Dillon's Beginning

A year ago (yesterday), our sweet little boy was born.  At his five month anatomy ultrasound they discovered that the placenta was too close to the cervix (placenta previa) which means they couldn't let me go into labor at the risk of losing both mother and baby.  We had MANY ultrasounds after that to see if it moved far enough away.  Our last ultrasound was in December and the placenta still needed to move 1/2 a centimeter to be safe.  It had moved but was now moving too slowly and they didn't think it would move far enough.  On December 31st we had an amniocentisis to try to determine if his lungs were mature enough.  The test showed that they were "transitional" so they weren't quite ready.  They had originally wanted to do the c-section on January 2nd but they postponed it to January 8th. 

So, the morning of January 8th we went over to be prepped for surgery.  I was very anxious about the surgery.  They finally wheeled me in and gave me a spinal block.  After a few minutes they ran something across my stomach "can you feel that?"  Yes I could!  They tried again a few minutes later "can you feel that?"  YES I could!  "We'll give it 20 minutes or so to set up".  20 minutes later "can you feel that?"  YES I COULD!  PLEASE just do another one.  So they did a second spinal block.  This spinal block was much less pleasant and made me feel like I needed to throw up but my stomach muscles wouldn't let me.  It was awful. 

Finally the surgery got started with Daddy sitting by my head.  Dillon was born via c-section at 9:36 in the morning. He was 18.25 inches long (though he grew 2 inches in a week so we think that was inaccurate) he was 7 lbs 7.7 oz. I was stitched up, Dillon was cleaned up and given to Daddy.  We (Daddy, Dillon and I) were all brought back to our room. Grandma G had Kayda and brought her in to meet baby brother. 

Shortly after arriving there the nurse noticed Dillon was starting to get a little ashy so they called in an NICU nurse to check him over. She came in an decided to take him over to the NICU because he seemed to be struggling to breathe.  I asked to hold him because I'd only gotten to look at him, I held him long enough to take a picture and then they took him away.  They hooked him up to a respirator and had him in an incubator of sorts to help him maintain his body temperature. They wouldn't let me go see him until I could get myself out of bed and into the wheelchair.  This proved to be easier said than done, they had me on morphine which meant everytime I tried to raise the head of my bed even a little I got light headed and nauseous.

At about 9 Daddy said good night, Dillon was doing well and Daddy needed to get back home for Kayda. Around midnight I was FINALLY able to make it over to him for the first time. He was doing REALLY well, they had lowered his oxygen percentage to almost the normal level and weren't having to use as much pressure. Knowing this, I waited for Daddy to come back the next morning around 9 before going over to see Dillon again (we had to name him still). When we went back over he was doing worse and the doctor said that his left lung had collapsed, he was going to reinflate Dillon's lung by drawing the air in the chest cavity out with a syringe. Turned out they couldn't reinflate the lung that way due to the hole being too large in his lung. They ended up putting in a chest tube and hooking him to a special machine which would pull the extra air out without allowing it to go back in when Dillon exhaled, thus keeping his lung expanded.

Grandpa G and Uncle Pat came to give him a blessing which was a great comfort to Daddy and I. We weren't able to hold him until the 11th because any pressure on or near the chest-tube would hurt him and we didn't want to risk it. I was with him every day and once I was discharged I headed right over to sleep in his room.  I went home once or twice a day to spend time with Kayda but spent most of the time with Dillon.  He ended up recovering much more quickly than expected. He got to come home on the 16th with no permanent effects from having his lung collapse.

Dillon's Firsts:

Intentional smile: 2/20 (1 month, 2.5 weeks)

Grabbed a toy: 4/16 (3 months, 1 week)

Laughed; 4/27 (3 months, 2.5 weeks)

Solid food: 5/22 (4 months, 2 weeks)

Responded to name: 5/31 (4 months, 3 weeks)

First tooth (bottom right): 7/1 ( 5 months, 3 weeks)

Sits alone: 7/21 (6 months, 2 weeks)

Rolls tummy to back: 8/25 (7 months, 2 weeks)

Rolls back to tummy: 8/31 (7 months 3.5 weeks)

Pulls to standing: 9/17 (8 months, 1.5 weeks)

Crawling: 9/26 (8 months, 2.5 weeks)

Stands alone: 11/5 (9 months, 4 weeks)

Climbs stairs: 11/7 (day before 10 months)

Walks between things: 12/5 (10 months, 3.5 weeks)

Other things Dillon can do:

Wave Bye, clap, blow kisses, say "da", "ma", "ba", "pa", "th", "s"