Xander's Arrival

Alexander Leifur Tomasson

6lbs 12oz 20in

6/23/09 11:55 pm

This past week has been quite the roller coaster! Little Xander was not expected to make his appearance for a couple of weeks yet, but he got a bit anxious and decided to show up early. The following is a very long play by play of the night Xander was born and I decided to chronicle this event for posterity sake.

He really scared us Tuesday night, June 23, 2009. I had a busy day at work and got home and relaxed. I was having my usual Braxton-Hicks contractions while watching the Braves game with David, but nothing too major. As I was dozing off to sleep around 10:30, I quickly roused when I felt my water break. I was excited and nervous as David helped me make my way to the bathroom thinking my labor just began, but as I got to the bathroom, I noticed there was blood everywhere. I was definitely scared at that point and yelled to David (who had left the room to get Xander's bag) that we needed to get the hospital immediately.

Not knowing exactly what was happening, I gave both our moms a call to let them know that we were going to have a baby in the coming hours. David and I got up to the Labor & Delivery floor at the hospital and the nurse set me up in a triage type room and hooked me up to a monitor and left to get something. She came back minutes later and immediately got serious and told me to get on my hands and knees as she was yelling for help. She told us the baby was in major distress and we needed to get to an operating room fast. It seemed in a fleeting moment there were 10 people in this tiny curtained off area working on me frantically--putting in an IV, giving me oxygen, assessing little Xander's erratic heartbeat, and preparing me for surgery. As it turns out, the doctor on call was the one I had seen for my normal visit the previous week, so I knew who she was. She very quickly, without explaining much, told us that they were going to have to do an emergency C-section. Through my own tears I saw David looking on with shear fright in his eyes as they started wheeling me across the hall to the OR. We said our "I Love Yous" and parted while they prepped me for the surgery, and David went out the waiting room where our moms were set to wait for the hours of labor that come with a first born.

Immediately upon entering the OR, the anesthesiologist was cleaning my back for an epidural. Before the spinal even took effect, the nurses and scrub tech put in a catheter and began cleaning my tummy. The doctor rushed into the OR after having scrubbed and was ready to start. I remember hearing one of the nurses say, "let's go get dad," and then the doctor replied, "I don't have time to wait for Dad." That, among everything else going on freaked me out the most. Right after I heard "Cut time....,"I looked over to the door and saw David in a yellow smock and surgical mask being led into the room by another nurse. He looked scared, but he had composed himself and was the best support I could have ever had.

After a lot of pressure and tugging, I looked up to David and he started leaning over the draped partition in front of me and began to cry. I knew our son was being born--I heard, "It's a boy!" The time that elapsed from when my water broke and began bleeding copious amounts at home, and the time Xander arrived into this world was an hour and fifteen minutes

Xander did not make much sound, but whimpered a couple of times. As he was delivered, the nurse quickly flashed him in front of me and then took him to the warming table where I could only see one of the nurses working on him. They took quite awhile with him, while the doctor was delivering the placenta and putting me back together. In time, they called David over and handed him our son. David then came and sat next to me as we both cried at the miracle that had just occurred. The nurses escorted David and Xander away while they continued to work on me. The doctor then told me that the placenta had abrupted-pulled away from the uterus-and that had caused the bleeding and fetal distress.

It was quite some time later in the recovery area when David and the moms came over to check on me. Because they did everything emergently, it was in the recovery room where I officially was admitted into the hospital. We later learned that Xander had been taken to the neonatal intensive care unit because he was having some labored breathing, his blood pressure was a bit low, and his glucose was also low (due to my gestational diabetes).

We talked David into going home around 2:30am to get some sleep before he had to go to his own doctors appointment (follow up for his surgery). At that time they took me to my post partum room and although I was still very numb from the epidural and heavily medicated, I talked the nurse into wheeling me over to the NICU to see my son. It was one of the hardest things, yet, so special too.

The days that followed, Xander made a quick recovery and was even allowed to "room in" with me the last two nights in the hospital. He's one special miracle for whom I just can't explain my feelings.

The entire Tomasson family really appreciates all of those who were thinking about us and all of your well wishes. After such an event, we know we are truly blessed to have such loving, caring, and giving friends and family.