as Liam pee-painted his shirt today during a diaper change!

Hospital days are long, and I am trying to heal, pump and spend time with my little one and get some type of routine down. Just as we are getting used to being in the NICU, Liam will be moved to the PICU Cardio Unit after surgery tomorrow. He will have his own room.

Well, it is getting late and we have a long day ahead of us. We plan on arriving tomorrow at 5:00 am so we can spend as much time with him as possible before he goes in for surgery. Goodnight my little Liam, may the Lord bless you and keep you, and may his face shine upon you! He is in GOOD hands!!

10.01.09 and 10.02.09 - Settling in at Medical City Dallas

Liam arrived at Medical City around 4:00 am on Thursday morning. Dustin rode in the ambulance with him from Baylor to make sure he arrived safely and to see where he would be staying.

Dustin and my dad made trips back in forth between Medical City and Baylor, between me and Liam. Lord bless Dustin for having to take care of two of us. I can not imagine how hard that would be to have the two people closest to you in two separate places, me trying to recover and Liam being prodded and poked and hooked up to machines. But it only reminded me of why I married him and I love him more today than I ever thought possible.

I arrived at Medical City at about 11:00 am Friday morning. My beautiful baby boy looked so normal and so healthy, it was hard to imagine he had anything wrong with him. We share a room with another baby heart patient who recently just had surgery. It was such a blessing, as they have the same cardiologist and heart surgeon as we do, so they have plenty of NICU experience and great wisdom to share with us.

Right now the Doctors are keeping Liam alive by giving him a drug called Prostin that keeps his PDA temporarily open until they have a plan for surgery.

We met with the surgeon, Dr. Eric Mendeloff, at 3:00 that afternoon, and he described Liam’s condition and explained there will be two surgeries. The first surgery which will be Monday, October 5th at 7:30 am. His procedure first involves opening up his chest and putting in a BT Shunt so that they can take him off the medication that he is taking to keep the PDA open. This will then allow the PDA artery to close.

The second surgery will be done later next year when Liam is between 9 to 12 months old and has had time to grow and get stronger, so that his heart is ready for the larger surgery which will build the valve in his right ventricle that feeds his lungs and patch the hole between his left and right ventricle.

10.01.09 - All Alone

Without my new son in the room, the hospital felt like more of a prison than a joyful place to celebrate a new life. Despite the wonderful friends and family we had to come and pass the time and pray with us while visiting (Sincerely thank you to ALL of you who kept us in your thoughts and prayers, we are BLESSED to have you in our life), the comfort they could provide lasted only for a short while before my emotional roller coaster began again. You never expect to be a new mom and not be with your baby. That was by far the hardest part for me to bear. I prayed continuously for Liam. Dustin and I had to encourage one another and keep reminding each other that this is “all in God’s hands.” I had always said at the beginning of my pregnancy that this is truly the Lord’s baby, and not my own. He simply blessed Dustin and I and chose us to be his parents. And if that were true, he is still in the Lord’s hands, forever and always.

It was also a new experience for Dustin and I as we are a relatively newly married couple having to cope in a new way, together for the first time for a family, and not just ourselves. It is a whole new dynamic for us, with both of us handling grief and emotions in different ways and trying to be there for each other. It has definitely grown us closer as a couple and also in our walk with God.

Finally, Friday morning I was discharged from Baylor and headed straight to Medical City to see my little Liam. What an anticipation I had, for I really had not seen my new son except for in pictures and video.

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11

9.30.09 - The News...

Around 10:00 pm, a NICU nurse came to speak with us about Liam's status. I of course thought they were going to tell us they just needed to keep him until the morning, but that everything was still fine. Well we received the shock of a lifetime as the nurse carefully explained that the heart murmur was pretty significant, and they had reason to believe with the testing they had done, they Liam had "multiple" heart defects that would need to be corrected with surgery as soon as possible.

The nurse went on to explain that they would be transfering him to Medical City as soon as the cardiologist arrived from there and reviewed his report for confirmation. The nurse just told us that Liam was not able to produce sufficient oxygen to keep his body alive right now, and they believed the heart defects were to blame. I immediately started panicking in my mind as I knew our whole life's course had just been drastically changed in the matter of seconds. It was amazing to me how God quickly reminded me that despite the plans we have for ourselves, he is in control of everything. It is always been an enormous leap of faith for me to surrender parts of my own life to the Lord, but when I was faced with putting my child’s life in his hands, I can’t even describe the feeling. “I know the Lord has purposed this for His glory…” I kept trying to tell myself, but honestly, I was scared and hurting because all I wanted to do was see and hold my son to comfort him, but I couldn’t.

The nurse told us after the cardiologist arrived, he would review the reports and come discuss what the plan of action was. About 12:30 am, the cardiologist (Dr. Amit Vermer) arrived and came to our room to discuss the defects he saw. His final diagnosis is called Pulmonary Artresia with VSD (ventricular septum defect). The website links show pictures so you can see where Liam’s heart is different from a normal heart.

9.30.09 - Little Johnson is Born!

The morning of September 30, which also happens to be my dad's birthday, was a normal morning juts like any other. My alarm went off at 5:45 am and like normal I laid around in bed until 6:00 when I finally decided I should start getting myself ready for work. I sat at the edge of the bed for a few minutes before getting up and experienced a strange contraction - a lot shorter and little more intense than the Braxton-Hicks I had been having for quite some time. I didn't think too much of it, but when I got up from the bed, I felt a little gush and thought too that was a little odd, but still didn't think too much of it. I stood there for a minute thinking to myself, "Is this it?" "Should I wake Dustin up?" then quickly decided to go eat some breakfast just in case this was the real thing, I wanted to make sure I was well fed! Through breakfast, I kept having regular little contractions which were less than 5 minutes apart. I started timing them, jotting down the times on the back of a random receipt I found on my bedside. I woke Dustin and told him he should probably get up and tsrat getting ready to take me to the hospital to get checked out. I finished getting ready, and we left the house about 7:00 am and arrived at Baylor Frisco at 7:15 am. They took me to labor and delivery and confirmed I had already dialated to 3 1/2 and my water had ruptured. It was for real!! I couldn't beleive it...
I was only 36 weeks and 6 days, scheduled for a doctor's appointment the very next day. Guess we wouldn't have to go to that checkup!

Labor was pretty intense the entire time. I received an epidural as soon as they could get one to me, but I had already dilated to a 5 by that time, roughly around 9:30 am. All the nurses were suprised by how fast I was progressing. The epidural was a great relief, but lasted only about an hour, when Liam finally dropped so low the pelvic pressure was so great I could feel everything again and there was not much the epidural could do for me at that point. They tried stronger pain medication, which helped for a brief time, but quickly wore off as the little one pressed harder down, just wanting to get out! Dustin in the meantime was a great coach, probably not expecting to have to coax me through the pain like he did, but he was SO helpful to get me to focus! I reached 9 by about 1:00 pm, and finally a 10 around 1:30 pm - Finally time to push!

My mom made a comment since he was already so far down, it probably wouldn't take much to get him out of there. Well, two HOURS later and with the help of the vaccuum (SOOO grateful for that little invention), Liam was finally born at 3:51 pm, weighing 7 lbs. 2 oz. and measuring 19 1/2 inches.

Because Liam was born one day premature and the fact the he is a boy (boy' have a harder time developing there lungs than girls do) the NICU was standing by just in case he had problems with breathing. Liam was crying pretty good when he came out, so things were looking pretty good in that department. However, upon observation, the NICU team noticed he was not breathing quite as strong as they wanted so they were needing to take him back to the NICU for more observations and to get him more stable. They let me hold him for about a minute and then had to take him right away.

They finally moved me back to my postpartum room about 6:00 pm. We shortly received an update from the NICU on Liam, telling us that he was on oxygen, he had a small amount of fluid in his lungs and that they also noticed he had a heart murmur. They reassured us that these were all normal things that a lot a babies are born with that just need to be monitored for a bit. I was not too concerned at this point since they seemed to think in his case, this would be nothing more than a blip on the radar and we would soon have him in our room with us.