Madelynn's Birth Story

A week ago today, Madelynn Grace Pyka entered the world at 8:02 am weighing 3 lbs 1 oz of perfection.  Here is her story...

We had anxiously been awaiting the arrival of our baby girl.  All of our t's were crossed, and all of our i's were dotted.  We had our hospital bags packed for weeks.  In the middle of the night, I woke up when my water broke.  I looked over at my husband who was in a deep slumber and said "Babe, it's time."  He shot up out of bed in a panic, called the grandparents who were on hold to come get Brady, threw our belongings in the car, and helped me get into the car to head for our completely natural, dolphin assisted water birthing center where I would deliver her after only a push and a half with no medication and earn my medal for record timing for a VBAC.

Wait...just kidding.  That's textbook.  We are the Pyka's, have you met us?  Nothing in our lives so far has been textbook.  We are messy.  We are real.  Life is chaotic.  Life is crazy.  Madelynn's birth story was no different.

So here's the real story...

On Thursday morning, my husband woke me up insanely early to ask me one more time.  "Are you sure it's ok if I go?  I can stay if you need me to."  "It's fine babe.  I'm fine.  We will be fine.  Go, you need this time with your friends."  You see, Jason goes on one trip per year with his closest guy friends to Louisiana.  They have a grand old time reminiscing their glory days, playing golf, gambling, and acting like men children, and they love it.  Jason doesn't spend a lot of time with friends, but this annual event is something he always looks forward to.  I happened to have been on bed rest for a few weeks from high blood pressure, but at every appointment, they had just sent me home for continued monitoring with no action needed.

On Friday, I had a follow up appointment with my doctor as well as a meeting with a specialist.  I had also been diagnosed with gestational diabetes the week before, and needed to follow a very specific diet to balance sugars.  This was all new to me, and felt like a punch in the gut, but I followed through and met with the specialist and then the doctor that day.  I picked up my glucose meter and began pricking my finger, testing my blood sugars in between testing my blood pressure at home.  I got a sonogram at the doctor's office, and my baby was given an A+ and I was sent my merry little way, back to bed rest, back to finger pricking and monitoring.

Saturday was my first full day of finger pricking, and all of my sugar levels were completely normal.  I had been prepared that they would be crazy, that it would take time to adjust, and to not get bummed or depressed.  But they were 100% normal.  I was resting, laying down all day.  Jason had planned for one of my mothers-in-law to be here and she was taking care of Brady and I both.  Everything seemed to be going completely normal.

When it was time for bed on Saturday night, I gave Brady a kiss, said goodnight, and he went upstairs to go to bed.  I ran to the bathroom really quick before I settled in for the night and noticed something a little off.  There was the tiniest amount of blood when I went to the bathroom, but I knew that any blood in the third trimester was cause for concern.  I first called Paula (my mother in law, who was upstairs) and asked if I should even bother calling the doctor this late.  She encouraged me to do so, so I did and talked to the on-call doctor.  "Are you having contractions?" "No." "How far along are you?" "31 weeks as of Thursday."  "When's the last time you've felt the baby move?" "Hmm...good question.  I think she hiccupped earlier today?"  "You've only felt her hiccup today?"  "Well, I think so.  She's sometimes super active and sometimes not, so that's normal right?"  "You had me until no movement.  Go ahead and come in to L&D just to get all checked out.  You probably just have a UTI, but it's better to be safe than sorry."

I called Paula (who was still upstairs) and let her know we needed to go in.  I grabbed what I thought was a hospital bag and threw it in the car.  We had been to L&D twice in the past couple of weeks to monitor for blood pressure, so I figured all would be the same.  Go in, get checked out, monitor for a couple hours, go home, go to bed.  At least that's what had happened so far.  "Should we call Jason?" I asked.  "Let's wait until we know if it's an emergency, we will call him at the hospital" Paula said.  I agreed, but started to get anxious.  We both knew at this time of night, the boys were likely three drinks in at least and were at the craps table.

When we got there everything started as usual.  Pee in this cup, take some blood, get in this gown, put this monitor on baby, this monitor on you, and this one monitors contractions.  The baby's heart rate seemed fine and after 20 minutes, results came back that I did not have a UTI.  Perfect!  We just needed to wait a little bit longer for a sonographer to come in and check for movement.  We called Jason just to give him an update, and he started panicking.

When the sonographer came in, the mood changed.  She started throwing out big medical terms...biophysical profile, scoring results being really low, high risk MFM, and other things.  The nurse came in and we all watched her in silence.  She had 30 minutes to test movement in the baby, and staring at the screen, clearly the baby was not moving.  The nurse sat there in silence and watched the screen, and glanced back and forth to the heart rate.  I stared at the screen and started shaking.  The sonographer said nothing, while intermittently saying "Come on, move....move please" to the screen.  Tears started streaming down my face.  I looked at Paula, and she had already picked up her phone.  She called all of my family and Jason's family, and I think she talked to Jason.  I didn't know what was happening, but I knew it was bad. 

After the sonogram the nurse said they were going to go ahead and call in the doctor who was on call just to take a look.  "Shouldn't we at least call my doctor?"  "No, she is the on-call for your doctor's office, she has access to all your records and information."  She was there shortly after and wanted to repeat the biophysical profile and sono because something didn't add up.  The baby's heart rate seemed fine.  She repeated the test, and after pushing super hard on my belly, she got the baby to move.  Relief.  By this time, my sister, my mom, and Paula were all in the room.  We all sighed as the doctor said "I see no need to deliver this baby tonight, but you will be here for a while for monitoring.  I will come check on you in the morning."  They then gave me a shot of steroids to help jump start Madi's lungs just in case we ended up delivering early.  They said it would be 24 hours, then they'd give me another shot, allowing the lungs to mature quickly.  I called Jason who was hysterical at this point.  "I'll come tonight, I'll leave now." "Please, Jason, please don't.  Please wait until tomorrow.  They said they aren't even checking on me again until the morning."  He and I were both crying at this point.  I needed him there so badly, he's my rock in these situations, but we both knew it would be safer for him to leave in the morning.

I sent everyone home with anticipation that we wouldn't have any new news until the next day.  My mom refused to leave thankfully, and fell asleep on the couch meant for expectant fathers to be.  I layed there, lying on my back, still shaking, staring at the ceiling, wondering what could be causing any of this. 

Within the next hour, more and more people kept coming in the room.  The nurses usually monitor everything from their stations just outside the rooms, but my nurse had come in and was sitting next to the monitors, circling something on paper every few minutes.  She was staring down, I was staring at her, but there was complete silence.  I finally asked if the heart rate was still ok, and she said it appeared to be having some problems but that would be a great question to ask the doctor.  I told her I was only 31 weeks, and asked how the baby would do if born early.  "That's a great question to ask the doctor."  But she moved...why is all this doing this?  "That's a great question to ask the doctor.  She's on her way back here now."

At this point, it was around 4am.  I called Jason in tears.  I told him to plan on getting on the road as soon as possible because I didn't know what was happening.  He said he'd be on the road by 5...and should be to the hospital around 11am.  I looked down at my phone and realized it was down to 5% battery remaining.  I left my hospital bag in the car, which was now at home, and I had no charger.  I had no husband, didn't have my doctor, and now no method of communication.

The doctor came back in, and let my mom and I know she had some concerns with the baby's heart rate.  It kept dropping, but it would recover.  I wasn't having contractions, so she said it was odd.  She brought a high risk doctor in with her who repeated a third biophysical profile.  She didn't move for the entire 30 minutes and he gave her a low score for her well being.  He looked at me directly and very calmly told me "There are cases in which the baby is better on the outside than on the inside.  I only recommend birth if necessary at 31 weeks, but something is clearly wrong with her environment and she is under stress.  We need to deliver this baby as soon as possible." "Ok" I said, trembling and reaching for my phone to call Jason.  "Can we please wait just 5 hours?  Please?"  "At this point, I'm so sorry, we need to get in as soon as possible." 

I called Jason and delivered the news.  I didn't know how why or what was happening, I just knew my rock was in another state and I needed him in mine.  I needed him with me to make me stop shaking.  To tell me it was going to be ok and that we'd get through this together.  I'm so thankful my mom decided to stay, but I'm not sure if she knew what she was getting herself into.  Before long, she was suiting up, getting ready to go into the OR with me, holding my hand, and praying for me as I just laid there, crying.

In the OR, I had the most wonderful nurses and the on-call doctor ended up being fantastic.  They tried to cheer me up, telling me that 31 weeks the baby had a great chance of survival.  I told them I didn't have a camera and I started crying harder.  They told me they could use my phone to take some pictures for me and I started crying harder when I told them my phone was dead.  My anesthesiologist gave me an epidural and came up with a great idea.  She would call Jason and ask him to pull over and see if she could face time the birth with him, so that he would still be the first one to see his baby girl.  She tried, and they called back and forth a few times, but he was in too rural of a place to be able to get a signal.  She assured me it would be ok, and she took out her cell phone and took pictures of the baby, and texted them immediately to him and me.

Madelynn Grace Pyka made her appearance at 8:02 am with her Grammy in the room comforting me.  She didn't cry.  I didn't hear her cry.  She couldn't breathe.  The room was silent and full of medical staff.  The NICU team immediately started putting in a ventilator and gave her an APGAR score of 2/10.  Once they had that in, they brought her to me for a split second but I couldn't really turn enough to see her face.  They then took her to the NICU. 
  
Dr. Trylovich (the on-call doctor) came to my side and encouraged me that I did the right thing and handled everything with "strength and grace." I just said thank you and kept crying.

A nurse came by and also re-assured me, saying when they pulled her out, her cord was wrapped around her neck pretty tightly...twice.  They had also sent off my placenta for pathology because it didn't seem right.  They assured me that medical intervention would help her so much, that she would be so much better soon.

At the end of the week, the pathology reports came back.  My placenta had abrupted and Madi wasn't getting any oxygen that she needed.   Plus the cord was wrapped around her neck.  If I hadn't gone to the hospital that night, Madelynn Grace would not have been with us anymore.  God had a plan the whole time.

Jason arrived around 11:30am while I was in recovery.  He came in, held my hand, hugged me, and we both cried.