The Traveling Times of the Torri Family: November 2012

I am finally getting things back on track here. I took a bit of a break from the blog since I had Eli. But I wanted to share our story.

Shortly after we returned from the wedding, I decided to get a move on cleaning and setting up Eli's room. We needed to move our bedroom furniture from the spare room to the master. But first I had to clean the master bedroom and bath. I was 6 weeks from my due date so I thought I would get started!

It was July 30th. Liam was home and helping me clean. When I say helping I mean he was shooting his nerf gun in the large empty mater bedroom. I was cleaning the walls and feeling good so I thought I would just keep going until Liam's nap so I could take a nap too. In the process of cleaning I thought standing on the coffee table to reach something would be a great idea. Let's just say grace and balance have never been a friend to me. So as I fell off the coffee table and landed on my stomach. I made a call to Chris and made him come home. Since it would take him 15-20 minutes to get home, he called Lauren. Lauren came over to check on me and wait for Chris. At this point, I had not felt Eli move yet. Lauren suggested waiting about 2 hours and resting. So Chris sent me to bed and took care of Liam. Eli started to move a bit but it didn't feel right to me. After 2 hours, we called labor and delivery and told me to come it. Chris stayed home with Liam until he woke from his nap. I drove to SAMMC and checked it at L&D. We had been to L&D before for some preterm labor and waited a 2 plus hours. However this time it was instant access to a room. I was in a room before Chris could get there. Lauren took Liam for us until Seamus and Blaire could home and take him.

At the hospital, they hooked me up to the monitors, drew some blood work and started an IV. I wanted for Chris to arrive. Thankfully my contractions stopped with the IV fluids. Chris arrived and we waited for the doctor to come talk with us. Eli was looking great on the monitor, so we thought we would be going home that night. The doctor arrived, did an ultrasound and said that we were just waiting on lab results. Chris and I thought we would be going home soon. The doctor came back in with my lab results. They were not great. It seemed to be pointing to a bleed with the placenta. My H&H, platelets and fibrinogen were all low. Mostly my fibrinogen was super low, about 400 points to low. I would be spending the night at the hospital for observation. I sent Chris home to get me my toothbrush and then to bring dinner back.

*side note......... Chris had to bring me dinner because I ordered the steak for dinner. It sounded good but was terrible. When I told him this he said "order steak from the hospital was like ordering the steak from a strip club." *

So we called Blaire and Seamus to let them know that we would be needing them to stay over night with Liam. I had to find someone to watch Liam after Blaire and Seamus went to work. I made some phone calls and thankfully our friend Linda would take Liam for the day. I spent the night getting poked every few hours for blood draws. So much for getting some rest.

The next morning, July 31st, the doctor came in with some news we were not prepared to receive. My blood work was not improving. In fact all my counts were dropping. He told us that we had 3 options and he would be disscussing them with the head OB. Option 1 - get some blood, Option 2 - deliver the baby Option 3 - get blood and deliver the baby. So Chris and I started praying that no matter the result we would trust that God had a plan and we would be fine. It didn't take long for the doctor to come back. They decided to deliver the baby. We would start with a small dose of pitocin to see if Eli could handle the contractions. If he could not handle the contractions, they would be scheduling a c-section. Chris and I got on the phone and began to set up child care for Liam before we started the pitocin. Thankfully Blaire and Seamus would take him and then Linda was going to keep him at her house for a few days too. I spent the whole day laying around waiting for some of the medicine to work. It would take 12 hours. We were in for a long night.

The morning of the 1st brought new medication and hopefully a baby. They kicked up the pitocin at 8am and I they started the epidural about that time. I say started because it took four attempts to get in in the right spot and working. That was not the best experience. However, once it worked I was much happier. By 10am, the epidural was working and I was napping. It was nice to be able to sleep for a while before the baby. Chris and I took a nap until about 245pm. The doctor came in to give us our plan for delivery. We were to deliver in the OR just incase something went wrong and the NICU team would be standing by to help with the baby. The doctor check me and said I was at dilated to 9 and she would be back soon but first wanted me to roll onto my side. Our baby was not showing on the monitor. However, before she could roll me, it was time to push! We didn't even have time to go to the OR. We did a quick set up and started pushing. It took 5 minutes of pushing and we had a beautiful baby boy! Chris cut the cord but he had to go get checked out. They held up Eli for me to see but I wasn't able to hold him.

It was hard. I heard him cry but the NICU staff wanted to check him out. He was taken back to the NICU right away. I wasn't about to see him until 8pm. It was the longest five hours ever. He was perfect in every way. He spent 20 days in the NICU. His time in the hospital was tough. We had some very rough days and nights. Thankfully the doctors and nursing staff at BAMC were just wonderful! We were very blessed with a wonderful Church family that helped with Liam. My mom came in for Eli's last week in the NICU and his first week home.