Whirlwind (pt. II)

After Leah gave birth to Ruby early Tuesday morning, the nurses put Ruby through their standard series of tests over the course of the first few hours of her life. Even before she was examined, the hospital staff was marginally concerned about infection. Because Leah started labor from home, and her water broke several hours (~9) before she received any antibiotics, they were continuously looking and checking for infection. I think this is just one of those things that hospitals respond to very conservatively, as the last thing they want is to deal with an infection, but I also doubt that they would be nearly as concerned about it if Leah would have been in their care from the beginning. In her initial examination, the main issue they discovered was that Ruby rhythmically moved her right arm for almost 15 minutes. They mentioned that sudden twitches or strange movements from babies are normal, but that rhythmic movements such as these could actually be a form of seizures. We somewhat dismissed this, as the nurse downplayed the significance quite a bit, but it turned out that this would be more important than we had ever imagined.

The other issue we had to fight in the hospital was Ruby’s blood sugar level. The hospital will test a baby’s blood sugar a few times shortly after she is born. They initially tested her blood sugar about 2 hours after she was born, and she had a very good reading - a 108. A couple of hours later, they came back to test her again, and she only tested out at a 48 (they always want a baby’s blood sugar reading to come back > 50). Well, unbeknownst to us, that triggered a series of 7 follow-up tests to make sure that she can maintain her blood sugar levels. The problem with this whole situation is that the second test is to determine whether or not she can maintain those levels after she has been fed, yet Leah had not had the opportunity to feed Ruby yet, so it seems like that would invalidate the test, or at least they would postpone the test until she had fed Ruby. Unfortunately, neither were the case, so Ruby had to endure 7 more tests throughout the course of the day (all coming out > 50 since she was actually able to eat by that time). This was fairly frustrating, as it seems that no one used any context to make many of their decisions, so you were somewhat at the mercy of hospital protocols regardless of the true nature of the issue.

As a result of the rhythmic movement in her initial exam, they also put her through an EEG test (measuring the electrical impulses in the brain), some blood work (to determine if she had any infections), and an ultrasound of her brain (to see if they could find any structural issues). Thankfully, both the blood work and the ultrasound came back showing no issues. We were not so lucky with the EEG. The EEG showed significant seizure activity going on in her little brain, and all but confirmed that the movement she exhibited in her initial exam was in fact a seizure.

This was obviously very difficult information for two brand-new parents to process, given that all we could see was our near-perfect baby girl. It is just not something that you prepare yourself for mentally. Thankfully, we had a wonderful neurologist come and explain the implications to us, which helped to put some information behind the initial news. It was still a little scary, but he said that this can obviously happen with newborns, and that many times, they will actually outgrow it to the point where we wouldn’t even need to worry about it a few years down the road. As a result, he scheduled an MRI for Friday and said that he would follow up with us that afternoon to discuss the results. Until then he felt we would be just fine heading home and watching for any more signs of seizures instead of having to wait it out at the hospital (hallelujah!).

That is kind of the scary part of those first few days, but on the other side of things, it sure was great to have so much family and so many friends come by to see Ruby. I think all of the grandparents were able to hold Ruby within a couple of days of her birth, and they all beamed from ear to ear, just as you might expect. In addition to the grandparents, Ruby was able to meet several of her aunts and uncles for the first time and many of her “inherited” aunts and uncles. It was also great for us to just see her and hold her and generally take everything in. Those first moments are so precious, and I am glad that we were able to savor them with her. Despite the knowledge that she had experienced seizures, she really displayed no outward signs of behaving unlike any other newborn, and we enjoyed every moment we spent with her.

I hope to get everything up to date with pt. III, coming shortly…

Click on the photo below to view all...

Days 1-2 Post