Keegan's Birth

Keegan was born in June of 2006. My pregnancy was relatively easy, except for the fact that my doctor mistakenly told me I had Hepatitis C. After being completely freaked out, and having no clue how I could have contracted it (I have never had a blood transfusion or experimented with IV drugs), I found out that it was not true. Keeping that in mind, who could blame me for not thinking it was a big deal when they said it looked like he had extra fluid in his brain during my first ultrasound? I check with our pediatrician who told me that if they weren't making a big deal out of it, I shouldn't worry.

I spent the remainder of my pregnancy doing stress tests twice a week and everything always came back fine. I actually enjoyed the quiet time where I could just listen to his heart beat. I was scheduled to be induced at 39 weeks to prevent any undue stress on the baby. I am a planner so that was perfect!

I was told he would see a neurosurgeon at birth to check his brain and see what would need to be done. All in all I thought everything was hunky dory. We went to the hospital so excited to meet this baby, I was hoping for a girl. We didn't know the sex because they couldn't tell during any of our ultrasounds.

Induction is hardly fun but delivery and all that went well except that he was born face up. This caused his nose to be smooshed a little and he was working a little hard to breathe. I remember someone waking me up to tell me Keegan was being taken to the NICU because he was having some respiratory issues; they presumed it was from the delivery and that too much suctioning had caused some inflammation. I was exhausted and once again everyone seemed pretty calm so I didn't worry.

The calm only lasted until they didn't bring him right back to me, then the first wave of fear reached me.

This is what I saw when I went to visit him...

My little 7lb 14oz baby wrapped up in wires, beeping, eyes covered, mouth taped, ENCLOSED...Not what I was expecting!!!!

The first 3 days are still a blur, I pushed everything aside and focused on taking care of my baby. I spent as much time as I could sitting with him in the NICU.

He was also jaundiced so he was under the UV light with his shades on to protect his eyes. I remember joking that he was trying to get a tan for Summer.

He had a tube down his nose to feed him (it was originally in his throat but he wouldn't tolerate that); I remember that sending another wave to the pit of my stomach.

On the third day, my heart shattered. I was discharged and Keegan was not. I had to leave without my baby. I don't think there are many things harder than that; besides going back everyday and doing it over and over again for the four weeks while Keegan was in the NICU. It was extremely hard to watch so many moms leaving with their babies in their little car-seats.

During the first week a case manager sat down with his dad and I and told us Keegan was diagnosed with Septo-Optic Dysplasia. They couldn't say for sure but they didn't expect him to have very good vision. He saw an Endocrinologist who ordered blood work to check his hormone levels and we were told he would need to start medication to replace those that are missing. They went on explaining everything that was going on, and tried to reassure us it wasn't our fault, nobody knows why this happens, I didn't do anything wrong etc etc. They laid out the plan what needed to be done for Keegan to go home, the only thing that mattered to me. They had to get rid of the jaundice, he had to get his hormones within normal range, he had to eat enough on his own and gain weight.

I did the best I could to hold it together, only allowing myself to cry in the shower and in the car on my way to and from the hospital. I started to feel like he was never going to come home.

I had planned to exclusively breastfed but I was discouraged from even trying because Keegan wasn't eating enough on his own and the nurses needed to know exactly how much he was eating. This really upset me, but I wanted him to come home so I was willing to do anything. So I pumped all the time labeling each little bottle with care. At one point they thought he might be jaundiced from breast-milk, so they tried formula and Keegan threw up every bit of it. They tried soy based formula and he still wouldn't hold it down. They finally agreed to go back to breast milk, eventually the jaundice went away.

Keegan still wasn't eating enough so the doctors talked to me about putting in a g-tube, and I agreed because that would be the only way to get him home. The day his surgery was scheduled the Endocrinologist came in and urged me to hold off on having this surgery. She told me Keegan's growth hormone levels were very low and he needed to take medicine to replace it and that most of the time it will increase appetite. The medication took a week to be delivered and I had to learn how to give him an injection. After getting the growth hormone, he did begin to eat better.

Keegan was always a thumb sucker! One great thing about him is that he has always been really good at self-soothing. That thumb's gotten him through some rough times.

Keegan's dad had a lot more trouble dealing with everything and couldn't handle the emotions that came from Keegan having special needs, and our already rocky relationship took a nose dive. On the day Keegan turned a month old we got into a fight about him not going to see him at the hospital and things got out of control, again. I finally reached the point where I wasn't going to take his emotional and physical abuse any longer; I had him arrested and pressed charges. I had Conner and Keegan to take care of and I couldn't do that dead. That is another story and doesn't have much to do with Keegan so I will leave it at that.

After 37 long days in the NICU, he finally came home! During those four weeks I felt like my life was on hold. I didn't want to do anything. I felt guilty for going to see fireworks on the fourth of July with friends and family. I spent my days pumping, making trips to and from the hospital, and trying to spend time with my 3 year old Conner. Even though the NICU was not exactly a positive experience for me, I am still so grateful for the nurses who took care of my baby when I couldn't, and the doctors who diagnosed him. Keegan was diagnosed extremely early, mostly because his case is more severe on the spectrum of this disorder. It is common for kids with this disorder to go undiagnosed for years. Overall I learned a lot from the whole experience, and it only prepared me for what was, and still is, to come.