Schulte Sightings: What's Wrong??? Hospital Stay #3

After being dismissed the night before, we headed back to the hospital the next morning for a jaundice check and to meet with the lactation consultant. The jaundice level came back about the same as when we were dismissed which is not uncommon since babies have stopped receiving light treatment. However, when the lactation consultant saw how sleepy she was while feeding and her lethargy in general, she expressed concern. Even though it was Saturday, she had our pediatrician come up to evaluate Halle. All along I had known something else was wrong; even if she was a laid back baby, this could no be normal. She had never once initiated a feeding on her own and it was a battle to get her to stay awake to eat at all. I had told Toby the night before that I thought we should take her to Childrens Hospital to be checked out, so I was very glad that our doctor agreed that was a good move. Even though it was scary, I was anxious to get more answers.

Our time at Childrens Legacy was probably the scariest period of my life...I had no idea what was wrong with my child, but I knew it was something. The visit there got off to a rough start as they wanted to draw blood and start her on an IV. 2.5 hours later, they finally got it in. Yes, you heard right...2.5 hours of watching my week old baby be poked all over by at least 8 different staff members. They even called in the transport team who responds to 911 calls and has to start IVs on the move and they couldn't get it in! After trying both arms, both hands, and both feet multiple times, one nurse finally got it in one of her veins in her head. What a sad sight!

They immediately started testing for things such as infection, meningitis, and lots of other things. The doctor decided to start her on antibiotics just in case there was an infection. It took just a few hours for some results, but 24-48 for some of the cultures to grow. We were moved to a room and got settled in. After two nights all of her test results were negative, so the doctor told us they wanted to do a head ultrasound the next morning to rule out something there. She really didn't think it would show anything, especially since I saw a specialist with monthly sonograms during my pregnancy due to losing Beckett last year, but thought we should check it out. This news was unsettling to us, but we also doubted it would show anything. The next morning they woke us around 7:30 am to say we were going down for ultrasound. We proceeded down (me still in my pjs and glasses) to the imaging department. Needless to say, this time period was awful. It was very obvious that the tech saw something she didn't like, but she was not authorized to tell us anything. After about an hour with her, we were sent back up to our room with no news. Toby and I were both scared beyond belief...I thought the area they were focusing on must be a tumor. We waited...and after only a few minutes, they called and said they needed more images. I was so upset! We went back down and spent about another hour getting more images. Within a couple of hours, the doctor came in and told us that she had consulted with the radiologist and the pediatric neurosurgeon and Halle had hydrocephalus. Hers seemed to be caused by a blood clot that was preventing the fluid in her brain to drain properly. They ordered a MRI next, so we headed down for that. In this time period, we're trying to figure out what that exactly means and everyone seemed so puzzled by the fact that Halle had it. Hydrocephalus usually occurs in pre-term babies that are vaginally delivered. Halle was full-term and a c-section; no one seemed to know why she would have this problem. I felt a little relief knowing that there was no tumor and they explained that long term people live perfectly normal lives with shunts, but it was still so frightening. The MRI was hard to watch, in fact, I stepped out and had Toby stay in. The reality of what was happening really hit me. My 8 day old baby was being strapped down for a MRI to see what was wrong with her brain. I couldn't believe it!

I will say this whole time we were surrounded by such a great support system physically, but what meant the most was knowing how many people were praying for Halle. We were so grateful that so many prayer warriors were pleading for healing and the whole time I was confident that God was using Halle to further His Kingdom. We knew this was part of Halle's story and that hopefully it would draw others to Him.

After the MRI, things moved quick. We needed to be transferred to Childrens Dallas to the neurology floor and the transport team would be taking us with 30 minutes. We rushed around getting everything together and trying to process the news. They also told us that Halle would need a shunt put in and that surgery would occur the next morning. The neurosurgeon team at Childrens Dallas would meet with us to go over details upon arrival. And with that, Halle had her first ambulance ride...