From Bad Springs Good

Paranoia can do funny things. It can make you overly sensitive to the slightest thing, or it can make you, oddly enough, a bit hesitant to speak out when you clearly should. During my pregnancy I swung to both sides of the paranoia pendulum - seeing the worst in everything and still hesitant to voice my fears. Luckily, that was seven years ago and my story, as the title indicates, has a good ending to a very, very bad situation.

My paranoia started pretty early on in my pregnancy, since I had stillborn at 32 weeks four years prior to my pregnancy with Garrett. So I was a little on edge when I was at work one day and didn't feel good. Oddly enough, my paranoia kept me quiet throughout most of the day - the last thing I wanted to do was cause a fuss by overreacting to nothing more than an upset stomach. I must confess my son Garrett and I owe a debt to my good friend who insisted I call the doctor immediately. Thank goodness for friends.

My friend was right to be worried. I went into the hospital, had a fetal stress test and was told the results warranted an emergency C-section. Given my history with stillbirth, my paranoia started its quick climb to off-the-charts levels. So, of course, I wasn't expecting to have a baby that day, but my husband and I prepared the best way that we could, given the circumstances, even through our dreadful feeling of deja vu.

As soon as the C-section was complete, my husband and I just waited for the telltale sign of life - that first cry. When I didn't hear it for some time I started repeating... 'Why isn't he crying??? Make him cry!!!" I panicked, started to cry myself, and thought this just couldn't be happening again. After what seemed to be 10 minutes, the doctors got him to cry and so my husband and I thought everything was going to be okay. The hospital staff cleaned him up, took him away to check all of his vital signs, and I felt immense, immense relief. Happy, exhausted, and just a little medicated, I was wheeled back into my room with family.

Funny thing about paranoia, it can go from zero to 60 faster than you can say the word. How do I know? Well, in came a nurse who stated very directly, "your son has taken a turn for the worse and we need your husband to come with us." So I sat, paranoia coursing through me at about the speed of light, waiting for my husband to return, all the while mulling over the infinite possibilities of the meaning of "taken a turn for the worse." When my husband came back accompanied by a team of doctors, nurses and a CCU team, I quickly reached the conclusion that the phrase meant something along the lines of "imagine your worst nightmare, again." I was told Garrett's lungs had filled up with blood and he had flat lined. And once a pulse was restored the decision was made to put him in an enclosed incubator and transport him to another hospital. Though that hospital had a "world-class" NICU, it was, of course, about 30 minutes away. So yeah, I think I was pretty accurate on that definition.

Once Garrett got to the other hospital they started doing tests and noticed that not only did he have respiratory problems, but that he also had two holes in his heart. The doctors had him on a breathing machine that caused him to literally bounce on the table with each influx of oxygen. They also kept him in isolation at the hospital because they thought maybe he had some type of bacteria that was causing all of these problems. They did several tests over the course of the next week and they could not get any significant results from the cultures they had done. Garrett ended up staying in the NICU for a month before he got to come home. This was my son, the one I had held for all of 30 seconds so far.

When he finally came home, my husband and I were nervous (okay, you're on to me, we were actually paranoid) because the doctors were still unable to determine what had caused all his problems. The developmental doctor had said that there was a great concern that there could be “learning disabilities” caused by all the tough conditions Garrett had faced both in and out of the womb. This "nervousness" lasted several months as we were in and out of the doctor's offices to have his heart and developmental progress checked again, and again, and again... It was only when we received the great news that Garrett's two holes had closed on their own and that his development had never skipped a beat did we finally let out a giant and collective exhale, or so it seemed.

Today, Garrett is a VERY healthy and smart 7-year old. Because of organizations like the March of Dimes supporting our hospitals, we know that our life-and-death situation ended with the greatest happiness. Our family continues to support the March of Dimes and their research efforts so that from bad springs good - every time.