Motherhood.
Get ready for a long one. This post is going to be personal, emotional, and real.
I have been trying to write this birth story blog for six months. I am currently writing this post on my iPhone with my son using me as a pacifier because he screams if I put him down. I have never been so exhausted in my entire life. Would I change it for the world? No.
The love that I have for my son is immeasurable. I have never and will never feel a love like this again. He is my first child, even if my husband and I decide to have another, he will still be the one who plunged me into motherhood.
Before I get too far into our current life, let me first take you back to June 4th 2020, the day I became a mother.
My husband and I woke up at 6:00 AM after a night of sleepless anticipation. We drove to the hospital for my scheduled c-section. As if having a baby wasn’t anxiety inducing enough, how about we throw in a major surgery and a global pandemic.
My husband got started on the paperwork while they started doing my pre-op vitals. He was so excited that he forgot his own phone number and misspelled my middle name.
Due to family history of major complications during birth, a scheduled caesarian section was required for the safety of myself and my baby. The people closest to me know that surgery is a major anxiety trigger for me, so the idea of having a surgery while awake scarred the life out of me. Constantly meditating and reciting the mantra of my birth plan was the only thing that got me past the crippling fear.
As Cory scrubbed up I was lead back to receive my spinal block. The anesthesiologist was high energy and super friendly. It was her birthday which she cheerfully expressed while telling me that she and my son would share the day. They had some difficulty finding the exact spot in my spine to numb my lower body and I am forever grateful to the assistant that helped me stay still and comforted me while I had silent tears running down my face.
Finally a jolt of lighting shot down my right side and they began to position me for the procedure. Cory was shuffled into the room with a blend of excitement and reassurance on his face. He rubbed my arms and told me I was going to do great while I focused on my own breathing and my mantra.
I kept telling the anesthesiologist that I could still feel my lower half and urged her not to let them start. Attempting to ease my anxiety, she assured me that I was ready by pinching my stomach. When I clearly did not react she winked at me. I could tell she was smirking at me from behind her mask.
I felt pressure, but not as intense as I was prepared for. Each time they would warn me of what was coming, I would be pleasantly surprised at how bearable it was.
After what seemed like the quickest moments of my life I heard my son cry. It is to this day the best sound I have ever heard. The look of joy that radiated from my husbands face was incomparable. They showed me my beautiful child and quickly swept him away to clean him up and check his height and weight. He had more hair than I expected and the strongest cleft chin you could have ever imagined.
They had him back there for what felt like an eternity, probably because I was now alone and could feel the pressure of them stitching me back up. I tried my hardest to ignore the feeling and focus on the relaxed conversation of my surgeon with his colleagues about the food they would be eating later on in the day.
Eventually Cory came back with our boy who was 8lbs 9oz and 21.5 in long. My husband loves to boast that he weighted 8.9 and was born at 10:11am.
They rested his cheek on mine while he slept and I was the happiest I had ever been.
When they were finally done with me, they moved us all to the recovery room where they brought Cory food and I attempted to breastfeed which seemed to be going well, dispute the challenges we would later face.
Before moving us to our permanent room they casually mentioned that he had a bit of trouble breathing from residual amniotic fluid in his lungs, but we shouldn’t worry because that’s typical of c-section babies due to the lack of squeezing they would have faced traveling through the vaginal canal.
Once in our room, it felt like a million degrees. Apparently our air conditioning was out and it took entirely too long to fix. In the meantime I had gotten sick several times due to medication and the heat. Throwing up was excruciating on my fresh incision.
The nurse came to give our baby his first bath and I excitedly gave her a few outfits to choose from. Cory and I relaxed and talked about our son. We talked about how handsome he was, that he had a head full of hair, and what we were expecting him to look like versus what he actually looked like.
After taking for a while we noticed it had been almost an hour since our boy was taken back by the nurse.
While giving him a bath she noticed bruising in his chest and back as well as red spots all over his body that had not been there the hour before. Trying to keep us calm she assured us that sometimes this happens and they were just running some bloodwork. We went through having this be the best day of our lives to the dread of our child being in destress.
His blood platelet count came back dangerously low. The red spots on his body were called petechiae. These spots indicate bleeding under the skin. After lots of panic and the discussion of transfusions, he was diagnosed with Neonatal Alloimmune Thrombocytopeni. To spare you the scientific jargon, NAIT is when the mothers blood platelets are incomparable with the baby’s. Essentially, my immune system was attacking his blood platelets faster than he could regenerate them.
He was put in the NICU for a blood transfusion, hemoglobin treatments, and observation. We were hopeful that he would be out before we were discharged from the hospital.
It was two days before we officially picked a name for our son. We decided on Leander and nicknamed him Leo. We had already loved the name, but we felt that it’s origins based in strength were fitting with his beginning of life. His full name is Leander Walker Dean Schilling. My dad joked that the poor kid would be an excellent speller early on because of that name.
The waiting game commended. Every four hours his platelets were counted. Meanwhile, I was recovering from my c-section and desperately trying to pump to feed my baby in the NICU. Due to an IV line in his umbilical cord I was not able to physically breastfeed him. He had to be given a combination of formula and my pumped milk. I felt like a failure. Every two hours I would call or shuffle down to the NICU to check on him or feed him. Every four hours I would ask for his results, each time I was met with disappointment.
In total he would receive two transfusions and three hemoglobin treatments. He was in the NICU for eight long days.
Leaving the hospital without my son was the hardest thing I have ever done, and will probably ever have to do in my entire life. I was so sleep deprived that I couldn’t fall asleep and would have debilitating panic attacks when I would try. Cory was trying to stay strong for me but was just as upset and tired as I was. We would wake up every few hours to call and check on his platelets and get up early to go spend the entire day with him.
Let me add that our situation was not as critical as some other NICU families. We were very fortunate to have only stayed 8 days and to have a healthy and happy boy as a result. My heart aches for the families that have been through tougher situations than us, including some that were there at the same time.
On day 7 of the NICU we were told that he could come home. I was over the moon. I called our entire family and told them the good news. I packed his bag and got dressed, but as we were walking out the door I got another call that during the shift change another doctor decided against sending him home. I was almost as devastated as the day he went in. I cried for hours, and said some choice words, but in the end I understood that they were truly taking my Leo’s health seriously and I should be more grateful than angry.
Finally the day came where we could take him home. I made sure to ask several times if he was officially discharged this time so I wasn’t disappointed again. I got dolled up and got his bag ready, We then went back to the NICU for the last time.
The next few days are a blur of crying and exhaustion. The poor kid had insurmountable amounts of unbearable gas. He cried constantly. We tried everything. Gas drops, gripe water, tummy exercises, all of it. Nothing gave him or us any relief.
Nursing him was painful. My nipples would flatten, crack, blister and bleed. But I persisted. While in the hospital, I asked if he had a tongue tie but was assured that he was fine, the lactation consultant I saw in the hospital said his latch was perfect, so I assumed I was the problem. When my sister and brother in law who had experience with tongue ties from their first child, came to visit they said it looked like he had a tongue tie. While it would explain all of the problems we were having, I assured them that he didn’t have a tie according to the hospital.
After a very long and tearful few days, I sought out another lactation consultant to see what I was doing wrong. Without me even having to tell her, and after just a quick examination she told me he had a severe tongue and lip tie and referred us to a pediatric oral surgeon.
The surgeon deemed that he had sever anterior and posterior tongue ties. With a quick swipe of a laser, they took care of him. He was in a bit of pain and his stretching was heartbreaking but
as sad as it made me that he was hurting for a few days, I was so happy that our nursing problems and his gas were a thing of the past.
We are now a solid 6 months into exclusively breastfeeding and I am so very happy I persisted.
This kid is amazing. Now hear me out, I know every parent thinks their kid is special, but Leander is measuring 3 months ahead of scheduled development physically and mentally. I have never met a smarter infant, and I worked in a Child Development Center and was a nanny for White House Nannies. He is crawling, sitting up, has said his first word, will hold himself up when place in front of something he can grab, will walk when holding your hands, and is starting to eat actual food.
This boy refuses to be a baby for very long so I am going to savor every smile, coo, and snuggle. Leo is extremely inquisitive and strong-willed, I cannot wait to see how he changes the world.
If you stuck with me this far, thank you for listening to our story.
Being a mom is hard. Being a working mom is harder. Would I trade it for the world? No.
Update June 1, 2023
I am 3 days away from Leo’s 3rd birthday as I am updating my website and migrating over all of my existing blogs. He wanted a Bluey theme so I am working on making that dream a reality.
Leo is still the most extraordinary little guy I know. He is incredibly smart, kind, and just plain adorable. I am privileged to be his mom.
Images by Fallon Alley Photography
