Hello World!

Posted by Josh on November 15th, 2009 filed in Cindy, Family, Sienna

Well, the big day finally came, just a little earlier than planned, and it has definitely been a day to remember.

The original plan was for us to go into Riverton Hospital on Monday, November 16th, to induce labor, and welcome our new little baby into the world. It was going to be great – Cindy and I went out on a date Saturday night, we planned on taking it easy on Sunday, and then first-thing Monday morning, we’d go have a baby. However, it turns out that the little girl had plans of her own…Cindy went to bed on Saturday at 11:00PM. I went downstairs to do some work on the computer and play some Xbox. At about midnight, Cindy came downstairs to let me know that she thought her water had broken. Over the course of the next few hours, we began keeping track of the contractions Cindy was having (yes, there’s an app for that too), and a few hours later around 3:30AM we made the call to have my parents come babysit Brooklynn so that we could head to the hospital, which luckily, is only five minutes away.

After arriving at the hospital, things picked up pretty quickly, and only two hours later at 5:30AM, we welcomed Sienna May Buhler into the world:

Not content to make anything routine, Sienna decided to put her best foot forward, and attempt a breech birth, resulting in an emergency C-section delivery. The surgery went very smoothly, and when she came out, Sienna weighed in at 6 pounds, and 20½ inches long.

We kept Sienna with us for a few hours, just enjoying her company, when we began to notice that she was blowing some spit-bubbles. We though it was kinda cute, but the nurse didn’t think so, and immediately began checking her out for various things, and they took her back to the nursery to check on a few more items. At this point, there was really no reason for concern, and Cindy and I decide to catch up on a little sleep, since between the two of us, we had only slept about an hour in the last 30 hours or so. After a little power nap, I decided to head to the nursery to check on our little girl and see what was up, and it turns out, that things weren’t looking very good.

Sienna had developed a pneumothorax, which means that she had basically developed a leak in one of her lungs, resulting in air escaping into the chest area between her lung and other organs. This causes the area around the lung to continually inflate with each breath, making it progressively harder for her to breathe, and the resulting pressure can actually cause organs to shift position, and according to her x-rays, her little heart had shifted over to the other side of her body. As the doctor was explaining this to us, she also mentioned that they had already began preparations to LifeFlight our little girl to the Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Intermountain Medical Center.

As part of her initial treatment, the doctors inserted a needle into Sienna’s chest to try and drain some of the air from her chest. As they did this, you could actually see her little chest deflate a bit, and see her begin to breathe nice, deep breaths, and finally relax. Up to this point, she had been taking increasingly shorter and shorter breaths, and you could see that she was expending all of her energy just to breathe.

The LifeFlight crew finally got her prepped for her trip, and my dad and I escorted her to the helipad to send her on her way to the NICU. As soon as the helicopter took off, I knew that Sienna was in good hands, and that everyone was doing everything they could, but to be honest, that was a very difficult sight to behold as a father, knowing that there really wasn’t anything I could do but watch these folks go to work on my daughter.

Shortly after lift-off, Dad and I jumped in the car, and followed her to the new hospital. Unfortunately, Cindy would have to stay behind in Riverton, but I knew she’d be taken care of, and her parents were at her side the entire time I was gone.

Dad and I arrived at the NICU, and we were very relieve to hear that she had stabilized during the flight, and the leak in her lung had appeared to patch itself. (That’s apparently what happens with small cases of pneumothorax like Sienna had – the hole in the lung can close up, but often doctors will still need to insert a needle to remove the excess air.) Sienna had spent most of the day on oxygen, receiving a 50% mix to start the day, but by about 6PM, she had progressed to only needing a 22% concentration, which was fantastic, as the goal was to reach 21% – which is the average concentration of oxygen in the air we all breathe. By the late afternoon, she only needed the oxygen delivered via the little nose tubes, and didn’t need to live inside of a box like she had earlier in the day. Also, according the x-rays taken upon arriving at the NICU, her heart and other innards had shifted back to their proper locations again.

Dad and I stayed at the NICU for a few hours with her, and it was quite a relief to see my little girl sleeping so peacefully after those few hours where we just didn’t know what was going to happen, and she had looked like she was fighting for her life. It’s amazing how attached you can get to someone after having only know them for hours – watching the days events, it just felt like someone was trying to rip my heart out, Temple of Doom-style. (I just really can’t describe the feeling I had, so you’ll have to settle for that imagery. Sorry.)

Knowing that Sienna was in good hands, and that she had stabilized, I decided to go check on my other girls. Brooklynn will be spending the next few days at my parent’s house, so I stopped by there to say hi, and play with her a bit, and since Cindy was taking a well-deserved nap, I decided to head home and do the same. After napping for a few hours, I cleaned myself up, got a fresh change of clothes (which according to the nurse at the NICU, I apparently needed to do – I guess I really looked like crap at that point), and went to have dinner with my parents and Brooklynn. After dinner, I went back to the Riverton hospital to spend the night with Cindy.

As I’m writing this, it’s now 11:30PM, and apparently Cindy’s pain meds have finally kicked in, since she’s out cold. I last spoke with the nurses at the NICU a couple of hours ago, and they said that Sienna is doing great, much better than expected. Her respiratory system is functioning just fine, her oxygen levels are great, and her lab work is all coming back with all good results. She’ll be staying there for at least another 48-72 hours just so they can keep a close eye on her, but so far, everything is looking great. It’s a bit hard to know that we’re here in Riverton, and she’s all the way across town, but I know she’s being looked after, both by professionals and a higher power.

The last 24 hours have been a bit of an emotional roller-coaster, but it’s looking like things are starting to level out for us. Thanks to everyone who have called, emailed, txt’d, Twittered, Facebooked, etc. for your words, thoughts, & prayers. You have no idea what that’s meant to us so far, and I hope that one day we can return the favor. I’m very grateful to the staff both here in Riverton, and out at Intermountain Medical Center, and to the LifeFlight crew, for all of the work they did, and their professionalism. We’ve had a few tense moments, but not once did I feel that we were dealing with a bunch of rookies.

Most of all, thanks go to our Heavenly Father, whom I know has been watching over us very closely today. He was kind enough to bless us with this dear little girl, and I know He’s been making sure that we’ll get to spend a lifetime with her.

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