Carter James

Carter is already 2 months old, so it’s probably about time that I told you about his arrival and first days, eh? They were eventful.

Carter came into the world the same way his two older brothers did – via c-section. There were no other options. Like with Connor, we made it to our scheduled date of 37 weeks 1 day, which still amazes me, after how early Brady John was delivered.

I wouldn’t want that early delivery to happen to anyone else, and I still wonder why it had to happen to him. Carter was a little less happy about his early eviction that Connor was though – he was screaming before they had him all the way out. More on that later, because it caused some problems.

He was adorable and we got to snuggle with him while I got stitched up. When we made it up to the recovery room, it was apparent right away that things were not going ideally. Carter was dusky and grunting a lot, which indicated that he was having trouble breathing. They brought him to the nursery and pretty immediately decided that he needed to go downstairs to the Special Care Nursery. That makes us 3 for 3 on our kids needing the NICU, if you’re keeping score.

Jeff and I had mentally prepared for him to need some help, like Connor had with his blood sugar issues, but having him in respiratory distress was still not what we were expecting. I was also still numb from surgery, so I wasn’t even able to accompany Carter downstairs. With Connor we’d at least gotten almost 24 hours in the room with him before he was whisked away. Jeff went downstairs with Connor, and I was stuck in my hospital room getting updates by phone and watching “The First 48”.

They got Carter on a CPAP machine right away to help him breathe and did a lung X-ray. The X-ray revealed that he had a Pneumothorax, an air pocket in his chest near his lung. This was what was making it so hard for him to breathe. They think that he got it when he sucked in a bunch of air to do all of that screaming when he was born. They decided to watch him to see if it would resolve on its own or if they would need to intervene. We felt temporarily relieved that there was an explanation for his breathing difficulties. Thankfully, the Pneumothorax resolved on its own within a few hours.

That was just the start though. Soon after the Pneumothorax resolved, Carter starting having troubles maintaining his blood sugar. That was not new to us and we’d seen how that all worked with Connor. We started feeding him and they gave him glucose through an IV. Sadly, I’m pretty desensitized to seeing my kids on IVs at this point. He had the IV in his hand at one point, then that one blew and we ended up with the good ol’ head IV. They did some injections to help his hand heal since it had puffed up pretty badly, and there’s been no lasting issues from it. So we pressed onward.

After that, there was jaundice, though they were never that concerned with that one and he never needed the lights – he was just kind of yellowish for a couple weeks. Things were progressing pretty well and we were scheduled to take him home on Sunday, February 16th. We’d picked up Connor that Saturday after he’d gotten to spend a few extra days with Grandma and we were excited to have the brothers meet, since Connor is too young to visit the NICU. And that was when the scariest stuff happened.

We arrived back at the hospital on Sunday, car seat in hand, only to learn that late the night before, Carter had an Apnea episode. He’d stopped breathing and didn’t start breathing again on his own. Instead, a nurse had to gentle stimulate him (a tap to the chest) to get him to remember to breathe again. They told us that we wouldn’t be able to bring him home and that he would have to go 5-7 days without an episode in order for us to be able to take him home. 5-7 days might not sound like that long, but when you’re at home and your newborn is in the hospital, it feels really long. Most babies outgrow these episodes (though they’re not as common in the 37+ week crowd), so his team didn’t seem particularly worried at this point.

The next morning, we showed up to the news that Carter had another Apnea episode and had again needed a “gentle stim” to recover. That meant the clock would restart again. We were getting increasingly nervous and wondered if Carter was really okay or if there was something else going on. His Neonatologist wondered the same and ordered ultrasounds of his head and heart and some labs. Everything came back normal, so we continued to wait and pray that he wouldn’t have any more episodes.

Tuesday morning, we showed up to more news. Carter had another episode where he stopped breathing for more than 10 seconds, but this time, just shy of the 20 second mark where they intervene, he started breathing again. Jeff and I were feeling so discouraged. We felt like we were in an endless cycle where the clock would just keep resetting, time and time again. At rounds that morning, we spoke with the Neonatologist again. He said he didn’t count that morning’s episode because Carter was able to recover on his own. The clock wasn’t resetting this time.

Every morning that we came in to visit him we were nervous. Every evening we’d leave and pray that he would be okay overnight. Since Connor was home, we would go home every night to have dinner and spend time with him. We tried to keep his schedule as normal as possible – daycare during the day and time with us at night.

Carter’s episodes had always happened overnight so we’d never seen what they looked like, but every beep from his machines, temporary oxygen sat drop, or dip in heart rate had my heart racing. We didn’t want the clock to reset again. Each night I would call him nurse and ask “any episodes?” before I was able to go to sleep for the night. This kind of trauma builds up over time. After what we’ve been through, it’s really easy to get pulled into a PTSD episode when things like this just. keep. happening.

We also were in a level 2 NICU, which is a lower level than what Brady John was in, and means that they don’t handle the most serious issues. Oftentimes, this means that babies spend a short amount of time there before being discharged. What that meant for us is that as we kept getting discouraging news and hearing that our baby would need more time in the hospital, we also got to watch new babies show up and be discharged before us. While we were happy for them, it also is really difficult to watch and crushes your heart. There were many times in that NICU room that I stared at Carter and cried. He was so perfect to me, yet he was struggling and was not healthy enough to come home. We wanted him home and we also wanted to make sure he was ready to come home before we got to take him home.

The doctors, nurse practitioners, and nurses are all great. They helped us prepare to take home Carter, knowing that he’d stopped breathing at times in the past. They recommended a free CPR class that the Minneapolis campus offers and we were able to take it before we took Carter home. We also had a lot of worry around all of us sleeping at the same time. How would we know if he stopped breathing if we were sleeping too? It made us feel like one of us would have to be watching him at all times, and that didn’t feel sustainable.

We had a long talk with one medical professional after Jeff and I considered getting an Owlet monitor. The AAP does not recommend these monitors, and they explained that’s because they are not shown to change the outcome of the situation. But, what this medical professional said is that it doesn’t take into account things like whether the parents were able to sleep at all, and that counts for something. They ultimately said if this was them, they would get the monitor. (They/them used for concealing this individual’s identity as you won’t find many medical professionals that would have had this “real talk” with parents and would have provided this advice. Advice and compassion that we are very grateful for.)

Eventually, we made it to Saturday, which was 5 days from his last episode. Carter ended up spending 11 days in the NICU, which was a lot more than we were expecting. Going over the discharge paperwork with the nurse confirmed the rollercoaster we’d been on for those 11 days – respiratory distress, Pneumothorax, jaundice, hypoglycemia, and Apnea of Prematurity. We were so thankful to bring him home!