The Mangelers: Jacob Shaun Mangelson's Story!!!

The Story of how Jacob Shaun Mangelson came into this world!

So I know that some of you were wondering how Jacob came into this world plus I've been meaning to write it down so I can have it in my memory. It's taken me awhile because I've been trying to get adjusted to my new wonderful life.
So this story really starts back on October 16th.. I remember going to bed thinking that I hadn't really felt my baby move that much. I woke up the next morning and I ate breakfast and kind of laid down to see if I could feel him move. He wasn't really moving.. he probably kicked like 4 times. I remember reading on a card my doctor's office gave me that if they kick less than 6 times in the hour after you eat to call them. So I called my doctor's office and they transfered me to the doctor that was on duty at Sutter Memorial. She listened to what I was telling her and then told me that I should come down. I felt kind of silly because I was afraid that I was being paranoid. They put me on a baby heart monitor and a contraction monitor even though I wasn't having any contractions. They said that his heart rate was fine not "stellar" bu he seemed to be doing ok. She told me to pay attention and if I didn't feel him moving later on to come right on in. I felt kind of silly after getting home from the hospital because he was moving like crazy and everything seemed just fine.

So I went home with a goal to do my kick counts which I hadn't really done prior to that. I kept track of when he kicked and made sure I paid attention after every meal to make sure he was still kicking. On October 30 I went to our ward's Halloween party and felt just fine. It was 3 days to my due date. (Some friends told me after that that I looked like I was going to have a baby anytime soon.) Anyways so Shaun and I stayed up late that night watching movies. The next morning we had 9 am church and we woke up at like 8:30. We dressed quickly and I grabbed a bagel and banana as a quick breakfast on the way there. As I sat in Sacrament Meeting I realized that I hadn't really felt the baby move. So I sat and paid attention but still didn't notice anything really. I figured it was because I hadn't eaten much and had been on the move.. plus you can't feel them move as well when they get to be bigger. So I finished church with nothing that I could feel and define as movement. I decided that when I got home I would eat a good lunch and lay down and wait for that baby to move. So I did just that. But after an hour I didn't feel anything. I had Shaun sing to him (which usually makes him move) and I pushed on my belly and moved it around and I even took a shower. Nothing worked but I was stubborn and I didn't want to go into the hospital just for them to send me home again. I hate feeling like I'm paranoid. Shaun was the one that said we should really call and make sure everything was fine. It's better to be paranoid than to have a dead baby! he said. So I rolled my eyes and called and they said come down. So I lazily rolled out of bed and said fine let's go. For good measure I straightened my bangs sure that eveyrthing was fine. As we were walking up to labor and delivery I was complaining about it some more and Shaun said well I'll take the blame. If everything is alright then you can blame me but if something is wrong then I will be the hero.. I said ok honey.. think what you want!!

1 day old

So we get up there and check in. They get me on the monitors again and take some of my blood. I heard the baby's heart beating on the monitor so I say "see honey everything is just fine.". :-) The doctor comes in less than 5 minutes after all that was done and tells me that she is worried about the baby. She says that there is no variability in his heart rate. She wanted to give me an IV to see if some fluid would help him. So the nurse put in an IV. It was my first ever.. It wasn't so bad; although it bled quite a lot, she got the needle in my vein on the first try. That's when I started to worry that there was somethimg wrong. I asked the doctor what would happen if his heart rate didn't improve. She told me that they would probably have to do a C-Section. That's when I panicked. My whole pregnancy there were two things that I didn't want: an episiotomy and a C-Section. I really hoped everything would be better after the IV. After about 7 minutes the doctor came back in and told me that she was worried about the baby and she wanted to get him out. She didn't know exactly what was going on and she would rather be on the safe side. Shaun quickly texted or called our parents to let them know what was up and asked my Dad if he could bring his camera because we didn't have one. She checked my cervix which really hurt because I wasn't dilated at all. After that everything was pretty much a whirlwind. There were nurses coming in and out giving Shaun clothes ripping off my clothes to get me into a gown. I never felt so exposed. The Anesthesiologist came in next asking me what I had eaten in the last 24 hours and made me swallow this really salty stuff; she said it would keep me from throwing up. I was signing papers and answering questions.. It really was chaos.. but organized on their part. They had me dressed and wheeled into the next room in a matter of 3 minutes or so. They put me on the operating table and I think that's when everything sunk in.. The baby would be here and then I got really nervous about whether he was going to be alright.. and I was having a surgery.. and where was Shaun (they wouldn't let him in until I was ready to go).

The first time I got to feed him. They had a little syringe hooked to his feeding tube and they would let the colostrum drip through the feeding tube into his stomach.

So... they had me sit up on the operating table and told me to lean forward. There were two of them behind me working on giving me Spinal Anesthesia.. a couple of nurses going to and fro.. one trying to keep the heart monitor on the baby and two doctors getting everything ready for the surgery. The Anesthesiologist told me that I needed to lean forward and round my back. This was really hard because the doctor was worried about the baby and with me leaning forward it was really hard to keep the heart monitor on. It was all really frustrating because I was trying to help the nurse but listen to the Anesthesiologist. The A-ist told me to lean forward again.. and this time she tried to put the medicine or whatever into my spine. It was really sharp pain and then all of a sudden I felt like my whole left side of my body had lightning or something spark through it down to my thigh. She hit a nerve and it hurt so much that I screamed and started to cry for the first time since all this started. (Shaun told me later that he wanted to come in so bad.. He had no idea what was going on and just heard me screaming.) So they told me to relax and breath and focus.. the doctor was pretty much yelling at them .. telling them they needed to get it in there because the baby needed to come out.. they tried again but with the nurse trying to keep that stinkin heart montior on and the doctor getting anxious.. I couldn't sit right and they hurt my nerve again. I thought I was going to die of pain.. Finally the A-ist said we are just going to have to do an epidural and forget about the catheter or something like that.. So they told me to roll forward one more time. They got the epidural to go in and I immediately felt my left side numb up. The doctor had me lay back down and the A-ist was doing vibrations tests to see if I could feel anything. The doctor was getting ready to cut me open as the A-ist was testing my right side. I could feel the vibrations and was terrified that the doc was going to cut me open and I was going to feel it all. I yelled out "I can feel that.. I can feel that." They tilted the table to the right and it numbed right up. At that point I can't remember much.. Most of it comes from what Shaun told me. They let him in right as the doc started cutting. The baby was out in less than 30 seconds. Shaun told me he loved me.. Someone else said look at your baby.. which I couldn't do because I was so weak that I couldn't lift my head high enough to see over the curtain.

Shaun was my rock throughout this whole ordeal. He slept on the uncomfortable fold out chair which he said was actually comfortable but I don't really believe him.

Then Shaun said he loved me and left to go with Jacob. I was left with both arms out on the table waiting for the doc to sew me back up. I just laid there and thought about what happened. It seemed so insane. I had no idea why I couldn't see my baby. I didn't know what was wrong with him and I was all alone. :-( It had only been an hour from the time we got to the hospital until I had the baby.. It was a whirlwind.
After the surgery they wheeled me to recovery and told me that my baby was in the NICU and the doctors were working on him. They weren't sure what was wrong with him yet but he was alive and I could see him after I started to recover. At this point Shaun finally came back and showed me his arm where they had stamped Jacob's footprint. He said that he was beautiful and that he was on a few machines. They were still working on him and would let us know everything that was going on once he was stable. Shaun brought in my parents and I felt like I was high on something. I couldn't open one of my eyes even though I tried really hard. I just remember not feeling very well and I wished I could wake up. I wanted to see my baby so bad. I had to be able to lift up my butt and legs before they would let me go. They gave me quite a bit of pain medicine because they said the epidural would wear off soon and then I would be feeling a lot of pain.

My first time getting more than a couple of drops of colostrum. I was so proud!!

Finally they wheeled me down and I saw my poor little one. He was on a bubble C-PAP machine which helped him with his breathing because he wasn't breathing when he first came which explains why I didn't hear him cry. He had two IV's in his umbilical cord.. He had all of the little things on him that measured his temperature and heart rate and stuf like that. And another probe that measured his oxygen coming in and out of his body (or something like that). I was beside myself. I couldn't barely think. But I reached out and put my finger out so I could feel him. He grabbed on immediately and I started bawling. His heart rate started to go up and the nurse said I should probably go and get some rest and let him get some too. I so did not want to leave but knew she was right. The doctor met us and told us what was going on. They weren't exactly sure about everything at the moment but now I know that he had Pulmonary Hypertension and he was Hypoglycemic. They think that the Hypertension was because of his stressful birth but don't know why he stopped moving in the first place. His lungs had shut down. They still to this day have no idea what caused those problems in him because I was healthy most of my pregnancy and I didn't have Gestational Diabetes so they didn't know why he was Hypoglycemic. One of the IV's in his belly button was feeding him sugar to get his blood sugar up. He told me that he was on Antibiotics because his CRP level was really high. He told me that it was really good that I had come in when I did because if it would have been any later he probably would have died.. So "Hail the Conquering Hero" Shaun!!! I couldn't really process all of that in the moment so I went upstairs to my room and they got me in the bed. A lady came in and told me I should start to pump so that I would have milk for him. All I wanted to do was hold Jakey but I figured if I couldn't be with him then I could be his Mom and give him what he needed. I pumped every three hours even through the night. My night nurse was awesome. She knew my Dad back when they were young and was a member so it was nice to have her. She helped me get to the bathroom throughout the night to change so I didn't bleed everywhere and was very helpful. All of the nurses were very nice. I was really excited when I got to go down at 6 in the morning finally to see my baby. Shaun took me in the wheelchair and I met his first night nurse Ann-Marie. She was awesome and let me spend as much time as I wanted.

First time holding my little angel!

Jakey was really sensitive and we couldn't touch him too much because it would make him stress out and his breathing would go out of whack again so I would just stare at him and look at him. The first couple of days it was really hard to go down but I finally realized on Tuesday that he needed me and I was being selfish. So I bucked it up and started spending more time. I would pump and then bring the milk down and stay until it was time to pump again. After staying with him all day he started to improve and get better. He just really needed me there. Finally on Wednesday night the nurse said that he had done really well that day and we could hold him. So we went down at midnight and I got to hold my precious little angel. He kinda started to fuss when the nurse picked him up but as soon as she put him in my gown against my chest he calmed right down and fell asleep. I just talked to him and sang to him and cried a little. He was just so perfect and everything that had happened seemed to melt away. I was with my little piece of heaven and I did not want to let him go. But Shaun wanted to hold him too so I let him of course. He cried more than me and talked to him and sang him some Spanish hymns which he did a lot. It was a perfect moment and I will never forget it.

Our first family photo

To make a really long story short.. he started getting better. Everyday something new would happen. There were some ups and downs and some really frustrating moments but eventually by the beginning of the 2nd week he was breathing on his own.. he didn't have any IV's in his belly button only one on his foot (which started on his hand.. moved to his foot.. to his head.. and then back to his foot.. poor little guy). And he still had his feeding tube. The doctor's orders were that he had to eat at least 60 ml. (2 oz) on his own without the feeding tube. I was there from morning til night trying to get my boy to eat.. but he had been through so much that it was a struggle. plus it was frustrating because they made him eat every 3 hours and it would take him an hour or more to eat so by the time he was done eating he would only get to sleep for 1 1/2 hours before I had to wake him again. Finally I got one of the nurses to listen to me and she got the doctor to do a feed on demand order. I was there all the time anyways so they let me take charge of his eating schedule and then another one of his awesome nurses who was with him when he was in the critical room told me about the self care room. So she talked to the doctor and we got to stay in the self care room the next evening until morning. He ate so well that I knew the doctor was going to let him come home.. His CRP level was down. He was eating. He was pooping. He was sleeping. He seemed like a normal baby to me. So the next morning I went home and got his car seat and diaper bag and when I saw his doctor I said where are my discharge orders.. (in a playful tone) He said well.. I think we should put him back on antibiotics.. He was working with another baby and told me he would get to Jacob soon and we could talk about it. I decided right then and there that I didn't care what he said I was going to take my baby home. When he came back with Jakey's chart he said "Well do you think you can take care of that boy." I said, "O yeah!" He said, "Ok, I'll write up the discharge papers." I started to cry and I finally got to take him home. He is doing so good. He doesn't have any problems with his heart or lungs. He is eating well and gaining weight. He is a happy and wonderful addition to our family!! I thought I would never get home but with a lot of prayer and work he is here with us and we are grateful to our Heavenly Father for answering our prayers. And also for giving us this experience because it helped increase our faith and reliance on him.

P.S. He was born on October 31, 2010 @ 4:44 pm. He weighed 7 lbs. 14.9 oz and was 18.9 inches long.