Throwback Thursday – A Joyous and Nearly Tragic Day

Sixteen years ago today today our younger son Christopher was born. It is one of those days that I will never forget for many reasons – obviously because our son was born, but also because the path to our happy ending was very uncertain and fraught with difficulty.

We had gone through years of infertility and miscarriage before Danny was born, and after a few months we were basically told that if we planned to have another child – don’t stop trying. So we didn’t, and in June of 2007 Lisa had a feeling and we did a test while on vacation at Cape Code and eating lunch at the Captain’s Table in Chatham. It was positive.

That didn’t make it easy – throughout the pregnancy there was spotting and other difficulties, and Lisa had non-specific lousy feelings most of the time. But she held in there and on the pre-scheduled day we showed up to deliver our baby, just like we did with Danny.

As we went through the surgery our OB/GYN made a few things abundantly clear:
– Lisa’s scarring issues made the surgery no laughing matter and the attitude in the OS was tense.
– Lisa should never get pregnant again.
– Christopher was breach, and more of less stuck under Lisa’s ribs
– Another childbirth could very well kill Lisa

Holding Chris at 4 weeks.

But despite that and relatively low Apgar scores after Chris nearly drowned in the amniotic fluid, we all headed to recovery. But we never got much chance to relax. We finally headed home almost 2 weeks later, but before then:
– Lisa had an ilius, meaning that her digestive system had shut down and would;t restart manually. It took TWO rounds with an NG tube to get her going again, and there was much bile and difficulty in between. It was scary when the chief of surgery was in our room trying to form a strategic plan of action around dealing with her. Fortunately it got resolved before we had to do anything drastic … but it was quite tense!
– I was standing in the hall with Chris about an hour or so after her was born and he turned blue. You might have heard about someone turning blue before, but when it is a baby … it is pretty literal! He turned blue a second time and was sent to the NICU, and when I joined him he was improving and one of the nurses quipped that THIS was what a normal healthy baby looks like.

For a short time I was getting concerned I would leave without a wife or younger son – but everything work out, and today that baby turns 16!

Happy Birthday Chris!

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