I found this long version of DS2's birth story that I wrote before his 2nd NICU stay, when we thought he was home for good. I thought I'd put it out here, in case someone else went through something traumatic and wants to talk about it. I used to "see" the cord hanging out of me all the time, but that happens to me much, much less frequently now at almost a year PP. It's long, sorry!

My water broke at 30 weeks, and I was admitted to the hospital's High Risk Perinatal ward, which became my home for the next two weeks. The initial plan was for me to make it to 34 weeks and be induced, but all the doctors told me that it was more likely that I would just go into labor one day. When I was 32w1d, I had some contractions in the afternoon which went away after getting IV fluids. Around 10pm I felt very constipated and tried to poop, and that's when I found the cord hanging out of me! Having had my water break first for both of my children, I knew that anything (cord, hands, feet, etc) coming out of you is a bad, bad sign. I also never saw my first son's umbilical cord, and was shocked by the blue color and worried that it meant something was terribly wrong. I immediately called my nurse (my sister asked if I pulled the red line in the bathroom but it never occurred to me) and then a whole army showed up in my room, with one nurse climbing on the bed with me to hold the cord in as we wheeled down the hall for an emergency C section. They briefly tried to find a heartrate but couldn't - I think due to how strung up everyone was. The nurse who was holding the cord in told me the baby was kicking her, so I actually felt pretty peaceful for a moment about how he was doing! I managed to call my husband and told him to come immediately (he was home with DS1, so had to call his mom to come over and then leave), and asked the nurses to send him the right way when he arrived. We rushed into the surgery room and they were pulling my clothes off, swabbing me with iodine, putting something through my IV, and then I got the mask. I was sobbing and shaking since I was so scared, they kept telling me to calm down and be still, and finally I just took deep breaths and told myself that the best I could do for my baby was follow their instructions and calm down. One nurse held my hand, and then they put me to sleep.

When it was all over, and I came out of the general anesthesia, I asked about D, and was told that they were working to stabilize him. I was so out of it that although this news was upsetting to me, I was not overly alarmed ("stabilize" seemed like an ok description). I was in excruciating pain and did not receive morphine until after what felt like an eternity, and thus just laid there sobbing, waiting for my husband to come in. When he was allowed in, we both just cried together, worrying about our son. I later found out that when he arrived, he was told by the nurses that "your wife is being stitched up, and they are resuscitating your son," and when he expressed shock they refused to give him any more information until the doc could come speak to him. I recognize now that my husband went through his own hell, sitting in a waiting room awake and alone, just praying and waiting. D was born at 10:47pm, my husband arrived at the hospital at 11pm, was allowed in with me around 12:30am, and we were both allowed in to see D at 2am.

They wheeled my stretcher into the NICU, and D's doctor met us at the bedside. D had a lot of tubes coming out of him, and his eyes were closed, but he was moving around, very jerkily, and seemed to be in pain. I have a video of it but it's very, very hard for me to see. The doctor told us that he had "the mother of all" mucus plugs in his throat, so they had trouble intubating him (to be able to use a ventilator to breathe), and thus he went about 30 minutes with little to no oxygen. At that point they really had no idea for what to expect moving forward, but were happy that he had already peed. They said that often other organs will take more damage to sacrifice themselves before the brain gets injured from lack of oxygen, and the fact that his heart, liver, etc seemed to be fine was promising. We were not allowed to hold D, but I touched his leg and told him how much we loved him and how proud of him we were. In the following hours and days I began to understand more about what D's problems and complications, and was very depressed and angry, in addition to being in a lot of pain from recovering from the surgery, and pumping around the clock. His brain swelling got worse, peaked at day 3 (when he didn't react to heel pricks or other stimuli at all), and then thankfully subsided. His brain injury primarily affected his suck/swallow reflexes and we had a feeding tube placed at 6 weeks, which he still relies on. He has thankfully graduated off of the heartrate/apnea monitor, Rx for caffeine (to remind him to breathe), and need for an industrial-grade suction machine.