Hattie's Birth Story

It has taken a while for me to begin writing this post, partly because the last few days have been a whirlwind and I don’t want to leave anything out of the story. But the main reason is that we have received so much love and support from so many people that our words just can’t express the immense gratitude we feel. We want to update all of you, though, so that you know what is going on and, more importantly, so that you are able to be specific in your prayers for our sweet girl. Get ready, there’s a lot of information here.

Before we start our story, let us reassure you that Hattie is in the best imaginable care. She is in the NICU at Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women & Babies in Orlando. We can’t imagine a better setting as she continues to grow. She is stable, breathing on her own and, as the nurses describe her, very feisty.

So how did we get here?

On Saturday, January 5, Melissa was more tired than normal and went to bed at about 8 p.m. She came back down a few hours later because she was having trouble getting comfortable in bed. She tried various chairs and positions, never sleeping for more than 30 minutes to an hour, before we both went back upstairs at about 2 a.m. She really never got comfortable and didn’t get much sleep.

By about 7 a.m. on Sunday, January 6, we began to wonder if she was having Braxton Hicks contractions, something considered normal at 26 weeks into pregnancy. Using this as an opportunity to geek out a bit, I download an iPhone app to track her contractions. They weren’t coming that often and seemed to be making her more uncomfortable than anything so we just continued to monitor. They started getting more frequent through the 10 a.m. hour so we paged the on-call doctor at about 10:30 a.m. She told us everything was probably ok but said we should still be safe and head to the hospital.

So we began to get ready to go to the hospital. As this was to be our third visit in about a three-week period and the doctor didn’t seem to be too alarmed, we hurried but weren’t in a rush. We quickly took showers and I gathered a few things that we might need (after our first frigid visit to the hospital a few weeks ago, we decided to never return to the hospital again without our jackets). By 11:45 a.m. we were on our way. Melissa’s contractions were becoming increasingly painful at this point so I drove as fast as I safely could.

The hospital is about 30 minutes away from our house. Luckily it was Sunday morning and the roads were clear. But it was a bit frustrating when we got to Orange Avenue and stopped at every single traffic light, wasting precious minutes.

At the hospital

At the hospital, we had some trouble getting the Triage registration desk to understand the intense pain Melissa was experiencing. After what felt like days (probably 10 minutes), we saw the vitals nurse in the lobby, then the social worker nurse, and were finally given a room in the Triage area.

Once in our room, the Emergency Room nurse came in and began to ask some questions. She glanced over and saw the amount of blood around Melissa and left, mid sentence, returning a few seconds later with a doctor and an ultrasound machine.

The doctor worked to get the ultrasound ready and the nurse began to look for the baby’s heartbeat using a monitor. She had trouble finding one, but said it could be because Melissa was only 26 weeks and was having a contraction. When the ultrasound machine came to life the room fell silent as we all watched the screen. I remember my own heart skipping a beat when I first saw the 66 beats per minute on the screen (ideally it would be around 150). With that, the doctor dropped everything and just walked out of the room, only to return a few seconds later with more doctors and nurses.

It’s important to point out here just how small these Triage rooms are. They are oddly shaped (I’m not sure square walls exist in the whole hospital) with only enough room for a bed at an angle, a chair for husbands and a few pieces of equipment.

As more and more people arrived, I began to shimmy around the room from my perch in the back corner to the door so that I could stay out of the way. Looking into the room, there must have been eight people standing around Melissa with one doctor who was clearly in charge barking orders. The doctor checked Melissa and yelled out she was nine centimeters dilated. Less than a minute later, I heard him say something about an “OR” and then watched as he turned to Melissa and said, “you are having your baby today.”

I can still hear those words repeating in my head. It’s hard to describe how I remember them, other than to say that I remember them so vividly.

Before we knew it, Melissa’s bed was on the move. Nurses were yelling for her to keep her keep her hands inside the bed as they went through the door. Someone grabbed my bag of supplies (remember the jackets?) from me and told me to follow them upstairs.

As we approached the elevator, I remember hearing a doctor ask for someone to alert the NICU. We all rode up one level and as I write this I can’t seem to remember what happened or what we talked about. I think Melissa was in a bit of shock and I was doing everything I could to keep from turning into a blubbering mess.

As we approached the entrance to the operating room, I was told to wait in another hospital room. As I sat there, I was in disbelief at the events up to this point. A nurse came to tell me that they would take me into the operating room after they had decided if she was going to be awake during the surgery. All I remember was asking her for some tissues.

So I waited. I knew we needed support. Earlier, I had sent a text message to both of our moms when we arrived at the hospital saying that we were going to get checked out and I would keep them updated. My mom had responded and asked if she should get on a plane to come to Florida. I had originally told her that wasn’t necessary, but now things were different. My next text to her read simply, “please come.” I realize now how she must have felt when reading those two words but it was all I could say. I’m not sure I was in control. I had no cell reception, but luckily I was also able to send a few iMessages over wi-fi to the few close friends I could think of who have iPhones.

I started to pick up the phone in the room to call a few others, but then a nurse came to tell me that I might be able to go into the OR and started suiting me up with booties over my shoes, a smock, hat and face mask. I was overjoyed (and a little a lot scared) when they came for me. I couldn’t have been in that little room for more than about four minutes, but it felt like hours.

I didn’t know what to expect when I walked through the doors of the OR. Would Melissa be ok? Would our little Hattie be ok? All I knew was that my entire world was behind those doors.

What I did see was a scene like no other. The operating room was big but it was filled with people. There had to be 30 people there, all scurrying around doing important things. They took me to Melissa on the operating table in the middle of the room with big spotlights on her. She was awake and when she saw me, asked how Hattie was doing. There it was: my first indication that our daughter had been born, exactly 20 minutes from our arrival in the waiting room.

They sat me down next to Melissa to hold her hand. From my awkwardly positioned chair, I could see a group of doctors working furiously on one side of the room, presumably on Hattie.

As it turns out, we learned that Melissa was nine centimeters dilated in the emergency room and was having the baby no matter what. About three minutes and three pushes after getting to the OR, Hattie was here.

I was a bit surprised to see Dr. Fritz from our OB practice on the other side of the operating table ordering others around. She was the doctor we had talked to just a couple of hours prior and I didn’t realize that she was going to be at the hospital. She later told us that she was surprised as well. She just happened to be on that floor when Melissa rolled by and recognized her name. She followed the group into the OR, verified Melissa was her patient, and delivered our baby. What a blessing to have a familiar face present.

A nurse came to me and took my cell phone so she could get photos of Hattie. Someone else handed me a little card with her footprints on it (strangely, I remember wondering how they had time to do that with everything that was going on). Shortly thereafter Hattie’s neonatologist, Dr. Alexander, came across the room to give us an update. I don’t remember much, but I do recall him saying her heartbeat had been almost nonexistent at birth and she had not been breathing. But both were remedied now and Hattie was stable.

Dr. Alexander asked me to come with him to see Hattie. She was so small! He told me to give her a kiss on her forehead to show her how much she is loved. I was worried that I would hurt her, but I did it. I was the first person ever to be given the honor of kissing our sweet little child.

They took her to be weighed and let me snap a photo of the scale. Then they took her to Melissa for kiss number two. They loaded her up into a little cart and then Dr. Alexander, a brigade of nurses and I all headed off for the NICU.

On the way up, Dr. Alexander talked to me a bit about the care they would provide in the NICU and explained that we should be “cautiously optimistic” about Hattie. I met a nurse or two and was then told to come back in a little while after they had gotten a chance to get things set up.

I headed back down to find Melissa who was now in a delivery room (where we would have delivered in a different situation). I think we were still both in disbelief at what had happened. I still had no cell service, but a kind nurse lent me her cell phone so we could call Melissa’s mom to tell her the news. By then our friend Linda arrived (less than 30 minutes after the delivery and with a gift—this lady is amazing!) and we learned that my mom was flying down a few hours later.

An hour or so later we moved into another room upstairs, but on the way stopped off at the NICU to see Hattie again. They were still busy getting her set up, but it was comforting to see that she is in good hands.

Right now

Melissa was discharged Tuesday. She is in great condition physically. The birth was natural with no anesthesia. She’s just a little sore.

Emotionally, we are both doing ok. This was so unexpected and it happened so quickly that we were left in a daze Sunday night and didn’t get much sleep. But Monday brought more clarity, time for us to adjust and a (fairly) good night’s sleep. It was hard to leave the hospital without a baby and all we think about when we’re not there is when we can see her again.

Luckily, we’re able to visit the NICU whenever we want (it’s encouraged), and we plan to spend as much time there as we possibly can.

So what happened?

We don’t exactly know what caused Melissa to go into early labor. Dr. Fritz told us that often times pre term labor is not preventable and Hattie likely would’ve come early no matter what.

Melissa had been experiencing some spotting for the past couple of weeks but two trips to the hospital and one trip to the doctor’s office showed that there was no apparent issue with the placenta, Hattie looked great and Melissa’s cervix was in good condition. Sometimes, we were told, people just have spotting. It’s not clear if that had anything to do with the early labor.

The doctors assume that the placenta must have been leaking. When they examined it, they saw that it was dry, off-color and oddly shaped. It appears that Hattie got all of the nutrients she could from it and then decided it was time to come out (eat and run, I suppose).

A normal heart rate for a baby of Hattie’s age in the womb is around 150 beats per minute; when we arrived at the triage, Hattie was at about 66; when she was born it was almost nonexistent and she wasn’t breathing. Dr. Alexander told us this morning that they immediately put in her breathing tube and did chest compressions for about 30 seconds. That was all it took to get her heart beating again on its own.

What we believe

We don’t believe that Hattie arrived earlier than she was supposed to. Rather, she arrived earlier than what’s considered normal. We believe there’s a clear distinction between those two descriptions and that Hattie arrived as God perfectly intended, no matter what we might have been expecting. We may never understand why it happened this way, but please know that nothing here was an accident.

What can you do?

We are so blessed with an amazing group of family, friends, coworkers and complete strangers who have rallied around us with phone calls, emails, text messages and visits. You have each lifted us up in a way that you can’t imagine. I know there are calls we’ve missed, voicemails not returned and messages left unanswered, but please know that we’ve received them all and we can’t thank you enough for your support.

At this point we’re not sure we really need anything concrete, though we’re sure that will come. What we do need now are your prayers. We will try to include specific things to pray for in our posts.

In general, please pray …

• …that Hattie would grow up to be healthy and strong with no complications from being a preemie.
• …for protection from infection and other illness.
• …for the hands of the doctors and nurses that care for Hattie each day, that they would have the utmost skill to discern the best treatments for her.
• …for Chris and Melissa, that we would be the best possible parents for Hattie.
• …for Hattie, that God might work through her tiny body to be a blessing to so many others and that she would fulfill His will here on Earth.

As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me.”

—John 9:1-4

Again, thank you for your support, prayers and all-around love over the past few days and for the next several months. There are sure to be ups and downs along the way and we are going to need all the prayer and support we can get. We’ll continue updating Hattie’s blog as long as people care to read it.

We’re so excited to be parents, can’t get over how proud we are of every achievement she has made and are overcome by the love we feel for her.