Well, this will be a long post but I love posts like this because it is a birth story! We women, maybe some men too, love love a good birth story. There is always just so much excitement and anticipation and no two stories are ever the same. I can tell you, that this story is by far my most intense of all 3 of the kids, which is a feat since luke’s delivery was quite a disaster. haha
I decided to go to Williams lake for Andrea’s 35 week doctors appointment because her family doctor said they were worried that she was polyhydramnios—(a medical condition describing an excess of amniotic fluid in the amniotic sac. It happens in less that 1% of births.) So they referred her out to an OBGYN in Williams lake that would take over for her pregnancy so she could be more closely monitored.
Andrea had also been telling me that she felt like the baby was very low and she was having a lot of intense braxton hicks. This was when I decided that I should go to this next doctors appointment, so I could talk to him about what the concerns were and if we were going to need to schedule an induction. A few days before her appointment Andrea went in for an ultrasound too so they could measure how much fluid she did have and if baby was doing okay.
I arrived on Wednesday January 25th and I stayed at Andreas house and got to help a bit around her farm. I fed her baby lambs, dogs, cats, and her horse. It was so fun to be out in nature and fresh air and just have some time to be with andrea and to get to feel and see baby move.
Thursday was our appointment and the doctor received the results from the ultrasound and he told us that the baby had fluid around her heart and in her chest. They said that it could be because baby is stressed, or that she had some sort of medical condition that we needed to figure out. He sent us for a non-stress test to check how baby was doing and he called a neonatologist in Vancouver to get her opinion on things. The specialist said that we should come back again the next day for another ultrasound to see if the fluid changed at all and then also to come on Monday for another Non stress test. He said that for sure he would be inducing Andrea by 37 weeks because we just were having too many complications and there was no point delaying. The non-stress test took 4 hours! The baby wasn’t have the proper accelerations in her heartrate that they like to see, but she wasn’t having any decelerations. So we left a little concerned wondering what was going on with baby and I just felt very unsettled and really scared that baby was having a hard time in there.
I was supposed to go home Friday morning, but I just felt like I needed to stay longer to make sure everything was okay with Andrea and with baby. The ultrasound on Friday actually made me feel a little better because the tech said she didnt think the fluid on baby’s heart looked very bad and baby seemed to be doing okay in there. The doctor met us down there and said he still wanted us back on monday for the non stress test, but Vancouver had said that there wasn’t any need for us to rush down there for an emergency c-section.
I thought there was a possibility that I was going to be in williams lake until the baby arrived and that could be 2 weeks from then, so Dave, his brother Steve, sister in law Cathryn and my kids all drove the long journey to come see me for the weekend. Cathryn is a labor and delivery nurse, so she was also going to just stay with us in case we had any kind of home birth or car birth because Andrea lived 90 minutes from the hospital. It really eased my mind. The kids had a blast on Andreas farm, such a fun adventure but they needed to go home on the sunday so the guys could get back to work and the kids school.
Andrea had been saying all weekend that it seemed like baby wasn’t moving quite as much as she used to. When babies get bigger, they tend to move less because of space, but this seemed like a big change. I was just glad we were going to the hospital on monday morning so we could just make sure everything was still going okay.
We arrived at the hospital and Andrea got hooked up to the monitors to check on baby. Immediately I could see the nurses looking at each other and whispering and as a lay person I had no idea what they were looking at. I didnt want to stress Andrea out with my worries so with Cathryn sitting beside me, I texted her to find out what was going on since she also was making weird faces. She messaged me back saying that the baby’s heart rate was decelerating a lot and she was thinking they were going to be taking baby out of there today. I was in shock but still didnt really believe it, she was still 4 and a half weeks early at this point and I didnt know how well she would do outside. The doctor came in and said he had been talking to other specialists and they all felt like today was the day for baby. The problem was that they don’t really have a NICU at the hospital and were figuring out if they could transfer andrea to another hospital in time. There wasn’t time, baby just wasn’t doing well and she was a little over 35 weeks, so there was a chance she would be just fine on her own. Within 3 hours of arriving at the hospital, we were heading down for an emergency c-section.
I felt excited, scared, and awful all at the same time. I couldn’t wait to meet our new little one but I was worried she wasn’t going to do well and I felt awful for Andrea. This is not what any of us expected, it wasn’t even really discussed because why would she need a c-section? I had never needed one, she had never needed one, and there were no hints that this would happen. I was terrified for her and for the recovery she would have to endure, all for us. I had already asked so much of her, she had gone through a miscarriage at 11 weeks, a D&C, a failed transfer, months and months of medications, hours and hours of travelling for appointments, months of severe sickness and now she was getting her stomach cut open to save our baby. The sacrifice of a surrogate is absolutely priceless and intense!!!
As Andrea was getting prepped to go in for surgery, they could not find a vein on her and while they were doing that they were monitoring the baby. Suddenly they couldn’t find the baby’s heartbeat anymore and then it would pop up at 80, then disappear again. They rushed Andrea away and decided to let the anesthesiologist deal with the IV’s and get this baby out. They said they would come grab me once she was fully ready to go. I just sat there stunned. I was frantically trying to message people to let them know what was happening, and Dave was racing to the airport to come back to Williams lake after leaving the afternoon before. I just couldn’t get my mind to figure out what was going on, I am sure I was just in a state of shock, but after about 20 minutes they came out and grabbed me to go in. As I walked in, the cutting had already began and they said I was welcome to video and take pictures, they were all so awesome!!
Poor andrea kept saying that she was feeling sharp pains, but she ended up telling them not to worry and just get baby out. This may sound cheesy, I would never normally say this, but she was a warrior that day. She stared at the ceiling so focused and the doctor leaned down and whispered, “when this is all over, I will give you some amazing drugs”. I think everyone was impressed with not only what she was doing that day, but being surrogate and all that she was enduring for us. She had many admirers at that hospital!
Within minutes, I see them pulling out my dark haired, tiny screamer. She let them know that she was alive but very mad. They took her to the warmer immediately and started testing her for all the vital signs and reflexes. She was quite limp, but breathing fantastic and she just looked so tiny to me. Once everything was tested, they wrapped her up and handed her to me. That was one of the most incredible feelings I have ever had. She was an absolute clone of her siblings, especially her sister, and so content once she was warm again. I couldn’t believe she was here and that she actually looked like one of mine, kind of a strange feeling watching a baby come out of another woman’s stomach but is so much your child. Very surreal moment. I will never forget this moment for the rest of my life, the moment when your life felt complete and perfect. We had the final piece to our puzzle and she was perfect.
We left the surgical suite and headed back to the maternity ward and my sister in law Cathryn was standing there waiting to meet the new baby, I was so glad she was there! Not having Dave there was hard, but knowing I had cathryn made it ok. There was someone else that loved the baby so much and was there to help me through the emotions of everything. She kept me calm and sane and explained all the medical stuff so I wouldnt worry. The fun thing, was as soon as I sent the picture of the baby being born to dave, he sent me a text back and said it came as the plane was taking off. Im sure he felt super relieved knowing everything was going to be ok while he was flying.
The baby needed to do some testing, she needed an NG tube put down her nose and into her stomach because they wanted X-rays of her esophagus to make sure everything looked okay. Her sugars were also very low, so they wanted to do feeding through the tube to make sure she was getting everything she needed without having to exert energy to get it. She also couldn’t maintain her temperature even when skin to skin, so she needed to go in the incubator for the night. This baby girl went through so many tests, the heel pokes always made me so sad. She had two done every two hours for 24 hours and then they started only doing one every two hours for the next 12 hours. She also had to have her bilirubin tested each day because it was too high and so she was put on the lights for almost 48` hours. She looked so cute with her little glasses—like a little space alien or something. They ended up taking out her NG tube on Wednesday because her sugars had stabilized.
Dave, cathryn and I just spent the days taking turns snuggling her and watching movies. We went to see Andrea with the baby every day so they could check on each other. Andrea ended up going home on Wednesday afternoon with her family and we took a bunch of photos with them. Andreas girls were so happy to see their mom and see that she was doing okay and they were very excited to finally meet the baby who had been taking over their lives for the last while. They were so sweet with her and told her that they loved her. This little one is very loved by so many people, its just going to be such a cool thing to be able to tell her one day how wanted she was by so many.
Thursday morning the paediatrician came in and told us that baby seemed really healthy and ready to leave the hospital. She wanted us to stay one more night in williams lake so we could come back in the morning for another bilirubin test. So we went to our hotel and celebrated with Boston Pizza and an early night. haha Starting over with a newborn after 9 years is EXHAUSTING!!!! You do somewhat forget how tired you actually get with no sleep. The next morning the test came back really good and we were allowed to make the journey home!!! We couldn’t wait to have the kids meet their little sister, this has been talked about for so long I think they didnt actually believe a baby was going to ever come home. I don’t even think I ever believed it would happen. It took us two days to get home because she needed to come out of her carseat every hour to make sure she was getting enough oxygen. She was just so tiny in her carseat and so fragile! When we finally got home, jordyn came running down the stairs yelling “little sister, little sister, I love you”. Luke is a typical 11 year old boy and he just came out and looked at her and said “oh, hi”.
So it only took us 24 hours to finally settle on a name for little peanut. We were under a lot of pressure too because the lawyers couldn’t start on paperwork until we gave them the name. I for some reason just struggled and struggled to pick one, I was definitely over thinking it. I knew her name the moment I saw her, but I hesitated for a long time. Cathryn kept saying “Jolayne, she looks just like that name, just call her that”. Haha So, welcome to the world:
Ryan V Burnham, born on January 30, 2017 at 1:38pm weighing 5lbs 13oz and 19 3/4 inches long. Your middle name is after your great grandma Gibb—Verda. She told me that if I ever gave my kids her name she would roll in her grave, she hated her name. She was so adamant about it, I decided I didnt want to be haunted by her, so you just got the initial. She was one of the strongest women I have ever known, she was kind, she was an amazing listener, she was so non-judgemental, she loved everyone she came in contact with and she was my best friend. I can’t believe she isnt here to hold you, but she would have adored you and been so proud to share an initial with you. Ryan, you are loved beyond anything I could have imagined, you have a family who wanted you so badly, and even a stranger came forward to bring you into this world. Don’t ever doubt that you are loved, I just hope I can stop staring at you all of the time so you don’t think your mom is super creepy.
So just a quick end note. The pathology came back on Ryan’s umbilical cord and placenta. She had something called a Velamentous Cord Insertion—“The umbilical cord inserts into the fetal membranes then travels within the membranes to the placenta. The exposed vessels are not protected by Whartons jelly and hence are vulnerable to rupture.” The doctor said hers was so bad that she was not going to survive the day and if we had tried to do a natural birth, it would have torn and Ryan would have immediately died and also could have lost andrea. This has a super high infant mortality rate and we are lucky we had such good doctors and nurses who trusted their gut and decided to get baby out. It has a high miscarriage rate as well, so we are so so lucky Ryan is here and that everything turned out great. She is healthy, Andrea is healing well, and we all get to go forward feeling nothing but joy.
