Little "E" Part Three

Ethan Thomas Gauchay was born on April 5th at 5:45 PM. He weighed 2 lbs 7oz and was 14inches long.

It seemed to take hours to get any news on what was going on with Ethan. I was getting anxious, as I was laying there being sewn up. I finally started asking how long it would take to get an update on our little guy so our anesthesiologist sent someone out to get answers for us. Though it felt like hours, it was really only 10 minutes before a doctor came in to talk to us about Ethan. The doctor said he wasn't stable yet, but they were doing everything they could. He had started seizuring right after he was delivered and the medical team was trying to get the seizures to stop.

They said they would try and let us see him as soon as possible. After about 45 minutes of being stiched up, I was wheeled back to my room to recover. As soon as we got back in my room, they told Geoffrey he could go in and see Ethan for the first time. He grabbed the camera and took off to see our little guy.

The medical team was still trying to get the seizures to stop while Geoffrey was with him. It took a lot of doses of 2 different powerful medications to finally get them to stop. They were also having trouble with his lungs. They weren't quite big enough to support his little body. He was on a ventilator that was pumping 600 breaths per minute and causing his tiny chest to bounce quickly. The third concern came from an ultrasound they did of his brain. There were some dark areas showing up on the results and doctors were debating whether or not his brain was bleeding.

The doctors thought it was best for me to get to a certain point in my recovery before I would be able to see my sweet little Ethan. So, for the first couple hours of his life, all I got to see were pictures that Geoffrey took.

Two hours after he was born, I was finally able to see him for the first time. They wheeled my entire bed from my recovery room into the NICU. He was perfect. Ten fingers, ten toes, a tiny little body. It broke my heart to see how many tubes and machines were hooked up to him. I couldn't get to him very well because he was in an incubator, but they opened up the side and let me touch him for the first time. I couldn't believe this tiny little man was my miracle baby that had been fighting for months to stay inside of me. After just a couple of minutes with Ethan, they wheeled me back into recovery, and then finally back to my room that had become my home in the hospital. The doctors kept us updated of his condition and I pushed my nurses to let me see him again. We were told that they weren't sure if he would make it through the night, but if he did they would reassess his condition in the morning. With that weighing on our hearts, we decided to give him a name and a blessing that night. Our nurse and the wonderful nurses in the NICU made it possible for my parents, Geoffrey's parents, and both Geoffrey and I to all be together in the room with him while Ethan's Dad gave him a beautiful blessing and in it, named him Ethan Thomas Gauchay. We stayed with him for as long as we could that night and then headed back to our room to get some rest.