Happy Birthday Jac - and Jac's birth story

I can't believe that Jac is a year old today. I truly can't believe it. This has been one of the best and of the hardest years in my life. And in Joseph's. So many things have changed.

We moved from Pasadena to Boulder five days before Jac was born. I was on "bed rest" which I was doing my best to comply with while moving. Joseph had already been here for a month and I really wanted to be in Boulder with him for the remainder of my pregnancy (which I thought was going to be many more weeks). Joseph flew to LA, drove the dogs to Boulder in two days, and picked me up at the airport (where I laid down the entire time on the plane) all in the two days. I arrived July 5.

I stayed in our new condo in Boulder, with almost no furniture other then our bed, and tried to rest. I had my first appointment with Boulder Women's Care on July 10. The night before I told Joseph that I did not think the baby was kicking as much. Since we had the appointment the next day anyway we decided to wait.

When we went in for our appointment we went through all of the normal first appointment stuff including a full family medical history. After all of that we talked to the doctor and she decided to put me on the non-stress test monitoring machine to watch the baby's heart beat. She did this based on my report that the baby was not kicking as much.

I was on the monitor for quite a while. When they first put it on my belly they couldn't find a good heart beat to follow and the nurse was trying all kinds of different spots on my belly to find it. When she finally did she left me on the monitor. We were in the room with another woman and her husband. She was much further along in her pregnancy and she and her husband were talking and laughing. Joseph and I sat there and watched the machine tick along. After I had been on the monitor for at least a half an hour the nurse decided to give me a Capri Sun to drink. The idea with this was to get the baby to wake up. They did not like the readings they were getting on the monitor - and the Capri Sun did not make things better.

The doctor came in at that point and decided that she did not like the heart rate tracings from the monitor and that I needed to go over to the hospital. This is when I got scared. I had been on the monitor several times before and it had always gone well - with the baby showing good heart rate accelerations periodically - and the baby was not doing that this time.

Joseph and the doctor and I walked over to the hospital portion of the building and I was put in a bed and hooked up to a monitor again. This time the baby started showing marked decelleations. And the nurse got scared. And that is when I really got scared. I clearly remember my entire body shaking. I knew something was really wrong. Joseph helped fix the power cord on the ultrasound machine and the doctor did an ultrasound. The baby looked good on the ultrasound. But she decided that the heart rate was too scary - and that as good as the baby looked on the ultrasound she didn't care (they had been worried that I was dehydrated as I do not drink well and had just moved to a high elevation and a very dry place but I was not - and the baby had plenty of fluid).

We sent Joseph home to take care of the dogs at some point during all of this and pretty soon after he left I was calling him to come back as quickly as possible - as we were about to have a baby.

While Joseph was gone the doctor came to talk to me about why the baby had to be delivered that night, the anesthesiologist came to talk to me about what a spinal would entail and the nurses were prepping me for surgery. I was so scared. They put in a catheter at some point and that was one of the worst parts of the pre-surgery routine. I was so glad when the spinal went into effect so I didn't have to feel the catheter anymore.

Pretty much as soon as Joseph made it back to the hospital they walked me over to the surgery room. The did the spinal and things went pretty quickly after that. At 8:39 pm Jac was born.

After Jac was born - they took him - and started working on him. I didn't really know what was going on with him - I couldn't see very well and the doctor's and nurses were all ringed around him. My OB was sewing me up and I could feel slight tugging around my ribs while they did it.

I think Jac left the room before I did. He was getting prepped to transfer to Children's Hospital. I was taken to the recovery room where I called my parents. I remember my cell phone (Palm Treo) was almost out of batteries and I was trying to tell them what happened. Joseph was with Jac and I was by myself. I don't know how long I was in the recovery room. After a while I was wheeled out the recovery room and past the room where they were getting Jac ready to move.

There is a picture of Joseph and standing next to me while I am on the stretcher and Jac is in the transport isolette. After that Jac left for Children's Hospital. Joseph went home and got me some things - including my PowerBook - and then went to Children's Hospital to be with Jac.

That left me in a room at Boulder Community Hospital, knowing that I was now a Mom, but wondering if that is really what just happened. I started recording videos for Jac on my PowerBook - so that I could talk to him.

I left the hospital 4 days later, on the 14th, and that was the first time I saw Jac and was able to touch him. By the time I made it down to Children's Hospital I already felt like Jac's Mom. I had spoken with his doctor's lots of times and already had many details of his medical issues flowing through me. I had been pumping since hours after he was born and I was making a lot of milk.

When Jac was born he did not have a name. My father named him BBC (Baby Boy Chiu). Joseph and I are terrible at names, and we thought we had another 9 weeks to procrastinate about picking a name. We finally came up with Joseph Alexis Chiu - and I am glad we did. I love his name though Joseph is not always sure that he thought through all of the consequences of naming his son after him. We joke about how Jac is going to use Daddy's credit cards someday!

When I finally got to see Jac and touch him I cried. So small. So fragile. My baby.