Gavin Kent Chard

He's here! Born at 3:33 am on Friday November 02 2007. Nearly 6 lbs (5 lb 15 oz) and 19 1/2 inches long. It took some doing to get the little guy to come out and meet us. Julie was only in active labor for about 8 hours, but her water had broken the previous day at 8 am. We didn't get to the hospital until around 4 pm and they determined Julie wasn't having very strong surges. The doctor was a bit concerned about that due to the risk of infection, however she allowed us to try to do what we could to get Julie to go into labor. We walked and walked and tried few other natural methods, but it just wasn't happening. The doctor gave Julie 12 hours then had to start her on pitocin to get labor to start. She was started on a very low dose, but that wasn't doing much so they bumped it up over several hours until the labor really started. Julie's surges started coming fast and furious around midnight and really got crazy around 2am. That was about the time Julie started thinking seriously about some pain meds, but by that time it was too late. Around 2:45 Julie got the urge to push and we called the nurse in and they checked her and found out she was dilated to 9 1/2 cm. So the doctor came in and things started getting really crazy! The baby moved down and started to come through the birth canal but got a bit stuck. His cord got pinched by the tight fit and his heart rate plumetted to an alarming level. The doctor said at that time that "this baby has to come out within the next 2 minutes one way or another", so she used a vacuum extractor to help Julie move the baby out. Additionally, the doctor had to do a "stem to stern" episiotimy to make room for the (not so) little guy. After much pushing and pulling Gavin finally came into this world. He was in a bit of distress coming out, so we didn't get to have him cuddle with mom as they needed to get his respiration rate up. I went with the nurse to the NICU where they put him on positive pressure ventilation to keep his lungs open and help him breathe. His oxygen saturation was good as was his glucose level, but there was concern about infection in the lungs and he was having a hard time breathing. Quite an emotional and exhausting chain of events. Even though Gavin was 3 weeks early, it was probably a good thing as the doctor said that if he was any bigger he probably wouldn't have been able to fit through Julie's pelvis.

Julie finally got to see Gavin around 10am later in the morning. They had the poor little guy all hooked up to sensors and IVs and respirators. They had to put a tube down his throat to his tummy to help ventilate extra air from the respirator. They ended up taking 3 chest X-rays to determine the cause of his breathing problems. The results of the X-rays is that he has what's called pnemothorax. Basically his lung partially seperated from his chest cavity and air got into the space between and caused him to have a hard time breathing. Apparently it is healing on its own. Pretty sad to see our little guy with all the extra hardware, but we knew it was for his own good. Luckily Gavin started breathing well on his own later in the day and they were able to take him off respiration and he's now breathing great. He is still on low dose glucose and on a broad spectrum antibiotic due to the chance of infection because of the ruptured membranes. Another problem they found is that Gavin broke his clavicle on the way out and that's causing him some pain as is the huge bruise on his head from the vacuum extractor. These pain problems are causing him to not eat well and this is the newest issue to deal with. He's not the best eater right now so they are keeping him until he starts eating better. This could take up to a week, but they think once his pain subsides he'll probably start eating better.

Julie is doing great. She was pretty sore for most of yesterday and had a hard time moving around, but is up and practically running around today! She is such the trooper. I can't believe she went through all she did with no pain medication. We are going to go "hotel stay" at the hospital until we can bring Gavin home. Julie needs to be here to try feed him every 3 hours, or at least pump milk for the nurses to feed to him.

We appreciate everyone's thoughts and prayers and know our little guy will make it through this. As the doctor says, all he needs is a bit of time and rest to recover from the trauma of the birth.

We'll probably start our own blog for Gavin, but we'll send everyone the link so you can stay up-to-date on his progress.

Brandon, Julie, and Gavin