Kalasek Kiddos: Paxton Dean is here......our worlds are rocked!

Well as I look back at the past blog and thinking I had a month to go before meeting Mr.Paxton I am not writing this from my hospital room on the NICU floor of the Women's Hospital. Ive spent four nights falling asleep crying and waking up crying. We are so very blessed that he is here and both him and I are alive and here. From what was going to be a short stint in the NICU we are now looking at weeks of a whole new life with a newborn. One that involves me going home without a car seat full of baby; spending my maternity leave sitting on a couch watching others take care of my son; and so so so much prayer. For those who haven't followed my new little Paxton blog I will start from the beginning:

the board that they daily update with his stats and his plan for the day and who will be taking care of him for the next 12 hours

Mommys little man. So hard to see him with all the tubes and wires

daddy skin to skin...Brian has worn this awful shirt for 4 days now

My first meeting with the man

Love everything about these moments

His NICU room.

baby feet

dressing little dude up

At my 36 week appointment Paxton seemed fine but small. Dr. Phillips thought maybe even smaller than his 34 week measurements so she got a bit concerned. Even though I have small babies he was measuring even smaller. She thought it could be because he was already dropped so low so maybe she just couldn't get a good measurement bc of his position. I did a growth ultrasound on Friday and they estimated he was about 3 1/2lbs based on the parts of him that they measured. Everything else looked great just tiny. Dr. Phillips said she wanted to induce me at 37 weeks (which would be today). I wasn't thrilled with the idea knowing that Friday (tomorrow) is Eastons 5th birthday and as a mom you don't want to miss anything for any kid and the more kids you have the harder this becomes. Obviously I would do whatever was best for him but I wanted to see a high risk doctor and get another opinion before I decided on anything. We scheduled an appointment for this past Monday with a high risk OBGYN followed by an apt with my regular OBGYN. I was told to count the kicks and focus on that over the weekend. Last Sunday (the 18th) we had a breakfast brunch of Easton with the grandparents bc mine would be out of town for his friend party and we didn't want to make them come to a bounce house place and watch kids bounce off the walls. We wanted them to get some 1x1 time with Mr.Easton. During this breakfast a part of my gut was telling me something wasn't right. I felt Pax but I just felt that he was kicking much stronger the days prior and after all the OJ I was drinking he should be a lot more crazy acting inside me. Brian helped push me out the door to the hospital. Its better to have a nurse tell me I am being paranoid then sit at home all day wondering if I am or am not being paranoid. We left the boys with my parents, telling everyone wed be back in an hour or two. The staff at the hospital got me into a bed and hooked to the monitors. He was moving but my doctor wanted to see him a bit more "happy". They had me chug a giant jug of cold COLD ice water. Immediately he perked up and started going crazy. My Dr then said they would monitor me for another 20 minutes and then we could go home....phew GIANT sigh of relief......welp about 5 minutes later the phone rang and my doctor informed me that according to her and the on-call high risk dr. I would be having him that day and not in fact going home in 20 minutes....WHAT! I immediately freaked out. "This sucks....we cant do this....you said he was barely 3lbs.....I'm scared" Lots of feelings and emotions everywhere.....and lots of tears. They explained that I had a tiny Braxton hicks contraction which I have been having and which are totally normal at this stage in the pregnancy but instead of his heart dropping during the 10 second contraction and then bouncing right back up, Paxton's heart dropped and took 2 whole minutes to come back up. If they sent me home and it did that and never came back up no one would know bc I wouldn't have a monitor telling me that and no one wanted to know what the end result of that would be. So they moved me to a delivery room, got me in my gown, and started the patosin. Dr. Phillip's has a partner and she was the on-call OBGYN Sunday so she came in to break my water. I was comfortable and trying to wrap my head around what was about to happen. They thought since I have such easy, fast vaginal births that I could still delivery naturally. Contractions came and went and then the big ones started. The second I a somewhat large contraction his heart dropped and didn't come up.....5 min later its not coming up. So as Brian and I sat and talked oblivious to all this what was a room with 1 nurse became a room with 4 nurses, then 7 nurses, then an entire room full of nurses throwing on scrubs and yelling. They looked at me and said "he has to come RIGHT NOW!"
UM WHAT! What does that mean? Well I didn't have a chance to ask questions bc they were having me roll to my side, now go to all fours, ok just lay down we are going to surgery....and Grey's Anatomy Style (the only way I know how to describe this next part) they threw scrubs at Brian, a surgery cap on me, and literally grabbed my bed and RAN LIKE HELL down the hall to the surgery room. I was more scared than ever in my life but in those types of situations you just try to deal with what is happened that exact second and not think further than that. Once we got into the surgery room the anesthesia specialist was there and more people in scrubs. He grabbed the gas mask and placed it in front of my face at the same time that big blue sheet went up to shield my abdomen from my torso (like you see in the movies where the moms head is on one side of the sheet and the rest of her is on the other). I stopped him and was like "whoa what are you doing with that mask?" he explained to me that he was going to have to put me under as there was no time for epidural or spinal. I then went straight to the amazing nurse Mindy who at this point had been the only other one besides Brian who had been on this entire journey with me and she reassured me that baby would be fine, I would be fine, and Id only be unconscious for about 10 minutes after he was born. At that point I just had to put the mask on, take deep breaths, and pray that I would in fact wake up, and most importantly that when I woke up I would have a baby. Now during all this time Brian was living a different type of nightmare. He was putting on scrubs at a frantic pace, running after my bed down the hall, and then once they were going to put me out they had him step out of the room. They had to intubate me and put a breathing tube down my throat, strap me down, and do it all at turbo speed so they were not going to be gentle about any of it so they didn't think Brian should see that. (Plus if he would faint or throw up or anything they couldn't help him as their main focus had to be on me and Paxton). The timeline went like this:
9:19 leave the delivery room
9:20 enter the surgery room
9:22 put mask on me
9:25 make incision
9:25 pull out Paxton...he is born
They were fast, efficient, and true masters at their craft. The OBGYN on-call did the first incision and my actual OBGYN got there in time to sew me back up. It happened so fast that she was en route when they started this whole thing and they obviously weren't going to wait for her before starting anything. When I came too I was in pain but on a morphine pump and highly emotional. Its all kind of a blur when I try to think back on it now. My OB was sitting on the recovery bed with me and let me know right away that I was fine, Paxton was fine, and Brian has been with Paxton from the second that he was pulled out of me. I was bawling and I'm sure asking other questions about my worries and concerns. Dr. Phillips went up to get Brian and bring him down as he was just as worried about me as he was about Paxton. He came down and sat with me for a bit and then they moved me to what would be my home base for the next 4 days and 4 nights. I was in a ton of pain and super emotional after going through what all we had in the past couple hours, but I was also overly grateful and blessed that Paxton was here and healthy according to his age and size. When I was told that he was 4lb 3oz as weird as it sounds I was overjoyed. I went into the entire situation imagining a 3lb baby and all that he would have to go through to get to a healthy size. Now 4lbs 3oz is not large by any means but in the NICU world he isn't considered premature or something to be overly concerned with. This kind of gave Brian and I a misleading expectation that he would just bounce into being a normal baby and be home in just a couple extra days then the average newborn.....we were WRONG!
I have mapped out the timeline of Paxtons journey so far on a separate site so I wont use this blog to do the daily updates and stories of his journey as I still want to keep this about our entire family, but for this particular blog I will give you a high level of the journey thus far.
Paxton is adorable. He is sweet, super chill, and looks exactly like Benjamin did. Everyone thinks so. We don't have to limit guests (unless they are children. Kids have to be 14 years of age or siblings to go to the NICU floor. And even siblings have to be potty trained so Benny wont get to meet him til he comes home). We don't have to wear scrubs or gloves when we handle him. All we have to do is make sure that we wash and sanitize our hands before we touch him each time. So If I grab my phone to take a pic I need to wash before I touch him again. No guest can come to the floor if they are sick because there are some kids on this floor that are very very sick or very very tiny. I'm talking they admit babies that are less than 1 lb or need transplants and surgeries etc. We don't know the stories of those sharing the floor with us, but you can tell by alarms that you constantly hear, the whispers of nurses, and just the manner in which they go into another room. Some rooms they have to get in head to toe scrubs and sanitized attire before even entering. It really helps put into perspective our particular situation but it doesn't make us stop worrying, crying constantly, and panicking that things are worse then they seem. So far Paxton has just shown us that he is what Cally my NICU nurse friend says they call "a wimpy white boy". He doesn't want to put much effort into anything right now and sleep seems to be all he will do. The first 2 1/2 days we were okay with it. We realized he didn't really understand he was outside of the womb and just needed to figure it out. But then on day 3 when he still wouldn't open his eyes at ALL (not even during bath time), hasn't cried, doesn't fight them at all during blood draws or when they put oxygen or CPAP tubes in his nostrils etc it got scary for us. They did a brain ultrasound, chest Xray, and lots of labs the past 24 hours. Not all of these we knew were coming, and with tests and scary machines comes a lot of emotions and meltdowns (see Paxtons blog for more details on that). What we have found out so far is that he has only been utilizing about 70% of his lung capacity so that is why he needed to be put on the CPAP machine. This machine forces the air down into the bottom of his lungs to open them up so he can take the deep breaths needed to breath like a normal baby. He has spent the past two days shallow breathing which most likely has made him exhausted and is why he just doesn't want to be awake or interact yet. Not this is all "probably" no one can say this is 100% why which is what is so hard for me to take in. I want definite answers and solutions NOW! That doesn't happen in this world and I just cant emotionally except that yet. I will but again we are only on day 4 (although it feels like day 400). Time in that small NICU room of Paxtons is a whole other universe and world and it can literally make you feel crazy. Listening to beeps, reading machines/and stats, focusing on the same thing every second.....it breaks you. I am sure stronger moms who maybe don't have a C section they are trying to also recover from take a lot longer than 4 days to break. From what I am finding by the many friends and acquaintances who have reached out to share their personal stories and experiences having kiddos in the NICU this is normal. Crying 24/7 happens to them all at one point or another. But as Paxtons doctor keeps telling me "this is why you have babies in hospitals....so we can get them to where they need to be before they go home, so when they go home you can worry less knowing every inch of them has been checked and rechecked to ensure they will thrive at home". Also they have a counselor that comes and talks to us daily bc the depression and post partum depression rates increase exponentially when you have a kid in the NICU. She said its always harder for the moms who have other children at home. That I have to just take it day by day, even hour by hour. I cant ever feel guilty that I am not at home with the other 2, and when I am home with the other 2 I cant feel guilty or judge myself that I am not in his room. He has the best baby sitters in the world right now taking care of him every moment of everyday. That helps but then I look at him laying on my chest or in his incubator and the tears start rolling. I just want him to start interacting with me now and he just needs more time. They keep explaining that the only way for him to grow and his brain to keep growing etc is for him to sleep. Sleep is when that all takes place and right now just breathing takes up so much energy that he just needs to focus on that for awhile. It all makes sense its just hard for me to sit and watch and not be able to do anything besides love on him and pump so he has my milk as his food. I am already pumping a ton so I feel like I am at least doing something for his well being. The lab takes my milk and adds calories to it too which is really cool. I think the struggle for Brian and I is that we expect to see improvement each day. We expect him to be doing something more each day, or working towards going home. So far on day 4 we haven't seen that. We are waiting for his newborn screening results to come back which could tell us why he isn't being very responsive and as the doctor states his "tone is low for a baby his size/age". We may need a neurologist, more tests, more scans, or we may just need to give him time. Unfortunately no one has the crystal ball to tell us these things. I immediately go to a bad place where the possibility of very scary things are wrong with him, Brian is a tad more practical but also very analytical so he wants to call every specialist known to man to come look at Paxton asap, and everyone else just fills us with love, hope, and well wishes that do help us when we get very down in the dumps. As much as we would love our doctor to march in Pax's room and say she is going to call all the best specialists in Omaha to come do evaluations and tell us exactly what is wrong and when he will be acting like a more "normal" baby that's not reality. His situation is so far below an "emergency" where a specialists would need to come see him straight away and we have to keep realizing he isn't the only baby here who is struggling to thrive. And as we were told today there are 9 pregnant moms at the hospital on high alert who will be having babies that need NICU care any day now. This is their world. I'm sad that I have to live in it right now but I am so very happy and blessed to be at a hospital that not only specializes in women's health, births, and babies, but also has an amazing 5 star NICU. For now I wait, cry, ask a LOT of questions, advocate for Paxton since he cant do it himself, cry some more, and try to take care of myself and my other little loves to the best of my ability.

Tomorrow my very special Easton turns 5. He is the kindest, sweetest, most special child and I am sick that his day wont be spend solely in my company. He has cowboy day at PreSchool so my mom made sure he will be decked out (Benny got a cowboy outfit as well of course); Brian is off buying and blowing up balloons since I like to fill his room with them so he wakes up sleeping in a bed of balloons, and my mom is also getting birthday donuts to delivery to Mary Pats in the morning so that he can bring something to share with his friends. Thankful for my type A personality during this time bc I had already made the goodie bags for him to take to Pre-School to pass out and I have all the décor and goodie bags for his bouncy house party Saturday done. I hope to be there for the party Saturday but want to make sure that if Paxton needs me all day that Brian is left scrambling around. Brians brother and Angie are going to pick the boys up from daycare tomorrow and take them all to the pumkin patch and dinner so that Brian and I can be up here all of tomorrow and then I will stay home with the boys tomorrow night and Brian will camp out with Pax. Once he starts nursing on his own I will need to be the one here during the nights so this is Brians opportunity to hold him while he eats and cuddle him all night. Also Brian wants to know whats going on at all hours and since the daytime will be handled by me until he goes home Brian wants to at least be 100% present during the night time happenings. This way I will get to hang with the boys at night, tuck them in, and then get them ready and hang in the morning until brian picks us up for drop offs lol (me at the hospital and the boys to Mary Pats house). I want to do a special shout out to my parents and Brians parents and Patrick and Angie. When I say people are stepping in to help its way above and beyond. My mom has gone to COSCO and filled out fridge and freezer with meals that will last us days, the moms of the kids that go to Mary Pats are doing meals and other things for us, Brians parents have been help clean the pool and check the house, and both sets of grandparents have taken the boys for dinner and overnight at a very short moments notice. Pat and Angie are helping make Eastons birthday extra fun and special and helping Brian set up the party so that I can still be there and then leave and not be away from Paxton for too terribly long. Mary Pat is a whole other story of amazingness. She wants the boys to stay with her overnight (although they haven't had to yet) she is taking them for the next however many Fridays, she took them to dinner last night and then brought them up here, she brought Paxton and me some comfy clothes to wear at the hospital, etc. I cant imagine going through what we are going through and not having all that help, love, and support.

We knew that adding #3 would come with challenges and a new schedule but this was not at all what we had in mind. As I try to remind myself hourly and sometimes every minute this is a great reminder that what happens is not my plan. It is and always has been HIS plan. God has us all in his hands and we just need to reach out to him in our trying times (and we should in our not so trying times as well although its easy to forget to do that). He has had a plan for Paxton all along and even though its VERY hard for me to grasp that and be okay with the fact that HIS plan and mine did not align I have to trust in it. Whenever Brian tells me that "its going to be okay eventually" I always respond "but I want to no when its going to be okay.....I can handle a lot as long as I know when its going to end" Sadly no one can tell us that end date. What started as a short little stay at hotel NICU is going to end up being much much longer than we want, but he is in the best place for him at this time. I need to let the professionals do their job, continue to question them, ask questions, keep all information logged myself so I am always informed, and just continue to follow my gut. The reason he is still here is because I followed my gut and intuition and listened to what he was trying to tell me. I will continue to listen to what I think Paxton is telling us and loving on him as much as I can.

If you want to follow Paxtons daily updates send me a text or email. I'm not sure what other way to share the site with people other than sending them the invitation via email, facebook, or text. Its on an app called 23snaps (its free) so if you have that app on your phone you might just be able to look up Paxton Dean's site, but if not reach out to me and Ill be happy to send you the invite so you can get the updates there. God Bless!