Welcome Wyatt Scott Bagley

****Disclaimer, there is blatant disregard for proper grammar in the blog. I'm sorry if its painful****

I am sitting in the General Surgery waiting room with Heidi and my parents who rushed up here with us while Wyatt goes into surgery. Its Sunday December 1st. Wyatt joined us five days earlier on Nov 26th at 10:51am at Intermountain Medical Center in Salt Lake. He arrived after Heidi being only 30.5 weeks pregnant was admitted to the hospital 5 days prior on Thurs Nov 21st for risk of pre-eclampsia that was discovered during a routine check up.  I was of course out of town in San Francisco but was due to be back home that same night.  We were kept in the hospital through the weekend for observation and on into Monday where we hoped we would be able to go home, still on bed rest. Heidi seemed stable they had been monitoring Wyatt's heart rate for signs of distress. He would have dips in his heart rate here and there, but he was pretty stable.  Monday night, Heidi's blood pressure climbed as high as 180 and her liver enzymes had started to really increase which is an indication of a condition called HELLP syndrome.  The doctors decided that they needed to start inducing Heidi at around 1:00 AM on Tuesday the 26th for Heidi and Wyatt's safety.  By 6:00 AM Heidi's liver enzymes had doubled and her doctor told us that the only way to fix the situation was to get the baby out and they would need to do a C-Section that morning.

 Poor Heidi felt so sick as a result of the increasing blood pressure, liver enzymes, and medications she was on.

 I got suited up at 10:15 AM in my surgery suit and armed with my camera, followed Heidi into the operating room. They got the anethstesia into Heidi and began. I will say that I did pretty good seeing all the blood and other tissues as they were digging around in her belly. In a couple of minutes I could see his little head poking out then got his arms free and pulled him out by his arm pits. It was an amazing experience.  They have a little window in the OR where a waiting NICU nurse was waiting for Wyatt. They got him out and cut his cord and took him immediately over to the window. where he was taken to the NICU because he was only 31 weeks old.As a quick rewind. Heidi has worked in the newborn ICU at Primary Children's hospital for 5 years and know a lot of the Nurse Practitioners and Neonatologists here in Salt Lake as they will work in shifts as different hospitals during 2 week shifts. This becomes a blessing and a challenge for us during this whole ordeal.

less than 5 minutes later the 2 nurse practitioners came back to the window and called for Heidi and announced who they were. They had worked with Heidi in the NICU and told me that Wyatt was doing great and I could go see him.  I am just over whelmed at this point, so I just follow the nurse back to where they have Wyatt. They had gotten him mostly wiped off. He had his eyes open and I remember thinking how beautiful he looked. He looked so sweet. It  is hard to describe. I cried most of the day that day. I was so overwhelmed. I felt bad that they had to put a little breathing mask on Wyatt and poke and prod him with different needles,  but so happy to be a father.

 

 Wyatt weighed a whopping 2 lbs 4.2 oz. and was 14 inches long.  Again Heidi's co-workers that were on were so great. The Neonatologist on staff (head NICU doctor) was an awesome woman. She was so great with me and Heidi. She came back to Heidi's room w me and explained everything that had happened and what they were doing.  They wheeled Heidi back in her bed about an hour after giving birth for her to meet him. His breathing and oxygen saturation was improving very quickly.

(Heidi and Wyatt meet for the first time)

(Off C-PAP, just breathing w/ nasal canula)

His breathing improved so quickly that by Wednesday, the next morning he was breathing room air on his own. He looked so great. Heidi got to hold him twice and do skin to skin with him both times.  

Skin to Skin for the first time. They were both very happy about it. 

I love being swaddled

Yep, I'm not very big

Hangin out with Dad

Breathing on his own 24 hrs after being born. We love all his hair.

Heidi and Wyatt loving the skin to skin.

We went down Wed night to say good night to him and he was having some reflux, so they were going to stop his feedings. During that night he started to have more and started to have some apneaic episodes ( he would forget to breathe) and so they needed to get him back on some oxygen and flow to help him. They did an x-ray to see if there was anything wrong with his chest and noticed that his gut didnt look good. Thats when we got the call.

Starting to get sick Wed night

Skin to Skin before Life Flight at 5:00 am Thanksgiving.

At 5:00 AM Thanksgiving morning they called us in Heidi's room and told us they were needing to move him to Primary Children's. We hurried down there so she could hold him again before they took him. We initially were told they were going to take him in the ambulance but they were concerned enough that they called for the helicopter.  Heidi was still admitted so she couldn't leave so they allowed me to go with him.  I had always thought it would be cool to go on a helicopter ride, but obviously not under those circumstances.

Out of the helicopter and heading to Radiology at Primary Children's

Getting  his X-ray. He's under the blankets somewhere.

We landed and they loaded Wyatt's little "capsule"  onto the cart where they immediately took us down to radiology. They injected his stomach with some contrast material that would show up on x-ray to see exactly where his little intestines were running right after they come out of his stomach.  They were concerned that they were rotated the wrong direction down inside his belly. If that happens, the blood flow gets cut off and his intestines would die. Thats bad.

Feeling better at Primaries Thanksgiving morning.

Once the contrast started moving through they could see that it was moving okay they could see that his intestines were not rotated the wrong direction.  They took him up to the NICU (where Heidi is a fulltime dietician) and got him into a new incubator. There were several other lab values they were concerned about and needed to draw more labs again.  This poor little kid was so bruised from being poked so many times. It was really sad. Also, they had used so many veins on his hands and feet that they had to do a mini operation to put lines into his umbilical cord so the could draw blood and give him nutrition.

Getting Tan

This was my Thanksgiving dinner and Pumpkin Mousse (was kinda beat)

So once they got him back up to the NICU and got him stabilized. I used my phone to facetime with Heidi. She got to see Wyatt, and also the main attending  and also the director of the NICU, who Heidi loves, and I do now too. He has been so so awesome. Honestly, everyone has been so great. They have rallied around Heidi and Wyatt. Its been so awesome.

Right before I called Heidi, her doctor met with her and she signed off on Heidi getting discharged early so she could come up to the NICU. We spent the rest of Thanksgiving at the hospital.