The Story of Ammon

Now that Ammon is one-and-a-half months old, I figure I better post about him. We have been through so much to get this little guy here that we're still playing catch-up. It all started after two-and-a-half years of trying, unsuccessfully, to have a baby. Finally, as a last resort, we decided to try superovulation with IUI. Very surprisingly, it worked!!! On January 4th of 2011, I was pregnant. It was very sketchy in the beginning and we didn't know if I would keep the baby. It wasn't until we saw his ultrasound at 20 weeks and determined it was a boy that we knew this was to be and could relax. I had a relatively normal pregnancy until at 30 weeks I was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes. I didn't think too much of it as I just needed to control it with diet and exercise and my doctor was confident it wouldn't cause any complications if I stayed on track. I was religious about taking my blood sugar, getting daily exercise, and eating right - and I felt great. I lost a lot of water weight, I was much less tired, and I kept my blood sugar levels down.

At 32 weeks I was feeling pretty huge and I could tell the baby had already dropped. I knew I would come early - I just didn't think there was any room left for the baby. However, I didn't know I would come that early! I was in Michaels one day when I had a contraction that left me breathless. Not really experiencing contractions off of pitocin, I was unsure of what had happened. I waited to see if it would happen again - false alarm I didn't have any more that day. A few days later, Eric and I spent a night in Park City for our anniversary. While there, I had quite a few contractions in succession. Still thinking I was overracting, I just took some tylenol and made a note to call the doctor on Monday. The next day I had a few more, but they had died down. By Monday, I was unconcerned even though I had a few more while at Walmart. That day I must have been nesting because I vacuumed and dusted the entire house. Still awake and cleaning up at 1:00am in the morning, I bent down to pick something up and felt a gush of water - I knew immediately what it meant and I was scared. I hobbled upstairs to wake Eric. I was litterally gushing at that point whereas with Alex it had just been a little flow (sorry for the TMI). We called a friend to come stay with Alex and immediately rushed to the hospital. I had only packed a little of my hospital bag and I was able to grab a few more things but on the whole was totally unprepared - I was only 34 weeks exactly.

My Dad and sister Cherie met us at the hospital. I was only dialated to a 1 so we knew it would be awhile before he would arrive. Eric and Dad gave me a blessing before Dad left and we settled in for a long night. The on-call doc suggested we wait awhile to see if I would progress naturally which was fine with me because I hate pitocin. When Dr. Frorer showed up in the morning, I hadn't moved much and was only dialated to a 3. He suggested we start pitocin right away as we were running out of time. I made sure to have an epideral immediately - which was more painful than I remembered but I didn't want to have any narcotics or drugs beside the epideral so that might of had something to do with it. From there I still progressed slowly. The baby was starting to get stressed and his heart rate began to drop. They started threating c-section, put me on oxygen, and monitored the baby internally. Finally, they were ready to go to c-section and checked me one more time- luckily I was dialted to a ten and could deliver vaginally. They rushed me to the operating room (just in case) that had a pass-through window into the NICU. It took four pushes and about five mintues to deliver him - and he was beautiful! As I was delivering him, Eric told me he had hair and I started laughing I was so happy. When he was born they placed him on my tummy while the cut the cord and I held his little hand. Then the quickly rushed him to the pass-through window and to the NICU. He weighed 5 pounds, 6 ounces and was 21 inches long! Pretty big for a 34 weeker!

After the delivery we found out that his lungs were not developed and they had to aspirate him, put him on surfactant and a CPAP machine. We were unable to see him for about two hours after the birth. We weren't expecting him to have problems so this was a little scary - it was finally starting to dawn on us that we wouldn't be able to take home our newborn for awhile. My GD had contributed to his lungs being undeveloped and might have also caused me to go into preterm labor. I also don't think my body could handle him getting any longer. I just hope that the next one does not come earlier!!! Finally, as I was wheeled up to Recovery in a stretcher, we were able to visit Ammon for about ten minutes. I started to cry when I saw him! I couldn't see his face and he was hooked up to soooo many machines! We could touch his hands and feet but couldn't hold him yet. It was really scary. That night we were allowed to come down again for about an hour and I got to hold him for about five minutes. Dad came to visit and gave Ammon a blessing with Eric.

The first couple of days were REALLY rough - Ammon would not open his eyes and was incredibly sensitive to any touch. After three days, the nurses started to get apprehensive and said that he was not getting better and they didn't know why. Of course, this is the last thing a mother wants to hear and it sent me into a nervous breakdown. On top of Ammon's lungs not being developed, he had contracted pneumonia. They did daily x-rays of his chest to watch the pneumonia. He also didn't seem to be digesting his food so they did an x-ray of his stomach. In the x-ray, they caught the bottom tail of the lungs and found a pneumothorax (a hole in the lungs with air leaking around them) which they hadn't caught in the previous x-rays. Once they treated the pneumothorax, Ammon finally begain to improve. I believe it was a blessing that they were able to find the problem so quickly - I know that our prayers, fasting, and blessings were answered.

Ammon stayed in the NICU for a total of sixteen days and fifteen nights. It was one of the hardest things I've ever experienced. I just wanted to hold and love my newborn and yet I had people telling me what I could and couldn't do. Every night I'd go home empty-handed. We didn't even really get to see what he looked like for a week until they took him off the CPAP. It was one of the best days when we finally brought our little one home! We had to take him home on oxygen, and up to this point he is still on it. We can't really go anywhere because his lungs are still not fully developed and he is very susceptible to infection. We are just so glad to have this little miracle in our lives! We know Heavenly Father blessed us with him and we couldn't be happier to have him as a part of our family! We couldn't wait to meet him and apparently he couldn't wait to meet us either!!!!