Ault Clan: Gideon Charles

I'm sure most of you know the stories of Gideon, but this is mostly for my remembering.

Gideon was born February 5th, 2014. He was 38 weeks, but with some placenta complications, he stopped growing about the 35 week mark, so he was only 5lbs 9oz, and had absolutely no fat. As soon as he was born, they put him on my chest for about 2 seconds, before they realized he was not taking off with breathing. They swept him away, bagged him for 2 minutes, until his heart rate got over 100 beats per minute and he took off on his own. It is common with recessitated babies to have slow other things down in their systems- they checked his blood sugar- it was at 20. He should have been at least 40, which would also have been low. They took him away again, gave him an iv to get his sugars up before brain damage occurred. He was given formula along with my colostrum at first to try and get him some groceries- some reserves. The first night at the hospital, he spent in the nursery being closely monitored. We got him back the next morning thinking things were fine. He got to take his iv out with strict instruction to feed him often to keep his sugars up. By the end of the day he started getting harder and harder to feed. He spent the night in the nursery for the nurses to take care of before hoping to go home the next day. A dr came into our room at 4 in the morning telling us that the nurses had noticed Gideon throwing up bile in the night and that he was going to have to be transferred to nicu in madison. Scary. They did an upper gi study and found he had maconium plug syndrome. The contrast they used cleared him out and he was able to poop. They were afraid he had a dying colon, abrustructed bowel - anyway- test showed he didn't. We spent 8 days in nicu while they tried to regulate his blood sugar. We finally went home on Valentine's day- getting home at 10 pm. Discharge instructions were to feed him every 3 hours round the clock and he needed corn starch in his milk to help him to metabolize his sugars more evenly. We had 2 weeks at home. March 1st we had Bob, Karen, and Delia over for lunch. Bob was holding Gideon when all of a sudden he looked up at Bob and let out 2 'final gasps' and stopped breathing. He turned a yellow greenish color... and was totally lifeless. Terry took him from Bob and Gideon was not breathing at all. Terry tried shaking him and poking him to get him to come back and he was not responsive. I called 911 and got an ambulance on the way. Terry gave three rescue breaths - he didn't respond to the first two, but with the third one he started breathing again. We were afraid it was his sugar- we checked it, but it was fine- we started feeding him. By the time the ambulance got there, Gideon was eating and breathing, but still looked horrible. They thought it was best to have him be ambulanced to the hospital. We went right to madison to the children's hospital. It was a good thing we went- we spent 9 more days in the hospital. He had several events of stopping breathing where we needed to revive him and get him breathing again. They did several studies and tests - ruled out a bunch of scary things..... and concluded that he was just acting like a premie and that he would grow out of it. They sent us home with oxygen and an oximeter. He is monitored all the time and on oxygen at night to help him with his oxygen dips. We hope this is the end of the 'story' - of our hospitalizations and he just keeps on getting stronger!