How things got started
On May 17 around 2:45 AM I started to feel some weird cramping and then I thought my water had broken. So, Kris and I headed to Anne Arundel Medical Center a little after 3 AM. When we got to the hospital they discovered that my water had NOT broken but that I was already 3-4 cm dilated and 80% effaced. Since we lived an hour away and I was in early labor, they went ahead and admitted us.
Here we go
By 6 AM, we were in full swing with contractions and were so excited! By 8 AM, the contractions had stalled, so they broke my water and started me on Pitocin. A little before noon, I got the epidural. That process was challenging, but they were able to get the epidural in and working! After that, I was super chill! Sleeping through big contractions, giggling, cracking jokes, making faces!
The last stage
I quickly progressed through my dilation and started pushing around 2 PM. The epidural started wearing off around 3 PM and they gave me another type of medication to help with the pain. Unfortunately….by the time we got to the end, all the pain medication had pretty much worn off… HOLY MOLY…. I do have to say though, despite the pain-it was amazing to watch Anne come into this world! At 5:11 PM, Anne Young Nodianos was born, weighing 7 lb 6.8 oz, 18 ½ inches long. Kris was able to cut her umbilical cord…and he did so like a champ! I do highly recommend moms to let the nurses set up a mirror so you can watch your baby being born! What an experience…
Uh-oh
When Anne was born, they put her on my chest and I simply couldn’t believe her! Everyone talks about the moment you see your child for the first time-but I was not prepared for the rush of emotion. Then they took her to get her cleaned up and assessed. Her vitals were great, but they couldn’t get her to cry. The NICU staff came down quickly and was unable to get her to cry in our room, so they had to take her to the NICU unit. Kris went with her over to NICU. I’ll let him tell you what happened over there.
Kris: The NICU experience was quite non-eventful. No crying, no distress (except maybe on Mom and Dad’s side). The nurse connected wires to Anne to monitor blood pressure, body temperature, and heart rate. All of her vitals were exactly where they needed to be. She did not look at all bothered about having these wires connected to her. She was lying in a warming bed so I’m sure that helped to make her a little more comfortable. With no action occurring in the NICU, I was going to stay next to Anne until they kicked me out, which was in about 30 minutes from when we got there. I was a bit stressed about having to leave our newborn but I was sure the wonderful staff was going to take great care of our little one. Then the phone call comes in to the NICU. “Yes, I’m standing right here with Mr. Nodianos. OK, I’ll put him on,” the nurse says. On the other end…”Mr. Nodianos, you need to come back to the delivery room.” I’m thinking OH ____! Feel free to add in your own 4 letter expletive. Jen’s blood pressure had dropped from internal hemorrhaging. Yes, I’m freaking out at this point. My wife is hemorrhaging and my daughter is in NICU. I would have loved for the nurses to take MY blood pressure at that point!! They probably would have put me in a bed right next the Jen! Once again, the nurses were fantastic and took great care of everyone. Jen’s blood pressure came back up and they brought Anne to us at about 7:00pm. Needless to say, Jen and I were ready to get our hugs and kisses on with our 2 hour old daughter.
Let the drama begin
After the doctor had taken care of what she needed to with me, the nurse started adjusting my IV fluids. I told her I wasn’t feeling well and was very disoriented. She told me I’d be alright. I fell asleep. The next thing I know, there are a half dozen nurses and doctors running around my room, machines beeping, and I knew immediately something was wrong. Apparently, they couldn’t get me to stop bleeding. My blood pressure had plummeted and they couldn’t control the bleeding. They did all the “doctor stuff” and after about 3 hours or so the bleeding started to regulate a little. We weren’t even able to let our families know we had delivered Anne! I think we were finally able to tell them about an hour after.
Jaundice!
On Wednesday, May 19, we were discharged from Anne Arundel Medical Center and were told to follow up with our pediatrician the next day regarding possible jaundice! Her bilirubin number was 11.4. The danger zone is between 20-25. Beyond 25, brain damage can occur. So-Thursday, we met with our pediatrician around 1 PM. At 5:00, they called and told us her bilirubin number had come back at 20.8 and that she needed to be admitted to the hospital. He asked us if we wanted her to be admitted to Southern Maryland Hospital or Civista Hospital…I picked Southern Maryland (having been told that was the better hospital by friends). Our doctor told us that all we needed to do was go to the admitting window at SMHospital and tell them Dr. Vitek (the staff pediatrician) was admitting Anne for jaundice.
Southern Maryland Hospital Nightmare
• When we arrived at the hospital, we were greeted by two cops arresting a nurse in the parking lot. That should have been enough to tell us to turn around…
• We checked in at the admitting window and were told that no admission order had been submitted by Dr. Vitek. They paged him and called him and no one could find him. After 15 minutes of WAITING , we called our doctor who called and paged Dr. Vitek. Finally, Dr. Vitek was reached and we were admitted. His excuse for not having done the admitting order (which he received 90 minutes prior) was that he was busy and didn’t have time. We should have walked out then…but we didn’t.
• We were admitted to a general floor (not a pediatric floor). Our room was sweltering…the air conditioning didn’t work. And, the isolette with the Phototherapy lights was heating up the room. In general, the room was dirty…seriously there was a hair on the toilet seat. I had to wipe stuff down with baby wipes…
• They had an unmade bed in her room for us, 2 wooden chairs, and a dirty slightly padded chair. I asked the nurses if I could have a pillow to sit on…since I delivered Anne just a couple days ago. They said they were waiting for them to come back from the laundry…
• Dr. Vitek comes in to assess the situation with Anne. He proceeds to spend 15-20 minutes detailing why we should get the Hep B immunoglobulin shot. He told us about all the research he had read about it and wanted to know why we hadn’t gotten that shot for her at birth. NOTE: This shot has NOTHING to do with jaundice. And, while we talk about this Anne is sitting in her car seat. It took some work, but I was able to redirect him back to the “task at hand: jaundice”. He told us we would be there for at least 2 ½ days…more likely 3 days. They were going to put her under the phototherapy lights and repeat the bilirubin test periodically.
• He tells us that while under the lights, she will be wearing these sunglasses to protect her eyes from the UV light. He stressed that the light could seriously hurt her eyes if the sunglasses weren’t on. He also told us that the sunglasses would probably slip from position a couple times during the night and would need to be readjusted. They put her in the isolette with the sunglasses…the first thing we noticed was that there was a tube running down the center of the isolette-and they put her directly on top of that without any padding! Well, she didn’t like that at all and is just thrashing in there. Her sunglasses came off within seconds. In the 90 minutes we were there-we had to stand there the whole time holding the sunglasses on because they wouldn’t stay on. We complained to the nurse who said there was nothing she could do. Because our hands were in the isolette the whole time, the temperature couldn’t regulate and alarms kept going off. No one came to turn the alarm off or check on the sunglass problem.
• I asked the nurse a half dozen more times about needing pillows until finally I broke down. I started crying and yelling at her about the fact that I’m recovering from a vaginal delivery and hemorrhaging from it and cannot sit on the chairs in that room, nor could I stand. She kept saying that they don’t keep pillows on the floor and would need to get in touch with SIMCO in order to get pillows.
• Back to Anne: she is still in the isolette thrashing around. Her heel was bumping up on the tube and her bandaid from her heel prick (for the bilirubin test) had come off and she was bleeding on the sheets. Because of the thrashing (she almost rolled over from the thrashing), her umbilical cord was rubbing against the sheets and started bleeding.
• I asked to see the doctor. I was told he was not on the floor. I told the nurses station that I wanted to see him immediately. They asked me if everything was alright-I told them it wasn’t and if I didn’t see him immediately we were leaving. Our nurse comes in and explains that he is busy and cannot come to see us. I ask to see another doctor and was informed that no one was available. I asked to speak to a nurse higher up and was told that no one was available. I asked to speak to ANYONE above this nurse and was told no one was available. That was it. I started yelling at the nurse about the fact that the sunglasses that were protecting our baby’s eyes wouldn’t stay on. She said that it was because our baby was irritable and moving around so much. Oh boy. I went off. I asked her how she expected a 4 day old baby to get comfortable laying on a tube, with alarms going off because the temperature was not regulating, with our hands constantly in her face holding down the sunglasses, and with her heel bleeding and umbilical cord getting rubbed raw? She proceeded to give excuses and I told her that I was not interested in her excuses, I wanted solutions. She kept on with excuses and I told her that the way she was treating this newborn was unacceptable. The nurse said she was getting accustomed to using this light. I told her that my baby was not some experiment for her and I wanted a qualified person to run these lights. She continued with excuses and I demanded to speak with the doctor immediately. She said he had been paged and hadn’t returned the page.
• While this was going on, Kris had called our pediatrician and Anne Arundel Medical Center to see about a transfer.
• While Kris was doing that, a nurse from the nursery came to see Anne and brought a new pair of sunglasses. These worked much better. The nursery nurse said they didn’t use those sunglasses anymore because they weren’t good. Our nurse said she was told those were the ones to use….
• Kris had arranged the transfer to AAMC and Amanda (our soon to be nurse there) had already gotten us a room number.
• I was talking with our pediatrician to see how we could leave Southern Maryland Hospital. She told me she was waiting for Dr. Vitek to call her back. While she said that, Dr. Vitek walked into our room. I told him I had our doctor on the phone and she wanted to talk to him-he said no. I said we were leaving and she wanted to talk to him. He finally takes me phone and talks to our doctor. He tells her that there isn’t a reason for us to be discharged and hands the phone back to me. Before I talk to our doctor, I looked at Dr. Vitek and told him we were leaving in 15 minutes whether he agreed or not. Our doctor then asked me what the concern was. Once I explained it to her she spoke again to Dr. Vitek and told him to release us. He tried to block our discharge by saying there wasn’t a transfer transport available between those two hospitals. We explained we were transporting Anne. Finally, after his attempts to change our doctor’s mind-he says the only way we could leave would be Against Medical Advice. After he hung up the phone, he asked me what the problem was. I explained to him that it was unacceptable to have an untrained nurse operating a machine on our child, unacceptable to be denied pillows for myself, unacceptable for him to be so difficult to reach and to decline our request to see him, and unacceptable to have our 4 day old treated so poorly. He then launched into his Hep B shot information AGAIN. I told him we were leaving and not having a shot done here. I demanded to know what needed to be done to get us out of there. He said that he was sorry I felt the way I did. I simply responded with “I understand.” The nurse came in and disconnected all the stuff from Anne, and before she left I told her I needed a wheelchair and escort out of the hospital.
Anne Arundel Medical Center…LOVE
• We then drove straight to Anne Arundel Medical Center and was greeted immediately by Amanda in the Pediatric unit, the nurse Kris had talked to, and she escorted us directly to our room. They had everything all set up for us. A bed for me, a pull out sofa chair for Kris, and a WAY nicer isolette for Anne. They had diapers, wipes, and snacks waiting for us.
• They got her immediately into the isolette with GREAT sunglasses that rarely moved. At Southern Maryland Hospital, Anne had to lay on top of an uncomfortable tube. At Anne Arundel Medical Center, they placed a little nest/bed above the tube and elevated her head so that she would be more comfortable. The moment she got into the isolette she fell asleep.
• During our 2 night stay there, the nurses tended to Anne and I with the utmost professionalism and love. Even though I wasn’t a patient there anymore, they made sure I was doing ok with my recovery as well.
• On Saturday morning at midnight, they took Anne off the phototherapy lights. They ran another bilirubin test around 8 AM that morning and her number was down to 15. They said that since her number did not go up after she came off the lights and because she was eating/peeing/pooping great-she could go home! We were discharged immediately and came home.
Home at last
After essentially a week in the hospital, we are adjusting to our new life at home. Oreo is doing great with Anne and Kris and I are learning how to cope with lack of sleep and how to help each other when we get frustrated. Life is great! Anne is perfect! And being a mom is way more incredible than I ever dreamed.
We will continue to update about Anne on this blog and our picture site. Click HERE to see the pictures site.
