Griffin Allen Bostrom had a very rough start at life. During my routine 37 week OB appointment I was given a stress test to see how Griffin was doing (I have had high blood pressure through my pregnancy so they started to monitor him at 36 weeks to make sure he was tolerating everything ok). The Doctor came in and stated that the baby(we didn’t know if Griffin was a boy or girl yet) wasn’t being very responsive and he either wanted to do an ultrasound or send me up to labor and delivery to have further monitoring. I decided it would be best to head to L&D just incase something was wrong and we had to get Griffin out fast. While up in L&D Griffin started to react and was looking good. Just as they were about to discharge me I started to have regular time-able contraction and after some monitor and checking we found out that I was in labor. After a very long labor and a very quick but healthy delivery Griffin was born on 10/14/2022 at 7:46 in the morning weighing 7lbs 7oz. He was placed on my chest but basically removed 2 minutes later when the nurse noticed he was very blue and not crying. After working on him a bit in the room she ran him to the nursery where he was eventually intubated and put on a vent. After what felt like days the hospital pediatrician came to talk to me. She stated that Griffins lungs were not expanding like they should and it looked like he has PPHN (Persistent Pulmonary Hypertension in Newborns). Essential this is where his lungs didn’t switch over from being in the womb to being in outside world. She stated they could try a few more medications but that she thinks it would be best to transfer him to a better equipped NICU where he could get the level of care he would need. As you can imagine only being a few hours postpartum, running on no sleep, not being able to see or hold my baby, and then being told not only is he sick and something is wrong but he has to go somewhere 2 hours away and be hooked up to all these machines I was a complete mess but told the doctor to get him to where he needed. After another hour or so they came and got me and Jeremia (my husband) and brought us to see Griffin before the new NICU staff arrived to fly him to Des Moines. I was able to touch him just a little but we didn’t want to overstimulate him so that all that was allowed. The NICU team arrived and the nurse gave us a little run down of what they were going to do once they got him to Des Moines and promised to call me if anything happened. Once he left I was told that I could be discharged to go down and be with him.
Once down there we were told that he was hooked up to a special vent that gives a bunch of gentle breaths as well as oxygen and nitrous oxide to help dilate his blood vessels in his lungs and allow his lungs to heal and make the switch from fetal mood to baby mood. We were told we could not hold him or touch him as overstimulating him could cause more problems but that he was getting the right treatment to help him recover.
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