Let the testing begin.
After a semi decent night’s sleep in the hospital, Stacy and I went down to the NICU to see James and see if there was any news, or if they had any answers as to what happened to him.
A neurologist had ordered an EEG (electroencephalogram) and an MRI (magnetic resonance image) of James’ brain. They are looking for normal brain function. An EEG uses a bunch of wires attached to the scalp to look at brain activity. This was done in the NICU. For the MRI, however, James was taken to another area of the hospital. An MRI is used to produce detailed images of the brain and the brain stem.
A geneticist stopped in to look at James and took a blood test to see if there are any abnormalities. These test results should be back in a week. In her opinion, she doesn’t visually see anything that would indicate he has trisomy 18. If you haven’t read Our Story or the previous blog post (Starting a Family: Take 2), our first son, Jackson, had trisomy 18, a chromosome abnormality, and passed away before he was born.
An echocardiogram, commonly referred to as an echo, was done on James’ heart. An echo is an ultrasound of the heart. They are checking to make sure that his heart, and all of its various parts look okay.
We found out that James’ initial Apgar score was a 6 and he scored high in heart. His 5 minutes Apgar score was a 9. An Apgar is a quick test performed on a baby at 1 minute and 5 minutes after birth. The 1-minute score shows how well the baby tolerated the birthing process. The 5-minute score shows how well the baby is doing outside the womb. The test examines a baby’s breathing effort, heart rate, muscle tone, reflexes and skin color. Each of these is scored on a scale of 0 (bad) to 2 (good). Maybe they were in a rush to get James to the NICU after he was born, but Stacy and I both find it hard to believe that he scored a 9 on the 5-minute Apgar.
Since we don’t have any answers yet as to what is wrong with James or if he is terminal, we thought it was important that he be baptized. We talked to the chaplain of the hospital to see if this could be done in the NICU and she said she could do it today, so we did. Normally the NICU only allows two people (including a parent) to be with a baby at any given time, but they allow for exceptions for situations like this, so our parents were able to join us in the NICU for the baptism. This was the most emotional baptism I have ever witnessed. We were all in tears. It almost felt like we were saying goodbye.
