Birth Story

Ryan was born at 28 wks 5 days gestation weighing 2 lbs. 13 oz. on Wednesday, July 18, 2007 at 5:44 am. His Apgars were 7 & 9 (this test is done to summarize the health of a newborn, done at 1 minute after birth & 5 minutes after birth. 7-10 is generally normal). After I got back to my room, I told my brother and Dean to go see Ryan and to take pictures. My brother is a wonderful photographer and took many photos with his digital camera, so even though I wasn't able to see Ryan in person, I did see him through the eyes of a camera lens. Around 10 pm that evening, the nurse assistant wanted me to get out of bed and mentioned I could go see Ryan. They wheeled me over to the Children's hospital and I was able to see my baby for the first time. Of course I cried seeing all the machines hooked up to him but the NICU nurses were very positive and said Ryan was doing very well. During his 2nd day when the doctors put the PICC (peripherally inserted central catheter) line in and did a xray, they found he had a ileal perforation (basic definition is an infected portion of the small intestine). Once again, I had told Dean to go home and get some rest but within a couple hours of him leaving, one of the NICU doctors called me and told me what was going on with Ryan and that the surgeon was going to come see me and explain the surgery that he would need to have done. Dean was back within 30 minutes and a couple hours later Ryan was in surgery. They took out 1cm of his small intestine (which was infected and had a tiny hole in it) and left one end out of his tummy and put a bag around it to catch his bowels. He would have this for the next 8 weeks. Ryan did very well during & after surgery but could not eat for 10 days...surprisingly he did very well and only lost a few ounces. Nine days after Ryan was born, I finally got to hold him for the first time! It was mid-morning and my mom had driven me up to the hospital. When the NICU nurse asked if I wanted to hold him, I was in shock but was also a little disappointed Dean was not there with me. Once Dean got off work, we went back up there and Dean was able to hold him for the first time as well. My birthday was several days away, but it was the best birthday present ever!

Within several days, we could already see Ryan's personality because he started pulling out his oxygen tube from his nose. After 10 days, he was officially off oxygen and breathing room air. Within 3 weeks he was doing so well, he was transferred to the NICU Stepdown Unit. He also hated his feeding tube and pulled it out at least once a day and many days 2-3 times per day. We have several pictures where Ryan's face is just full of tape so when we look at those we know those are the days he was pulling out his feeding tube several times.

Once he started the bottle feeds (about 6 weeks old) he really started gaining weight well. Within 2 weeks, he was on all 8 feedings from the bottle and the feeding tube came out for good, which I know Ryan was thrilled about. The surgeon performed the reverse ileostomy a week before he was discharged. Ryan came home September 24, 2007 after 69 days in the NICU, 11 days before his Estimated due date of October 5th. He was 5 lbs. 5 oz. He really had no huge problems. We did find out the more he ate the more he spit up and was fussy. He was diagnosed with reflux and delayed gastric emptying but with medications, that was finally under control after several months.