The Birth

So, earlier on, I described what it was like to have a child with Gastroschisis, and I described what that was. What I didn't do, was post all the photos of my time at Primary Children's Hospital and share my experience.

Maddux was born the morning of March 14th. He was immediately taken down stairs from the University of Utah Hospital to Primary Children's. He was placed in their NICU, and stayed there three weeks. During his first day of life, his bowels were placed in a silo, and gravity was used to drop the organ back into his body. This took 12 hours. When I went into surgery, I was terrified. Not of having the surgery, but of really becoming a mother. The idea of being pregnant is fun, and the idea of being a mother is fun. But all that was about to become reality for me. Could I do it? I regret not asking them to let me see my son come out of my body, though I don't know if they would have let me. I did not get to hold my son. I did not hear him cry. He was taken from my body and immediately passed through a window and into the OB NICU, where they placed his body in a plastic bag, to keep the organ wet, while they cleaned him and cleared out his lungs.

His father got to see him and accompany him down to the other hospital. I was on meds for most of the 12 hours. 

Here is the silo they had him hooked up to. The worm looking thing hanging down the side of his belly is his umbilical cord. He has a breathing tube and a PICC line (nutrients that go straight into his heart and blood). His entire body was swollen after his bowels dropped in. His lungs were compressed from it. 

After

On the way down to Primary's, they stopped in my room and attempted to let me see my son. I was pretty out of it, and I could only touch his little toes through the plastic bag they had around his body. 

12 hours after I gave birth, I truly saw my son for the first time. 

This is how my son looked for three weeks. 

 His face was so swollen, I couldn't make out what he really looked like.

 But I was happy. I hardly noticed the tape on his face. All I saw was my perfect baby.

Four days after he was born, I held him for the first time, but only like this. I could not hold him close to my body until he was over a week old. 

This was the first time I bathed my son. 

 It was a sponge bath.

 This was the first time I styled his hair.

 This was the first time Grandma Jan met Baby Maddux.

During those difficult nights and hard 12 hours after his birth, I used this teddy bear to replace the child who should be in my arms. the bear was about the same size as my baby boy. The mother instinct inside me overwhelmed me and I often cried for absolutely no reason. To this day, this teddy bear is in Maddux's toy box. 

Hopefully this video works.. I recorded Maddux making his first attempts at movement. 

over time, Maddux began to show his face. The swelling went down and the tapes went away. He was able to digest breast milk, and then he was able to breast feed by himself. soon, all the tubes were removed from his body and he was a baby again. 

some of the first times I got to really hold my baby. I cried my eyes out the first time they put him in my arms. I had waited the longest week of my life to hold that boy. 

 Never have I loved anyone more.

His little face appeared.

Boredom made me a photographer.

 This was the night we spent at the hospital with our son. The hospital wanted to give us a night to spend with him and hear him cry and wake up with him and do all the things a new parent does. We were over joyed, but the bed we got to sleep on was awful.

They let us draw on the marker board above his station. We wanted everyone to know that this baby has a name and it is MADDUX! 

. . . and finally, we were going home!