Cadence asked me if I was older than 20.
Yes, most of us are over 20s, I replied.
You don’t look old!
I look good for my age! To which Cadence laughed at for 20 minutes.
I asked Cadence about it afterwards and she said that Mee Mee told her “it doesn’t matter if you’re nice, it matters if you’re right.” 😳😳😳
Nadia came to visit for Blake’s 2 week birthday! Having a preemie @ 25 weeks, she gets the process and was very helpful to have at the hospital today!
Blake had another oxygen desaturation (77%) in the past 24 hours. He was set to come home Thursday but has been set back. I spoke with a doc today as they’d expect a kid of Blake’s age to be progressing a bit better & to provide another course of action. She expects that it is preemie apnea but says we could do some checks.
She said we could do a brain ultrasound to make sure the brain is developing properly. So, we did that today. Results should be in tomorrow.
Next we’ll probably do a numagram, which monitors Blake’s breathing to see if there’s any blockage that’s causing his apnea.
We could potentially decide to bring him home before he’s able to self-stabilize. They’d put him on caffeine and would give us a monitor to use while he sleeps. Then at 44 weeks he’d do a sleep study at Children’s Hospital where they’d investigate his apnea more. Nurse said some people don’t like it b/c of the stress of the monitor.
I’m grateful Blake is getting good care at Newton-Wellesley Hospital and to have them investigate and provide alternate courses of action. Of course we want him to come home soon & be healthy!
Saturday, August 12th, night of meteorite showers, just past 36 weeks, my water broke.
Cadence, San, & I had just returned from gelato. I get out of the car, and boom, water everywhere. I wonder if I peed on myself (far too early for my water to break!) & rush inside. I call Adam & ask him to look up how to tell if I peed or water broke. He said to lay down with clean, dry underwear and a pad to see if liquids accumulate.
Adam gets San. We head to Newton-Wellesley Hospital. The nurses ask me how Cadence’s birth went, I tell them her head got stuck on my pelvic bone. They look at Adam & say, yeah, look at his head (or something to that effect)! He replies, you should see her father’s head!
I get admitted and they administer pitocin as they’re worried about infections with preemies. My contractions are slow. We try walking, sleeping. A nurse does crazy yoga-esque exercises with me to help my contractions along. She said I was one of the best woman in labor since I was still smiling after 24 hours. The exercises definitely helped and hurt. I took the epidural somewhere after the 24 hour mark and rested while my cervix expanded. I pushed for 10 minutes and through two contractions. I was happy to be less drugged and more present for this delivery. They put little Blake on my chest. I cut his umbilical cord (Adam declined) & checked out my placenta (which looked like a liver or something).
Blake Chopper Gendreau was born at 4.54 am on August 14th 2017, 19 inches and 5 lbs 14.8 ounces.
He looks like Cadence when she was born but is much calmer. He’ll sleep in a crib by himself! he doesn’t scream when he pees!
They administer a “car seat” test Tuesday. He doesn’t pass. We joke that this is ridiculous and just another way for the hospital to make money selling their car seats. They bring him up to special care with me crying everywhere. He has issues with maintaining his oxygen levels.
Over the next two weeks, we go back and forth to the hospital, meeting a ton of nurses and doctors. They assure us this is pretty normal for preemies. It’s disappointing to have to continually start the countdown again. But we know he’s in good hands.