"While Lez was on bed rest, Marilynn was great. She was the most senior nurse and even Dr. Walker listened to her. Joan, Bill, and Mom arrived Tuesday night and got to see Joshie. Paul also came over..."
"The next day, the family came by to see us. Mom took me out to get some more supplies. When we got back, Bill and Joan met us in the lobby and told us that contractions may have started. I went up to see Lez. She was trying to rest but was obviously scared. I can’t remember why but they did not give her Newbane like they did with Joshie (a drug to relax her to try and stop contractions– with Josh Lez had asked why I was dressing like Harry Potter).
"As the afternoon went on the contractions slowed. The problem was that Lez was getting a fever. The doctors deduced that she had gotten an infection from Joshie’s umbilical cord (even though Dr. Li had tied it up). They had to get Jonah out even though he wanted tot stay. They gave Lez a drug to induce labour (which had all but stopped). She suffered through difficult contractions for several hours while Jonah slowly made his way down the uterus. Barb, the slightly clumsy nurse, called for the doctors (Dr. Oulette and the guy) a couple of times but, after checking, they would say things like, 'okay things look good, call me in ½ hour'. Lez did great battling brutal contractions while I rubbed her back and Joan held her hand– Finally they decided to let her push which helped the pain. She was also exhausted and had a fever of 38.9 oC."
"The delivery took a while because they wanted to deliver Jonah in his sack because a) he was breech and it would protect him from getting beat up and b) it would protect him from infection. This made it hard though because it was like pushing a water balloon. After a lot of pushing, Jonah was almost visible to the doctors, with his full sack providing water pressure behind him. They were getting ready for the last few contractions (the neonate nurse went to warm up the blankets) when, very unexpectedly, the sac burst und the pressure and Jonah came 'surfing' out with a single wave of amniotic fluid. The doctors said 'push', there was a big splash and there was Jonah lying on the bed in a puddle thinking, 'Why didn’t somebody catch me?' The doctors scooped him up (while Barb knocked some things on the floor) and took him to neonatal (he squeaked out a couple cries on the way out)."
"During Jonah’s delivery, Joshie’s doctor, Dr. Joanne, came in to tell us that his condition had taken a turn for the worse. He was bleeding into his lungs and probably also into the brain. She needed to know if we wanted him to get chest compressions if he needed them. We said 'no'. She felt bad coming in and I felt bad for her but the timing was brutal. We went in to see him right after Jonah’s birth. They gave us a brief update that they were trying a few more things but that the prognosis wasn’t good. We also got to see Jonah as they put him in his incubator. They then moved us over to the maternity ward."
"In our new room, Joanne came by to tell us that despite 2 (or 3) transfusions Joshie’s blood gases kept getting worse. This told them that he was most likely losing blood into the brain (they could also feel a soft spot on his head). We decided that we would wait until morning and that if nothing changed we would take him off the ventilator and say 'goodbye'. It was a difficult night. The room had dust bunnies, the nurse was weird, I had to sleep on the adjacent bed (I had to be up before the next shift change), babies kept us up crying... The next morning people kept banging in to sweep, to get garbage, etc."
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