Jacob's Story Part 3 - LifeFlight

Quite frankly, from that point forward - the next 12-24 hours, everything is truly a blur. The entire experience was surreal. I could not believe this was happening to our baby. Dr. Barrett finished up with me and went to check on Jacob. She came back and told me Jacob was very sick, but she did not know any details.

My delivery nurse told me that Jacob would need to be transferred to another hospital and Jeff would have to go with him so he could admit him. I would need someone to stay with me. They wanted us to call our parents, but we couldn't call them at 3:00 a.m. with this news and risk them driving in the middle of the night all upset and worried. We decided to call our friends, Katie & Daniel, who lived pretty close by, and are familiar with Rex. I'll never forget calling them in the middle of the night. Daniel answered the phone, and I told him Jacob had been born, but he wasn't doing well. Daniel told me they would be there as soon as they could and passed the phone to Katie. I briefly explained things to her, and she said they were on their way.

At one point, Dr. Barrett took Jeff & I (me in a wheelchair) to the nursery to see Jacob. As they wheeled me past the other babies, I remember thinking that even though those babies were in special care, they looked like they were doing so much better than Jacob. We reached the end of the long nursery, and Jacob in a hospital bassinet surrounded by nurses and doctors. A nurse was using a bag to breathe for him. He was blue. We touched his little hands and face. Tears streamed down both our faces. It was almost unbearable. I remember hearing later that his APGAR was 9 at one minute, and 2 at 5 minutes - one point for respiration, and one for heartbeat, and that was it. He was completely unresponsive.

There was a neonatologist on staff who examined Jacob. They did a chest x-ray. He pulled us aside and showed us the x-ray and told us his heart was not enlarged, which was good, but he felt like Jacob had a heart defect. They suspected it was one of three defects, but could not diagnose him without an echocardiogram, and they did not have those facilities. He told us they had begun administering prostaglandins to keep the patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) open, which would help if it were one of the three defects. Essentially, this saved Jacob's life. Soon after he was born, his PDA began to close, and that's why he was blue - we later learned he had Transposition of the Great Arteries. The aorta and pulmonary artery were switched, so the heart was pumping the "blue blood" from the body, back out to the body, and the "red blood" from the lungs was going back to the lungs. The very little bit of red blood getting to the body and brain was from the PDA being open, and then from the PDA being kept open by prostaglandins. Prior to the prostaglandins, Jacob's blood oxygen levels plummeted to 30-40%. After giving him the medicine, it stabilized around 55%. At some point, they took me to my new recovery room. Katie & Daniel had arrived, and we explained what we knew so far.

After settling in, Dr. Barrett came back and took us for a second visit to the Special Care Nursery. One of the nurses told us that Jacob would need to be transferred to either Duke or UNC, and that the transport team would bring him to my room so I could see him before he left. Then, another nurse shook her head, indicating no, that he was too critical for the side-trip to my room. Ironically, a few moments later, the Duke Life Flight team arrived, and they ushered us out of the special care nursery so they could prepare him for transfer. They took me back to my room, and Jeff left with Daniel to go on over to Duke.

I think it was around 5:30 a.m. that the Duke Life Flight people did come by my room with Jacob. I was so grateful. Katie grabbed the camera and snapped pictures. The two pictures she took are below. Truly, I did not know if this was the last time I would see my newborn baby. It was a somber moment. As they took Jacob away, Katie hugged me and I just cried my heart out. Then, we said a prayer for Jacob.