Delilah's Birth Story, Part II

Missed Part I? Catch up here.
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Delilah’s birth was abrupt, to say the least. There were none of the usual get-ready-you’re-really-having-a-baby warnings like my water breaking or contractions that intensify over many, many hours. I didn’t labor, but by no means was her delivery easy! 

My doctor said that, in his 25-year career, he had never had happen what happened to me. Complications with an external cephalic version are very rare — less than a 1 percent chance! A placental abruption was not something anyone expected, but all the medical professionals who heard my story later assured me that I had been in the right place at the right time. Given how easily the placenta tore away from the uterine wall, it could have happened any time — at home, probably— and the outcome would have been very different. Fortunately I was in a hospital (the one of my choosing, no less), with an IV and an epidural already on board.

I knew the risks associated with a version, but I also knew they were unlikely and I had total confidence in my doctor. So while it crossed my mind to go ahead and pack the hospital bag, I didn’t. Greg and I truly didn’t think we would need it! I can now attest that you really don’t need to bring anything with you to the hospital. There are certainly things that are nice to have, but you can get by without much! For a week I had nothing more than the clothes I came in. I didn’t get to use the special (and expensive) hospital gown I ordered… I didn’t even have the luxury of my own socks. I donned hospital-issued apparel. When Greg was finally able to go home after Delilah was born (around midnight), he said he would try to rustle up all the items on my “hospital bag” packing list. But I told him not to bother. I just needed him to go and come back as quickly as possible. I told him to just grab my contact lens case and solution, my glasses, and a few toiletries so I’d have a clean face and fresh breath. All that mattered was our sweet baby girl, and us both being there for her.

The hours and days following Delilah’s birth were a whirlwind. We didn’t get a free moment to call our parents to tell them the news until about four hours after she was born! 

Immediately following her arrival, I wasn’t able to hold Delilah right away, not just because I was on an operating table and being sewn up but because I was shaking uncontrollably. Something about the medication they had given me for the version, coupled with the actual c-section, caused my arms to shake vigorously and my teeth to chatter as though I was freezing cold — even though I wasn’t. When the nurse brought Delilah over to me, and when Greg held her next to me, I longed to hold my baby in my arms but I was afraid I would drop her I was shaking that badly. I asked the medical team around me, when will I stop shaking? They apologetically replied that my body would calm eventually. The feeling slowly faded over the next hour or so… because I was still trembling in recovery.

The three of us in recovery, an hour and a half after Delilah made her grand debut via emergency c-section Oct. 23, 2017.

That’s when I finally got to hold my girl skin-to-skin, and we had some lovely bonding time just the three of us: Mommy, Daddy, and (at that time) yet-to-be named baby girl. But this bliss was cut short when the nurse tested Delilah’s blood sugar levels. They were dangerously low; they needed to give my hour-old baby a bottle of formula. I was heartbroken and couldn’t watch as the nurse fed her. I turned away from the sight, tears streaming down my cheeks. After some time had passed, the nurse tested her blood sugar again and it was still too low. Delilah had to go to the NICU for an IV. I was still a bloody mess; I had to stay in recovery. I told Greg to go with our daughter, so she wouldn’t be left alone. While Daddy endured watching the NICU nurse poke his daughter’s tiny hand countless times, trying to find a vein, a still numb-from-the-waist-down Mommy got a long and thorough sponge bath from two kind recovery nurses who were taken aback by the sheer volume of blood.

Skin-to-skin with Delilah in the NICU. See that tiny IV?

After getting cleaned up, I was wheeled on a gurney from recovery to the NICU and reunited with Greg and Delilah. It was then, several hours after her birth, that I was finally able to try breastfeeding — while also trying to avoid pulling on the IV and monitor wires attached to my baby. When I first saw Delilah laying in the clear NICU bassinet, surrounded by monitors, a heat lamp overhead, I told Greg to take a photo. He asked, did I really want a picture of her like this? Yes. It’s her story.

Delilah hooked up to monitors in the NICU the night she was born.

Delilah’s stint in the NICU was expected to be short — she was deemed to be rather healthy aside from the low blood sugar — but over the next few days it seemed that new problems kept cropping up that prolonged her stay. First, she had some reflux issues and, because of her prematurity, she couldn’t clear her airway of the fluid, causing her to “desat" a few times. In layman’s terms, she couldn’t breathe, her blood oxygen level was dropping (desaturating) and a NICU nurse had to rush in to clear her airway for her so she could breathe again. Fortunately, we were never there to witness this frightening occurrence. But just knowing about the incidents left Greg and I terrified for weeks even after coming home that she would “desat” in her sleep.

Another complication was that Delilah was jaundiced, which is why she looks a little yellow in all of her early photos. Her bilirubin levels were on the cusp of needing phototherapy treatment. Poor baby had to endure several blood draws over the course of several days to monitor the situation, but after one good poop to literally get the bilirubin out of her system that problem was taken off the watch list.

Yellow, jaundiced baby.

While Delilah’s blood sugar eventually stabilized and her IV was removed two days after birth, another problem emerged: she was losing weight. It’s normal for babies to drop as much as 10 percent of their weight after birth, but Delilah had lost 13 percent, going from 5 pounds 9 ounces to 4 pounds 12 ounces. The neonatologist recommended a strict formula feeding schedule (with limited breastfeeding time) to get weight on her quick.

IV removed, but Delilah looked skeletal.

Pinpricks from placing her IV.

Greg feeds Delilah a 2-ounce bottle of formula. 

During our baby’s stay in the NICU, Greg and I felt a little like zombies as we walked the hospital halls back and forth between our room in the Mother Baby area and the NICU. We made the trek every three hours so that I could try to breastfeed Delilah, and strangely we never saw any other parents making the trip. It seems all the other new parents in the Mother Baby wing had their little ones in their room, not the NICU.

Fortunately, I was healing from my c-section rather well. Delilah was born at 6 in the evening on Oct. 23 and I was able to move from the gurney to a wheelchair early the next morning. Gratefully — and surprisingly — I wasn’t having much if any pain, though the nurses encouraged me to keep accepting the pain meds. I used the wheelchair for about a day but after enough successful trips from hospital bed to bathroom and back again I decided to give walking to the NICU a go. All the nurses were shocked by how quickly I was recovering; one called me a “rock star.” I sure didn’t feel like it (or look it!). All I cared about was getting to my baby.

When we weren’t in the NICU, we tried to rest. But the days felt like a constant barrage of visits from doctors and nurses. We were definitely suffering from information overload, and we scarcely had any alone time with our new little babe. Everyone kept asking what her name was but we hadn’t had an opportunity to really sit down, marvel at our daughter and finalize the decision. There were two frontrunners before birth but I wanted to make sure it felt right. I wanted to see her, hold her, get to know her, and yet the stress of her delivery had put an unexpected cloud over the whole experience. Finally, on October 25, while Greg and I had some precious quiet time with our daughter, and I breastfed her, we came to a decision. We both agreed that we had always felt she was Delilah. Delilah Wren Thilgen.

Skin-to-skin after a breastfeeding session in the NICU on Oct. 25, with our freshly-minted Delilah Wren.

I wrote our daughter's name on the message board in our room (and in the NICU, too).

Though Delilah dealt with many issues in her first days on earth, the main issue keeping her in the NICU was the reflux/desatting incidents. And honestly, we were afraid to have her released from the watchful eyes (and monitors!) of the NICU too early if she was going to continue to not be able to clear her airway. We had already gotten used to, and comforted by, those monitors that showed her heart rate and blood oxygen levels. So when the doctors decided to keep her another night in the NICU we were slightly relieved. But we were also worried, because we didn’t know how long she’d have to stay if she kept desatting.

But on Thursday, Oct. 26, Delilah finally got the green light to bust out of the NICU. Although they told us she was going to be released, we were surprised by how quickly it happened. So when the NICU nurse suddenly wheeled a bassinet into our room, I cried the happiest tears. Greg and I embraced; our girl was finally with us.

Out of the NICU and in mama's arms, the morning of Oct. 26.

Finally, on Friday, four days after Delilah’s birth, a technician came in to perform her hearing scan. I kept wondering when the hospital would do this routine newborn test. (I assume they wanted to wait until she was out of the NICU.) Greg and I were optimistic; we had witnessed her respond to loud noises several times already. But we were nervous, too. Maybe she had some hearing loss after all? I held my breath as I watched the nurse conduct the test. Greg and I sat close on the hospital bed, looking on in silence. My parents and brother also happened to be in the room at the time. We all were quiet, waiting. The tension was palpable. Then came the results: she passed! Such sweet relief. 

With my incision healing nicely, I was technically discharged from the hospital on Friday, but I was permitted to continue to stay in our room since Delilah was still a patient. The next day, Oct. 28, with Delilah’s weight going up and her jaundice continuing to subside, she also received her discharge papers — we were allowed to go home. 

Swaddled to perfection by hospital nurses, on the morning of her release.

Dressed in a newborn-sized footed pajama (sleeves rolled way up!), ready to leave the hospital. 

Our little bird was just a tiny thing at 5 pounds even. The going-home outfit I had planned to dress her in was size 0-3 months — much too big. The smallest outfit I had for baby was a gifted newborn-sized pajama (the only one I had!) that my best friend brought to the hospital from our house, and even still Delilah was swimming in it! Thankfully our infant carrier was designed to fit preemies, and the hospital even performed a test to make sure Delilah could ride safely in it. And yet Greg and I still fretted over whether or not we strapped her into the seat correctly. That 30-minute drive from the hospital in Walnut Creek to our house in Alameda felt like the longest car ride ever, and I spent the entire time hunched over the car seat stressed, eyes fixed on my little miracle, making sure she was breathing.

Motherhood and worrying go hand in hand.

I detest this photo of myself BUT this is what you look like after six days in the hospital. When you're going home with your sweet baby, you slap a smile on your bare, haggard face and capture the moment.

In the car, on her way home to Alameda...

We arrived home around 5 p.m. and, I imagine like most first-time parents home from the hospital, we were feeling overjoyed, anxious, wholly unprepared and exhausted. I didn’t sleep a wink that night as I stood vigil over my baby girl, jumping at every noise that came from her bassinet and periodically staring at her to watch her chest rise and fall. Each movement brought a sense of reassurance — she is stronger than she looks. And that first long, sleepless night at home served as a reminder — I am stronger than I think. We are stronger than we think. Together, Greg and I will do anything for our sweet Delilah Wren. 

Conceiving, carrying and delivering our baby girl was a difficult yet amazing journey that tested and strengthened our marriage, our faith. But it is true what they say: this is the greatest adventure of our lives. It began Oct. 23. Any hardship, any sadness, we experienced in bringing our baby into the world and getting her home is all wiped away with this simple truth: parenting and loving Delilah is the very. best. thing.

Tuckered out on her first night home, Oct. 28.