Well, Josiah Leyland Axelson surprised us this past Monday, June 7, with his early arrival at 36 weeks (6 lbs, 4 oz and 20 in). We were able to have him at home still, so we scurried to get the house clean and make all our last minute preparations.
I labored from about midnight until 5:23 pm, when he was born. Fortunately, I slept through the first 7 hours or so of it. Everything was very calm and peaceful as the day went on and contractions got more intense. Then, the last hour things got a little crazy; everything happened so fast that it's kind of a blur. Jackie (our midwife) noticed that Josiah's heartbeat was starting to go down when I would have a contraction, but I still wasn't having the urge to push. 911 was called, just in case we needed to transfer, but Jackie examined me, which ended up breaking my water; I got the urge to push, and she very firmly told me to push now and get this baby out ASAP. So, I did what she said and pushed him out in what seemed like only one or two minutes (which really is probably fairly accurate).
Then, the real craziness began. Little man decided he didn't really want to breathe properly, so there was no crying or moving around like our other babies had done. There was just this rasping baby with a very heavily retracting belly. So we gave him some oxygen to try to help him out. During all this, the ambulance arrived, but we told them all was well for now. We wanted to give our little guy a couple of hours to try to breathe properly on his own. But we were never able to take the oxygen off of him, so we called 911 again, and they transported Eric and Josiah to the hospital, where our little munchkin was admitted into the NICU. We've come to find out that Josiah's breathing issues are very typical of a white male born at 36 weeks.
Over the past week at the hospital, Josiah has been put under a hood to supply him with oxygen; that wasn't enough, so he had to be intubated, put on a ventilator and given Survanta, a medicine to supply him with a substance called surfactant, which we all have in our lungs to help them to expand properly (or something to that extent). After a couple of days of doing better, he was extubated and put back under the hood. But after a day or so of that, he wore himself out; so he was re-intubated and put back on the ventilator and given another dose of Survanta. After about a day or so, he started breathing much better and was given a nasal canula (in the pics below). During this period, he also had an IV giving him antibiotics, just in case he had an infection b/c I didn't get to have my Strep B test before giving birth. And he's been given electrolytes and fats through the IV as his nutrition. Yesterday (Saturday) he was given his first taste of milk (which I've been pumping for him) through a tube that's stuck down his throat (also in pics below) b/c he's still breathing a little too quickly to be able to bottle feed him. Since he started, they've already tripled the amount so that now he's getting a full ounce. And he's done well with that, so it should continue to increase.
The day he got to go from intubation to nasal canula, his bilirubin levels got too high, so he's been under the phototherapy light for 3 days now. So I didn't even get to hold him again until Friday, and I can only get 30 minutes-1 hour of holding time for the entire day.
But he's now improving daily, so we're hoping it won't be too many more days before we can bring our little sweetness home with us.
Over the past week, the Lord has been more than gracious to us in protecting our son and providing us with additional helps and encouragement. Josiah's had really nice nurses who've taken good care of him. My wonderful, amazing husband has kept our other 3 munchkins for many hours each day so that I could be at the hospital with Josiah. He said it's given him a renewed appreciation for my staying at home with them :) Eric's parents have housed and fed us all week and stayed with the kids after bedtime so Eric and I could go back to the hospital; we've had sweet friends clean our house; other sweet friends had a play day with MJ and EM one day; more friends have visited at the hospital and brought me lunch; my parents have cooked, mowed the grass and played with the kids this weekend; and many others have called, emailed, etc.
We are extremely grateful to everyone, but mostly we praise the Lord for having his hand on this little one from the beginning of this pregnancy through now. He obviously has a special plan for Josiah since He's seen fit to allow him to live, and we look forward to seeing that played out in his life.
Sorry for the very long post, but I just haven't had a chance to update many people this week, and I know many of you praying for Josiah are very curious as to what's going on :) Below are some phone pics (that's all I've been able to manage at this point) of our little one.
