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October 14, 2002
Born 3-1-98
I was telling my husband Mark just the other day that I am so excited about this diary for Matthew. My hope and prayer is that one day, he'll be able to read it on his own and discover just how much he meant/means to us. Matthew is so special, so precious and so unique in his own little way. I cannot imagine our lives without him.
To give you a little history on Matt, I will try my best to get you up to date without going into every minute detail. I became pregnant with Matthew in the Spring of 1997. My twins Autumn and Gabriel were only 20 months old but never-the-less, I was thrilled to be expecting once again. I carried Matthew to full term and had a nearly perfect pregnancy. I bled only once with him and had my DR check me the same day with an ultrasound which showed everything to be fine. On the day of my 40th week, I went to my DR to be checked. He told me that since Matt was full term, I could go ahead and wait for natural labor and hopefully have him VBAC or he could schedule a C-section for the following morning since I had already had one with my twins. Well, when faced with the prospect of holding my baby the very next morning or waiting it all out possibly another 2 weeks, I choose to go for the C-section. The next morning the nurse told me that I was contracting and that if I'd like, I could go ahead and labor and deliver natural. I chose to do that and they ended up breaking my water and giving me pitocin (hell in a bag if you ask me). I progressed rather slowly until around 5pm when I got my epidural. After that I went from a 3 to a 10cm in a matter of an hour. I started hurting SO BADLY that I began literally screaming for the anesthesiologist to come back in and give me more drugs. He kept checking and said that I should not be feeling that much pain so he called for my DR to come in and check me. He found out that Matthew was posterior (head-up) and that the back of his head was slamming into my pelvic bone with each contraction. I told him to forget this natural labor crap, just cut me open NOW. I'm serious ya'll, it hurt that bad! My DR checked me and said that I was fully dilated and that I could start pushing. So that's just what I did. I pushed and I pushed and I pushed some more...as the hours passed by. I could even tell that the nurses were getting irritated that this baby wasn't coming out. I then got a fever and his blood pressure dropped really low. By then I was very close to having him and pushed on. At 12:35am on March 1 1998 my darling Matthew Mark was born. He came out and the DR cleaned him up so quickly that I barely saw him. He handed him off to the nurses who cleaned and checked him. He was pale, not crying, not responding well and had an enormous bruise on the back of his head. I immediately focused all of my attention on him and asked what was wrong, as tears started pouring down my face. The nurses kept shaking their heads and said that he wasn't responding well. I asked if it was all of the medication I had been given and they told me no. So he was rushed off to the NICU for further evaluation, while my DR stitched me up. I don't remember a lot while that was going on...mostly because of all the emotion and worry. My DR went in to check on him and told me that the DR who checked Matt said that he was just under stress from the labor and delivery and would be fine. What a relief!
Although, that really wasn't the end of the story. Fast forward about 4 months...to just about the time when a baby really starts pushing up, and using those upper body muscles. Matthew did none of this and even had a hard time keeping his head up. I talked to his DR about this at a check up appointment and she ordered a CT scan to be done...which came back normal. At six months he still showed no signs of sitting up supported or not and so she prescribed therapy for him. We were living in Missouri at the time and drove him 30 miles one way 3 times a week for general therapy which honestly did him NO GOOD. All the while, Mark and I kept wondering what had caused Matthew's delays and really never got any direct answers. We continued taking him to therapy until our move to Texas when Matt was 1 1/2 years old.
And that is where I will pick up the story on my next entry! :0)
Take care ya'll~
Jennifer and Matt-O (Our nickname for Matthew)
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