36 weeks: the pregnancy ends, and things get real.

Remember my last post about lack of fetal movement? Things just got crazier after that. On Saturday evening I called the nurse line and after some basic "drink juice and lay down" tests to try and get fetal movement, they called me in to the hospital. The fetal monitor picked up Luka's heartbeat right away, but his movement wasn't getting the response they wanted. Within five minutes of the doctor checking the monitor results she says, "this baby needs to come out now". I didn't even have time to think about what was going on. A flurry of nurses and doctors had me on a stretcher and signing consent forms, and I was off for an emergency c-section. At 12:49AM, Luka John Joseph Saluzzi entered the world one month too soon.

My placenta was calcified, so it was no longer sustaining the little guy. If we had not gone to the hospital right then, Luka would have been dead in the womb. When they first went to Ken after my surgery, they told him that Luka was just fine, only small at 4lb 5oz. But they quickly came to the conclusion that he is a very sick little boy. Primary Pulmonary Hypertension/Persistence of the Fetal Circulation (PPHN) is the name of his disease, and why he is in NICU, and will be for at least 2-3 weeks. So far he is "stable", but his situation fluctuates from hour to hour. We've been told that this is expected. He's on lots of medication, IV fluids, and oxygen. We can't hold him at all, and even talking to him is discouraged right now because it could excite him. It is truly heartbreaking. I wish we could get some more hopeful news, but the most they can give right now is that there have been babies in the NICU with more severe cases of PPHN who have pulled through.

We are just happy to have him alive, even though this is a really scary time right now. We want little Luka to be okay and come home with us as soon as possible. When people congratulate us, we aren't even sure how to respond. It just hurts so much. That's the story right now, y'all.  I'll update when something new happens.