Little "E" Part Two

April 5th started like any other day in the hospital. My Dad stopped by first thing that morning to say Hello and spend some time with me, and then my Mom came in the afternoon to talk and entertain me. About 3 o'clock that afternoon, I went in for another non-stress test. I was nervous about the test because the last couple of days hadn't showed results as good as what I'd gotten in the past. I had voiced my concerns to my doctors about the tests, but they reassured me that it was normal to have variations in the tests and they thought he was doing fine. My mom came into my test with me like she did most days and talked to me while I was being monitored. Geoffrey was also in and out of the testing room. He was usually at work while my tests were being done, but it was a lot later in the day then I normally had my test done, so he happened to be back from work this time. About 20 minutes into the test I started to realize I hadn't felt Ethan kick yet, this is one of the tests that he was usually pretty active during. When the nurse came to check how my test was doing I voiced my concerns to her, she looked at the test results and said he hadn't had any accelerations in his heart rate. This was a big concern. She suggested giving the test a couple more minutes and then she'd go show it to my doctor and get an opinion on what the next step should be. After a couple more minutes, they still weren't seeing the results that they wanted to see. She took the test results and went to find my doctor, when she came back she told me my doctor wanted me to go in for an ultrasound called a biophysical profile. They would watch Ethan for 4 different types of movements for a 30 minute time period and give us a score out of 10. It was the longest 30 minutes of my life. Geoffrey and I sat watching the monitor begging Ethan to move around and let us know he was okay. By the end of the test, he had moved very little. The ultrasound tech gave us a 0 out of 10 as our score. Our hearts sunk. I couldn't believe this was happening. I had made it 8 weeks and still had 7 1/2 to go. It was too early for him to come. At that point, our doctors decided to move us immediately into the labor and delivery wing of the hospital. I was hooked up to monitors so they could continue to watch Ethan. My doctor came in and reassured us that they weren't ready to deliver him yet, they just wanted to monitor him some more. She told me to relax and let me know that I could be in there for awhile being monitored and then turned and left the room. I asked my nurse to find my mom and send her in to sit with us. A couple of minutes later my doctor came quickly back into the room with an army of nurses and residents following her. She told me that they had looked at my tests a little bit closer and felt they needed to deliver him immediately. Before I could blink I had all kinds of people working on me and getting me ready to deliver our little Ethan. Somewhere in the chaos Geoffrey gave Ethan and I a blessing. I felt everything would be okay. Geoffrey was given scrubs to change into, and they were pushing me down the hall into an operating room. The operating room was just as chaotic, there were so many people and so much happening around me, I couldn't make sense of it all. My anesthesiologist gave me a spinal block and I was ready to go. The delivery happened so quickly, Geoffrey was able to stand at my head and watch our little man come into this world. As soon as Ethan was out, he was immediately whisked through a window into the NICU so they could begin working on him. I didn't get to see him and Geoffrey only got a quick glimpse as he was handed off to the Neonatologist. As they continued my surgery, all I could think about was our little man and if he was okay.