Mom had her usual appointment with her Doctor this past Monday, February 23rd, instead of it being at 1pm, it was 2pm, because we all thought that Patrick would decide to make his entrance before his due date of February 21. When we got called back I noticed the induction paperwork had a date of Tuesday, February 24 @ 9am. Mom tried to put this off, but the next available date was March 6, 2 days before I have a business trip to Memphis. So, Monday night, Mom and I met at Wal-Mart for some last minute items, then decided to take them home and go out to dinner one last night as a DINK family (dual income, no kids). We went to Outback and then returned home to repack all of the bags, making sure we had everything we needed.
The next morning Mom had a big breakfast and we headed off to Winnie Palmer for the big induction, which was scheduled for 9am. It appears that Patrick was not ready to leave the wonderful environment that Mom had provided for him. Our Doctor was able to break the water and things really progressed quickly after that. Mom was so good that she went from 5 to 10cm in what seemed like no time. By the time the nurse checked to see if she was fully dialated we could already see Patrick's head, which was face-up, which it shouldn't be, unfortunately it was too late for him to be turned around, so the nurse told Mom to stop pushing and the Doctor was called. The doctor came in and told her to continue pushing and Patrick Hays Bingham was born at 2:53am on Wednesday, February 25, 2009, weighing in at 8 pounds, 3 ounces and 21.5" in length.
As Mom was delivering she bled some, no big concern, right? Well, after Patrick was born the doctor drew the blood from his cord for storage (it could save my life one day) and thought the job was done, as it should have been. About 10 minutes after birth (6 minutes after the placenta had been delivered, yes, I looked at it) Mom's blood pressure dropped and she began to bleed profusely, the nurse paged the doctor repeatedly and when he didn't answer immediately I then heard him paged throughout the entire hospital, I then knew something serious was going on as I was holding my newborn son. The doctor came in to the room and said three words, "take her back" which meant to the operating room. Mom was quickly unhooked from a lot of tubes, etc... and quickly rolled to the OR while I was left holding Patrick with my Mom and Wendy's good friend Amy in attendance. I knew Wendy had lost a ton of blood, and I knew we both thought we might not see each other again - but I had to hold it together (Amy later told me that Wendy's blood pressure dropped to 50/20).
So - I paced the labor/delivery room alternating the baby between me, my Mom, and Amy, with one of us going to ask for updates regularly. I had this perfect, beautiful son, a true gift from God, the most precious thing I had ever seen and there was a real chance I might lose his Mom. About 30 minutes later a nurse came into the room and told me that Wendy's cervix was torn in multiple places and was being stitched up, and that she would be OK. A huge sigh of relief... About 5am I was told that Wendy wanted to see me and Patrick as she was now in recovery. I brought the baby to Mom and she didn't have the strength to hold him, so I got him close to Mom and unfortunately he needed to eat, as he was 2+ hours old and we were holding out to breastfeed, but Dad had to give him a bottle for his first meal. Patrick was then taken back to the nursery on the 8th floor so Dad could be with Mom since the recovery area was tight.
Soon thereafter Wendy's doctor came into the recovery area and informed me of the severity of the situation. She basically was bleeding out in the room and had transfusions of blood and plasma in the operating room which kept her alive. He lost count of how many stitches he placed in her cervix to repair the lacerations, but said he had never seen anything like it. She is living on the blood of donors now, so if you ever thought of donating, please do it.
We finally got out of recovery after 5 or so hours, then got into a room on the 9th floor, which is where they can monitor Mom's heartrate, oxygen, BP, etc... They continued to give her blood slowly as her BP came up, platelets, etc... started to return to normal over the next few days.
On Thursday we got a visit from Wendy's doctor who was still in disbelief over the whole experience of delivery, and seeing that from a man who has delivered thousands and thousands of babies was quite profound. He had previously stated to me that the Good Lord was looking out for us because a hospital like Winnie Palmer could handle the situation (we literally had 15 nurses and 2 doctors working on Wendy in a matter of seconds), whereas a hospital like South Lake (which is 2 minutes from the house) probably could not have handled this situation. Say what you want, but it was the Lord looking out for us.
Friday has been a good day - Mom has been up and about walking the hallways. Another Doctor from the practice checked in about 5pm and will more than likely discharge us tomorrow. We are really looking forward to going home with our perfect angel of a son.
As I conclude this first "blog" and I do not know how regular I will be with it. There was definitely something at work in how the birth of our son transpired. I personally believe it was the Lord giving us a son who is perfect (not even jaundiced) and obviously knew something was up with Mom because he did not scream or cry AT ALL during this trying time. The Lord also gave the Doctors and Nurses the quick hands to sew her wounds and the donors of blood who saved her life.
What an amazing week it has been in our family...
