I thought that I should chronicle the first few days of Ranen's life before my memories begin to fade.
Firstly, his name is pronounced "ran in", as in: "He ran in the marathon".
As I mentioned in the
last post, Ranen was born very early on Friday the 17th. Layla and Alice (our
midwives) thought that his arm may be broken and after a 2:00am call to Dr. Elzie they recommended that we take him to doctor first thing in the morning. They left around 3:30am or so. Sandra and I passed out on our bed, Ranen slept on my chest.
We left with Ranen for the pediatrician around 9:30am. The clinic was full of children sick with the flu. Sandra, Ranen and Sharon (Sandra's mother) waited in the parking lot. After a few minutes they had us in the well child waiting room and one of the nurses was talking with us about the best course of action.
They decided to send us to another facility to x-ray Ranen's arm before seeing the doctor. So before he was 12 hours old, in fact before he had a name, my infant son was lying on a cold steel table under a enormous machine pumping radiation through his tiny body. Sandra had decided to let me stay with him during the x-ray. I was already emotionally raw. My eyes were watery and it took all of my will to contain my tears.
Praise God, there were no broken bones. It was in the hallway, just outside the x-ray room, where we decided on his name. We had a list of about 15 names that Sandra had collected from various sources. Ranen was listed as meaning "joyous" and Zane as "God's gracious gift".
Sandra was seeing spotted and we asked for a wheelchair out to the car. The pediatrician had said not to return until 2pm (they were swamped). It was only 12:30pm.
We drove back home with the hope to sleep and eat before returning. My parents arrived right after us with Adah. We had some take-out from
Coosh's, but almost no sleep.
Back a the pediatrician's (we arrived a few minutes late), they showed us in quickly. Dr. Elzie said that Ranen looked great; a strong, healthy boy. Nevertheless, he had some concern about one thing.
Sandra had tested positive for
Strep B. Not a big deal in itself as some estimate that 1 in 3 women have it. It is common procedure to adminster a dose of antibiotics during labor to keep the baby from contracting the bacteria. However, Sandra is allergic to most antibiotics, and the primary used to defend against this one. The midwives gave an alternative antibiotic, but the doctor said there was a slim chance that the antibiotics would not work. He recommended a blood test immediately.
<sigh>
So we loaded Ranen back in the car and headed to the lab. We decided to drop off Ranen and myself for the blood test, so that Sandra could go pick up her Rogam shoot at the blood bank. So Ranen and are are alone in the waiting room of LabCorp. Everyone there is telling how cute he is and ask how old, and everyone is equally astounding when I say "He was born today". Heck, I was astounded.
At LabCorp, they prick Ranen's heels and squeeze (yes, squeeze) the blood out of his ankles. The wells in my eyes began to swell, I was holding my newborn son as I watched drop after drop of his life blood squeezed from his body into a tiny tube.
After Sandra and Sharon picked us from LabCorp, we headed over to The Birth Cottage for Ranen's check up and for Sandra to receive the Rogam shot. While there I receive a call from LabCorp explaining the the test results were botched and that we'd need ot bring Ranen back in the morning. I wanted to cry again.
We finally made it home for good around 6:30pm. Shortly, there after Dr. Elzie calls to give me the news about the blood tests. He says that it's not worth doing it over because we're more than half way through the danger period. He tells us to keep an eye on Ranen through the night for any signs of Strep B infection.
End of Day 1.
