Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)

I can't believe that tomorrow my beautiful boy turns three! Has it really been three years since I first held my 3 lb 12 oz miracle in my arms? I have always intended to record Euan's birth story, but life always seems to get in the way of me actually sitting down to do it.  Although Euan's entrance into the world is not something I'm likely ever to forget, I do fear that as the years go by the finer nuances of the moment will be lost. So, Euan, today's post is dedicated to you with unconditional, incomparable, immeasurable love.

Euan, counting gummy worms to go on his "dirt" birthday cake.

Much like the rest of my health-related experiences, my pregnancy was...complicated. My Crohn's was, happily, very well controlled at the time, so that at least was not an issue. By the time I reached 21 weeks, however, I was on sick leave from work with gestational diabetes and barely controlled hypertension. Euan was due July 9, 2011, and I had a c-section scheduled for July 2. [As an aside, since my last post brought up the notion of shame, in some future post I'll deal with the shame--care of the "Mommy Industrial Complex"--that came with my physical inability to have either a vaginal birth or breast feed my child.] After consulting with my maternity doctor, my obstetrician, my GI specialist and, lastly, my GI surgeon, I had finally accepted the fact that my IBD would not allow for the natural, vaginal birth that I had always dreamed of. I was, of course, profoundly disappointed, but kept reminding myself that the end goal was both a healthy baby and a healthy me. Given the unpredictability of my Crohn's and the cocktail of meds that I had to give up before Blaine and I could even start trying to conceive, the fact that I had gotten pregnant after only 9 months of trying seemed, in itself, nothing short of miraculous.

On Sunday, May 1 Blaine and I caroused with friends at a May Day BBQ. There was cause for celebration because, serendipitously, four other couples within our social circle in Kelowna were also expecting that year, though our baby was due first. I'll always remember that as the last carefree day prior to Euan's arrival. On May 2, at a routine prenatal checkup, my maternity doc was concerned by elevated levels of protein in my urine, accompanied by another rise in my blood pressure, both of which are warning signs of preeclampsia. She sent me to the hospital to have a nonstress test (NST) administered. During the test, the baby (who we didn't know then was Euan, as we'd chosen no to find out the sex) didn't perform satisfactorily, and my blood pressure remained elevated. I was admited to the hospital for monitoring. I remember breaking down the moment Blaine arrived at the hospital, terrified that we were going to have a baby that night. Luckily that didn't happen; I was sent home 3 days later, hypertension precarious but controlled by increased doses of meds.

Hooked up to the NST monitor on the morning of Euan's birth day.

By May 19, my blood pressure was haywire again and I was readmitted to hospital. This time, I knew that I wouldn't be going home before my baby was born, and it became my job to keep the kid inside me for as long as I could, which turned out to be just over a week. By this point I was having weekly ultrasounds to measure the baby's growth, and the May 25th scan showed that Echo (that was his name before he became Euan) hadn't grown at all since the week before. This was the sign my OB was waiting for, and he informed Blaine and I that we'd be having a baby on the 27th. Terrified, excited, exhilarated, and overwrought, we had nothing to do but wait.

Euan with Daddy in the NICU, minutes after birth

Our precious bundle arrived, healthy, whole, and tiny, at 4:03 PM on May 27th, 2011. I will never forget the intensity with which I focused on the sounds and sensations taking place on the other side of the blue surgical sheet that separated my head and my belly. When Blaine was finally allowed into the OR and he took his place at my head and grasped my hand, I was so tuned into the birth experience that I didn't even know it was him until he finally spoke--I thought it was a nurse holding my hand and offering support. I knew the moment was close as the pushing, tugging, and suctioning intensified on the other side of the sheet, and with one final squelch, our baby was born. I'm sure I gripped Blaine's hand close to breaking as the doctor announced, "It's a boy!" Blaine and I looked at each other, tears rolling down our cheeks, and I let go of the breath I wasn't even aware I was holding as I heard Echo--now Euan Peter--wail for the very first time. For a moment it felt as though the world stood still while Blaine and I took it in: it's a boy, we have a son, we are parents; but very quickly the delivery team sprang into action. There was the obstetrician, maternity doctor, anesthetist, and three nurses taking care of me, plus a pediatrician and two additional nurses taking care of Euan. He arrived so strong and healthy that he surpassed everyone's expectations, and the whole delivery team exclaimed at how perfectly proportioned he was. Within moments Euan was so pink and alert that he was swaddled and placed in Blaine's arms near my head so that I could see and touch him with my one free hand. He kept wanting to cry, but each time I spoke, cradling him with my voice since I could not hold him in my arms, he settled. He knew me already. And I knew him. "He looks so familiar," I said to Blaine, my eyes searching Euan's small face, trying to take in every minute detail, "just like his ultrasound images. I knew he had your nose."

Our first moments as a family were short lived, however, and soon Euan was whisked off to the neonatal intensive care unit, where all premature babies spend the first days and weeks of their lives. Blaine went with him, never leaving his side while I was sewn up and sent to recovery. I remember staring at the wall clock across from my recovery bed, watching the minutes pass by as I giddily waited for the moment when I could hold my son again. My obstetrician and maternity doctor both made separate visits to my bedside to assure me that Euan was perfect and doing well, and that Blaine was still with him. For me, though, things were about to get complicated--again.

Our first visit on the evening of Euan's birth.

The cure for gestational hypertension is to deliver the baby. My blood pressure should have begun to stabilize relatively quickly after Euan's birth. Of course, nothing about me is textbook--apparently I enjoy being a special case--and my blood pressure spiked dramatically while I lay in recovery. Normal blood pressure should be somewhere close to 120/80; mine rose to a dangerous 200/130. It's probably good that I didn't realize at the time just how much danger I was in. As the recovery room nurses raced to prepare me a bolus of anti-hypertensives to administer quickly by IV so that I wouldn't have a stroke and to hang a bag of magnesium sulfate to prevent seizures, I glibly quipped, upon seeing my numbers, "Well that's not good!"--an astounding understatement. Once I finally left recovery I was sent back up to Labour & Delivery rather than being transferred to the maternity ward because I needed to be monitored closely for the next 24 hours. The magnesium sulfate incapacitated me to such a degree that I don't remember much of that time except that, when a NICU nurse finally brought Euan to see me, I was afraid to hold him because I felt so stoned. When the OB on call came to see me the following afternoon and ascertained that my slurred speech, physical incapacitation, and mental confusion were side effects of the magnesium sulfate and not a stroke, I was finally transferred to the ward where I would be free to come and go from my room to visit Euan in the NICU as often as I wished.

Out of the incubator for a feeding.

Having a premature baby is hard. It was an emotionally exhausting experience, and we know we were incredibly lucky. Euan lived in the NICU at Kelowna General Hospital for the first three weeks of his life, but he was wonderfully healthy and suffered no complications from his small size and early arrival. I know that many families of preemies face much more difficult situations than ours. I was released from hospital when Euan was five days old, and leaving without my baby was probably the hardest thing I've had to do. I wept--a lot--that day. But we quickly got into a routine of going to the hospital several times a day for Euan's feedings and fitting in around it the rest of life and its attendant responsibilities. There is no choice but to adapt to circumstances that we cannot control. 

My first child may not have arrived at the time or in the manner that I had expected, but he had arrived and I was just grateful that I was able to hold him in my arms--tubes, wires, and all--because not all mothers with babies in NICUs are so lucky. I know that people often say that each baby is a miracle, but to me Euan really was my miracle child: it was miraculous that I managed to conceive while living with the ups and downs of a chronic illness; it was miraculous that I escaped my postpartum complications unscathed; it was miraculous that Euan thrived beyond all medical expectations for a baby in his situation. And I am doubly blessed, because though Euan was my first, I am now able to cradle a second miracle both in my arms and in my heart.