NICU, the scariest place on Earth - June 3

June 3, 2011 is when this terrifying roller coaster ride began. Nothing could have prepared us for this moment, nothing ever indicated that anything could be wrong. After all, this was our 4th baby and nothing ever went wrong before with any of our other three children. There were no pregnancy complications, even labor was so fast and easy, a 5 hour uncomplicated natural child birth. Wyatt was born two days before his due date, a little after 500am weighing in at 7lbs 15oz and 21" long. He was the smallest of all our children but as it turns out, he was determined to be the strongest. This was supposed to be a happy moment...

Wyatt was born June 3rd, 2011 at 502am (7lbs15oz, 21")

...But something just wasn't right. Wyatt had no drive to breathe.
Everything that followed is a blurr. To this day it seems so unreal. Next thing I know, we are sitting in the waiting area by the NICU waiting for someone to come talk to us and tell us what is going on. It took a couple hours before a nurse came out and said "The good news is, he's alive." Even all the crying and worst case scenario thinking while sitting in the waiting room could not have prepared us for this statement. All I kept thinking was, what the hell happened, what went wrong. A couple hours later, we were finally able to go into the NICU and see him. He looked so helpless hocked up to all the monitors and a ventilator, all with alarms going off every few minutes. I honestly can't tell you everything the doctor told us that day, my brain couldn't comprehend anything. Mentally and physically, I was beyond exhaustion. Adrenalin was the only thing keeping me upright. The suspicion was that he had inhaled meconium and they treated him accordingly. As it turned out later, a much scarier diagnosis would be discovered.