Frost Family Faces

Sorry everyone!  This post has been a long time coming, but I've not been in an emotional frame of mind to sit down and blog lately.  However, today I found I had a half hour before I have to go to an appointment, so I decided to get some of this documented.  Bear in mind, I have almost a half of a notebook full of all the details, but I'll spare you most of them and just get to the meat of the story..

Labor and delivery:
I woke up at 5:15am Wednesday the 18th (my due date) to contractions that were long, hard but still really far apart.  By 9:15, they were coming at 2.5 min. apart and were still long and hard.  By 9:45, Charles and I were on our way to the hospital...and with every contraction I felt the urge to push.  We got to the hospital at 10:00, swapped vehicles with my mother-in-law (Ella and Ariana were in the van with us), she whisked away the kids, and Charles and I made our way in.  We checked in quickly, and I slowly walked down the hall to a delivery room.  Painfully slowly, I got into a gown, and got checked, I was at a 10, my water was bulging, and I was ready to deliver.  The wonderful nurse helped me focus on my breathing, the doctor was rushed in (Dr. Terry.  My normal OB was in surgery) and at 10:22 I gave birth to my beautiful Elizabeth Faith. 




I nursed her and snuggled and held her for the first hour, then they moved me up to recovery.  We were up there a half an hour when they said we needed to go down to the nursery to give her a bath and to give her a physical.  



Charles said that when they got down there, they realized her oxygen saturation was low so they gave her some oxygen, but it didn't come up, in fact in continued to fall, so they took her down to NICU for more testing.  Thanks to an observant nurse who said that she just didn't look right, her life was saved and steps were taken to save her sweet life...



Down in the NICU they started doing Echo cardiograms on her heart and discovered that she had Transposition of the Major arteries.  Everything about her was perfect.  She had a strong heartbeat, was breathing well, but the blood was not getting oxygen from the lungs.  The blood from the lungs was staying in the lungs, and the blood from the body was staying in the body.  No matter how much oxygen they gave her, it wouldn't help unless the heart was functioning properly.  They were able to give her some medication to keep the hole open that mixes the blood while she's in the womb and stabilize her until they could get her up the primary children's to take the next step. 



Charles gave her a beautiful blessing before she was transported and we both cried a lot!  She's a strong girl!

Charles went with her up to Primary Children's and it was so hard for me to have to stay behind.  The doctors first procedure was to force open that hole so they fed a line up her leg with a small balloon on the end.  The first procedure failed and it caused a blood clot.  The 2nd procedure was a success and they were able to keep that hole open long enough to stabilize her for surgery a few days later...

The rest of the story on the next post...