Questions

Florida - posted on 11/08/2010

My son had the infarc-type stroke. 3 small blood clots traveled up into the left temporal area, into the specific space associated with speech. 10% of his brain died as a result at 12 hours after birth. This was diagnosed a few hours later, as I saw him have seizures and asked the nurse what that was: it was my first baby, and I really didn't know what was normal or what wasn't, and what to expect, so I was watching very closely, in awe. I also asked just a few hours before, about the startle reflex, as I'd never seen that either. The nurse had not seen seizures like that in an infant, so she called another nurse who called NICU, and they came to get him. They ran some tests, did ultrasounds, scans, MRI, and then told us as much as they knew, and also the worse case scenarios of what you could expect out of this so that we were prepared. They said 50% chance of CP (that didn't happen), they said he might not crawl (he did, and right on time !), and it's only around 18 months that tests and screenings of all sorts since his birth were diffeent than other babies. He might not have had quite as many words as he should have, and that was a flag- but they weren't too sure because we are a bilingual family, and my son was spoken too both in english and french since his birth. They thought maybe that might account for the slight lateness in his speech. The neurologist wasn't too worried and dismissed us when he was 2 yrs old, saying she thought he was fine, he played well, he spoke during play, looked normal etc. And she said: call me back if you have any questions or concerns. We were still following everything up with speech therapy (or at least constant evaluation and things to practice at home with him). Not everything is normal, he goes through stages like everyone else, and I feel he had to work and still does, extra hard to rewire his precious brain. Some concepts still escape him, like the "why", like "the most or the least" and general things like this that make it difficult for him to understand everything that's going on in his world and then communicate it back to someone.
I had what I thought was a normal pregnancy- I'd even quit coffee, which was the only bad habit I've had. I was vegan throughout the pregnancy, making sure I got enough of everything- and I gain tons of weight ( 45 lbs ! Half my body weight of then ! wow !) And he had a normal weight of 8 lbs 8 oz.
The birth wasn't what you'd call normal. I went to church on the Sunday and when me and my partner came back, I had a sore back and didn't think anything of it- I felt very needy and "bit his head off" because he breathed the wrong way (figuratively, of course). So this went on all the rest of the day, and during the night I woke up with contractions. Around 12 noon the next day, we took a cab to the hospital, then were sent back because my water hadn't broken and my contractions weren't strong enough (I wondered "What do YOU MEAN !!!! NOT Strong enough !!??" Went home and a couple hours later my water broke and I went back to the hospital. They had to put me on antibiotics because of a bacterial infection many moms get that can put your baby at risk for meningitis amongst other things, so this was done. Many many hours later, the contractions weren't doing too much too quickly, so I was put on oxytocin to quicken things up, because it's not good for a baby to be in the womb too long after the water has broken. That still wasn't really working (it just hurt like hell...) and progression was slow. Many hours later, I started swelling up everywhere (I wasn't swolen during pregnancy, just during the birth...) and my nice 9.5 cm opening went back to 4 cm. They took scalp blood samples from the baby to figure out if he was in distress by his level of blood acidity, and to see if he could handle me getting moe oxytocin. It wasn't conclusive one way or another, so we went to c-section. They did an epidural then (I was mad, because I didn't want one of those to begin with, but they didn't have a choice, I had to be awake they said- it's more dangerous for everybody (ie mom and baby) otherwise. The c-section went well, and JB was born, looking beautiful and normal, save that he had fairly long nails, and there were minor traces of meconium in the womb- he did not ingest any though.
Through all the tests a newborn goes through normally, I was unfamiliar with it all, but yet what stood out to me was that vitamin K shot to "keep the baby from bleeding excessively should any injuries happen- a blood clotting drug. I've often wondered if that was the culprit - if it would cause excessive blood clotting in some infants maybe. I don't like shots of any kind, and I think that why this stood out to me, other than the fact I had never heard of it until then, which gave me no time to think. They told me it was routine, so I accepted- they weren't even going to ask me until I piped up and asked "Hey ! What's that for ?" . Do you have any thoughts on this ? (the shot)