On 6 – 28 – 06, which was forty one weeks into Steff’s pregnancy, we were at Abbott Northwestern for an inducement. At noon Steff was hooked up to an I.V. of Pitocin (SP?) for the inducement. Everything seemed to be going well. We had already known that there was little chance that Seth was coming out naturally. Steff being four foot eleven…. and ½, looked huge!

After a while they broke her water (~4:50 pm) and things started to progress. She start to open up and be ready, but Seth's gigantic head was still way bigger. At about 6:30pm, Steff was given an epidural to help with the pain. After some checking (1 am) it also seemed that he wanted to be like his father and come out facing the wrong way. Another sensor was put on Steff to monitor the strength of her contractions. So with Seth going, “Good! Good! My plan is coming together!”. The doctor was called and as soon as she was there Steff was prepped for a C Section.

Because we are not into those kind of pictures I left the camera behind with my mom (Sara).

[steff to add stuff here]

I came into the room (2am) and Steff was prepped for the C – Section. I sat down behind her and as everyone can guess was nervous as hell because here is my wife laid out to be cut open. Everyone in there was like your belly is big I wonder how big a baby this really is… I think that was code for this sucker is going to be really big. About 20 minutes into it the doctor said, “take a look the head is out”. Now that was a sucker move. I looked and I will remember that for the rest of my life. For everyone that isn’t into really, really, really nasty stuff…. Don’t look! For me it was, I want to see my baby, but I couldn’t not look at the train wreck of the surgery area. The doctor said that Steff had some of the nicest ovaries and placenta that she had seen in the last 20 years.

After they got him out it was the usual clean him up and get him ready. I was concerned about the blue color of his legs and feet, but they assured me that it was normal and that it can take a few minutes for the baby to process oxygen. They wrapped him up nice and well and handed him to me and we headed off to baby assessment. On the way there mom got a peak at him and we stopped to snap a picture, but I was already concerned because his eyes were already starting to close a little, and he really wasn’t crying. To me both bad signs… babies cry a lot, no?

This for me is where things took a turn for the worse. In assessment they hooked up the oxygen sensor and it was reading low, and his hands and feet were a little blue still, so they tried suctioning out the lungs, and getting a new oxygen sensor. The suctioning didn’t result in anything, and another nurse was pulled in to hold oxygen near his mouth. At this point mom is out side and I can see the panic look in her face. I told her the weight … the massive 9 pounds 13 ounces! We are talking over 22 inches long.

I didn’t know exactly what percentage it had to drop below to be dangerous, but I knew 75% couldn’t be good. I noticed how these nurses are the ones that are there mostly to take care of very healthy babies, and they seemed to know their limits as well. By 2:50 am we were off up stairs with oxygen being blown directly at his nose and mouth and only holding the oxygen in the mid 70’s. By now it was pretty much in controlled panic mode. My wife was being stitched up on a table and my baby was slowly suffocating…. Not fun.

We get to the special care center on the seventh floor. This floor is an adjunct to Children’s Hospital. This room I already knew was for babies that are not quite ok. Twins and more usually end up there because they are born a little early. Well I knew Seth had a problem, but it was just going to get worse for me.

Seth’s level of oxygen in the blood decreased slowly. His lungs were just not keeping up and at this point we didn’t know why. After 20 minutes of observation they called over to the Children’s Hospital, which for Seth’s sake, is connected by a ¼ mile tunnel. I noticed that the oxygen levels were about 50% higher than normal ambient levels, and Seth’s oxygen

percentage was still low, 70% or so. Steff had been put all back together by this point and mom had brought her up and they allowed her to see Seth for the first time. This of course made her sad because his eyes were closed and he was being fed oxygen.

Being an engineer, I am fairly logical and I knew at this point it was either a blood condition, lung condition, or a heart condition. When the nurse practitioner, Jennifer Ische, from NICU (Children’s Hospital) got there, it took her about 15 minutes to go over the information and determine it was really serious.

She said that the lungs sounded good and healthy and that the heart was beating strong, but she believed there might be a heart mummer, and made the call to take him over right away to NICU. Dr. Bonnie Landrom was on duty sent a team of 4 nurses and a transport unit. This was about 5:30 in the morning, and Steff could not go. I made the decision that I could do the best by being with Steff, so I sent Sara with Seth over to NICU. They packed up and ran the whole way there. I sat with Steff and comforted her.

At 6 am or so Sara called back over to the room in which Steff was recovering and I was asked to come over and speak with Doctor Sutton, a cardiologist. At that point I knew things were really bad.

When I got there I saw that they had a cardiogram hooked up and were doing an ultrasound of his heart, and they had found a mistake. Two of his arteries were incorrect. The term for this is the Transposition of the Greater Arteries.

Seth has TGA.

The doctors want to wait a little while for him to get strong. Right now he is ok and stable. I am optimistic that everything will work out well.