Our son contracted Salmonella, and his birth story.

Back story: On June 2nd my daughter at her 2nd bday party at gymboree, on June 4th I thought I was in labor--15 hours of contrax and we got to the hospital and they stopped. I was sent home on the 5th and DD had a fever and diarhea. It lasted 5 days and was nasty. My niece and friends daughter also got this stomach bug as well. My husband had one episode a few days later and that was all. Well on June 14th I was in the bathroom all day long. I was contracting as well, and lost more MP. I thought I was in labor. We got to the hospital that night and I was still 1-2 cm and 70% like the week before. My plan was to go natural this time, no epidural or pit like I did with the other 2 kids. 

The next morning my contrax were there but more like 7 minutes apart and not as strong. It was frustrating to say the least as I had been in prodromal labor for 10 days. My doc came in at 7 am and was great, told me I could stay and wait until noon and she would check me again. At noon I was still 2 cm and we talked about what we would do. She said I didnt have to do anything, but I was done. I wanted a low dose of pit to start out. She agreed, that was 1 pm. She checked me again at 415pm and I was only 4 cm. I was so annoyed, but decided to have my water broken. I was still drug free and epi free. It was getting intense, but as soon as she broke my water things went fast and furious. Once the water was gone it was insane. My brain couldnt keep up with the pain as it was from pit and I was in terrible pain. I started to think I couldnt do it anymore, I asked to be checked again around 6pm and I was 9 cm. I was so ready for it to be over. I felt the baby moving down and by a little after 6 the doc came in and checked me as I said I wanted to push. She said I was almost ready, maybe in another contraction. I pushed about 4 times. At one point I felt the ring of fire and literally closed my legs and said I couldnt do it...She had to open my legs and yell at me. I pushed and thought I would die, but suddenly his head came out, then one more and his body. DH announced it was a boy as we were team green. It was so much fun to hear it, but I was so tired! The amount of nurses in the room was nuts. Apparently I was the only one going natural there and I think I mustve scared the other patients into getting an epi...I screamed SO loud I had no tears or cuts, so that was awesome. It was SO hard, the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. Of course it was so worth it. I thought the hardest part was over....but it wasnt.

We named him Rhys John (pron Reese) John is after my late Poppa. He was 8 lbs 3 oz and 21 inches long. He started nursing well and all was fine. The next day at noon (18 hrs old) I changed his diaper after our kids came and met him. The diaper was mostly blood. We sent it to the nurse and she immediately got the baby. DH went with them, and in the next hour Rhys had 2 more bloody stools. This was saturday and the on call pedi came in. They did an xray of his belly and said it didnt look good. Said it COULD be what they call NEC or Necrotizing enterocolitus. I knew that wasnt a good diagnosis, and we both started to worry. He wanted us sent downtown to the childrens hospital. DH went home and dropped off our stuff, and I rode with the meducare team. He was 23 hours old when they transferred him. He had an IV in his little head, and I wasnt allowed to nurse him until they figured out the problem. they started antibiotics immediately. We got to the NICU (scariest place ever) and that first 48 hours they still thought it could be a life threatening infection. He eventually had a fever, but it went away quickly since he was on antiobiotics. He wasnt able to eat for 48 hours, after the second morning we found out that his cultures came back postive for salmonella. ..They were actually happy. Its treated easily, yet its still scary and very uncommon in a newborn. I was able to nurse him again and it was awesome. They think he contracted salmonenlla the day I was in labor and he came in contact with it during the birth process, I had no idea I had it...I just thought my body was clearing our for labor.

They told us he needed a total of 14 days of IV antiobiotics. Going back and forth 40 mins each way to feed him, pump and spend time with my other kids was HARD. He was doing so well by day 5 that they decided to send him home on oral antibiotics after 6 days of IV ones. He was gaining weight back and his jaundice was down. ON friday June 22, at 1 week old he came home. 

It was the scariest week of our lives, I really wasnt sure for a little while if we would come home with our son. We had his follow up pedi visit and he is already 6 oz over his birth weight. We are so grateful. This experience has been the most challenging one in our lives...from the prodromal labor, to birth and NICU stay. We are so happy to have our family of 5 together finally, and the kids love him