Avery

Avery Faith Kasper was born May 10th , Mother’s Day, 2009. She weighed 5lbs 14oz, 19.5 inches, 9:22pm at Cariboo Memorial Hospital in Williams Lake. That’s the simplest part of her story. She was born 4 and a half weeks early with complications in an emergency C-Section. Avery and Mommy were then air ambulanced to Kamloops Neonatal Intensive Care Unit where we spent the next 3 weeks trying to get live back on track and help Avery breathe, eat and grow. For now, I’m posting her birth story here.

“Our hotel doesn’t have good wifi, so I have to blog via word doc and upload it at Starbucks later. Wow, it’s been a bit since I’ve blogged. It feels a bit funny because I was blogging alot on bedrest. If you don’t know already, we had a beautiful baby girl. Avery Faith Kasper. She was born at 9:18 pm, Sunday May 10^th, Mothers Day, weighing 5 lbs 14 oz and 19 ½ inches. Unfortunately, she was supposed to be born on Father’s day, not Mothers day. Impatient little girl. So here’s her story. As best I can tell it.

I went into labour at 22 weeks. Ambulanced to Williams Lake. After 3 days it stopped. Then I went into labour again at 33 ½ weeks. Ambulanced to Kamloops. My water broke. It was only a small break, and after three days my labour was slowly progressing. We thought we were going to have the baby via C-section and the nurses told us we would be having the baby by that night. The Doctor came and decided that he thought I didn’t need to be in the hospital, so they discharged me. He wanted me to stay in Kamloops, but we ended up going home rather than stay in a hotel for 2 weeks until we could go home. My goal was to make it to 36 weeks so I could deliver in Williams Lake. That’s the back story.

8 am. Then on Mother’s day, May 10^th,(35.5 weeks gestationally)I felt a really sharp pain in my side in the morning. It hurt really badly, but we weren’t sure what it could be. So we went to church and by the end of it I was exhausted. We came home and I went back to bed. After a short period of time I realized that I was really cramped and I could still feel the pain in my side. So we decided to go get checked out and make sure baby was doing ok. This time (fourth time’s a charm) I had my bag packed and waited while Morgan quickly packed his bag (not that I had been bugging him to do that all week). So then we were actually ready to go to the hospital, unlike the previous 3 times of early labour.

2pm. At the hospital we traded Emily off to my Mom, who was taking her back to our place for a nap. That’s the last time I saw her, but she’s coming today! I sure miss Emily. Anyways…I digress. At the hospital the whole staff was very confused as to what to do with me. Not instilling much confidence…The Nurses sent me to the ER, which was weird because normally they send you to the maternity section (I hate that I have a “normally”). Then the ER said I needed to go to the maternity section. At least our hospital is small, or I would have been trekking it all over the country side, which is also not a good idea in early labour. After 20 minutes on the monitor, an awkward male nurse, and my doctor’s oh-so-pleasant exams, my doctor came back, shook our hands, and said “congratulations, I think this is the time.” We were both a bit shocked because I had only had like 2 contractions since I had been there and previously I’d had tons more with no progress. So then they made some calls and because I was only 3 days shy of 36 weeks, they sent us to Williams Lake instead of Kamloops. YAY!

3 pm. Unlike the previous 3 times, we weren’t sent by ambulance. We got to drive our selves. I’ll admit, the idea of being in labour in our truck scared me, but the idea of hitting a drive through on the way out of town rocked! I got my chocolate shake and we headed out of town. I was really glad we bought the contraction meter for my iPod. By the time we got to WL I had had contractions the whole time at about 5 minutes apart. They even started to get more painful.

4:30 pm. In Williams Lake, I got hooked back up to a monitor. The baby’s heart rate would have been normal between 140 and 160. The baby was pounding along at 180. Not good. Then spent the next hour trying to figure out why the nurses were frustrated with me. Here’s what I found out. My Doctor told them I was 36 weeks already. I guess that was a bit of a fib on his part, but no biggie. Then he neglected to tell them my water broke 2 weeks before, or that I had been in early labour at all. He just said I was in the beginning of labour and that’s it. So then when the nurses started to get the whole picture, they called the doctor in right away. The doctor I was supposed to see in WL was away for the weekend (just like he was when he was supposed to deliver me 26 years ago. Irony?). So I saw the fill in Doctor, who I thought was awesome. He was just as confused and frustrated that I had been sent home from Kamloops if my water was broken. Apparently, I’m not the only one who found this odd. So then he called the obstetrician to come and talk to me. She came and after about 15 minutes made the call. C-section. The baby wasn’t doing very well and the risk of infection from having had my water broken was very high. Not an emergency section, but a rushed one. They wanted to fly me to Kamloops first, but the risk was too high that the baby would get worse. So prep for a c-section began immediately.

8:30pm. I had to talk the nurses and the anaesthetist into letting Morgan come with me for my epidural. The last one I had was the worst part of my whole labour. I was very glad when they decided I could have him support me through that. Turns out my spine is kinda funky and that’s why my last epi was so painful and long. Unfortunately, I was in for a repeat of the fun. I kept repeating Psalm 23 over and over. I felt a bit better than I did before, but not much. It was great to have Morgan with me, but then he asked a nurse to trade with him. I was like “are you tired of standing already? I’m the one in pain here”. Then the nurse told him to sit on the floor and I realized he wasn’t dealing well with watching me get repeatedly stabbed in the spine with a horse needle. I guess I wasn’t the only one who found it a crappy deal.

9 pm. Then they had me lay down on the table because my legs were already asleep. Morgan had recovered by this time and was doing alot better. I thought I was still feeling things, so I asked when they were going to test if I could feel things. I guess they didn’t need to because they had cut me open long before I even asked. These guys don’t waste much time. I don’t know how he can watch one, but not the other, but Morgan was quite interested in the inner workings of my guts. Eww. A couple minutes later at 9:18 I had a beautiful baby girl who came out screaming. She weighed 5 lbs 14 oz. The table for the baby was in my line of sight, so I actually got to see her. She looked so much like Emily did. I didn’t really realize it at the time, but Morgan kept standing in front of my view of her. He was actually being nice and distracting me from seeing that at one point she went completely blue. She wasn’t doing well with her oxygen at all.

10:30 pm. They got the baby stabilized and me staple-ized and I got to recover in the same room that they were taking care of the baby in. That was one of my biggest fears because I didn’t get to see Emily until the next day, and it was too heartbreaking. It was still hard because the baby wasn’t doing very well and they made the call to transfer her to Kamloops Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). They called the plane and then we waited for a few hours until they could get there. In that time, the baby became Avery Faith Kasper. The doctor told me that they had arranged for me to travel with Avery to Kamloops by plane. But when the plane got there the crew really didn’t want to take me. They weren’t told that I was a new c-section. Then they would have to be looking after me and Avery. Oh, the communications issues never end. I was going, then not going, then going, then not going, then going! I guess I was a trooper and was doing so well that they had pity on me and took me along.

3 am. The flight only takes about 25 minutes. It went very well for my first air ambulance ride. It’s a little cramped, but otherwise not so bad. Avery did very well for the trip. She stayed stable for the whole ride.
Uncle Jake would have been very proud. Avery flew before she was even supposed to be born and loved it.

4 am. Then we were in Kamloops. Loooong day. I was still doing really well recovering. I waited until Avery was stable by getting myself reacquainted with an old friend/nemesis. The breast pump. Sorry if that’s an overshare, but it’s the way things are.

5 am. Then I got to get wheeled down to see my beautiful baby Avery. She was stable and sleeping, but the hooked her up to the Continuous Pressure Airway P (I forget the last word. It’s just called CPAP). She was still not breathing very well. Looks like we’ll be spending the next long while in the NICU…again.

That’s the end of her birth story. I’ll get to her NICU story later because it’s just as long of a story.”