After almost 8 months of waiting and a rough pregnancy, he was born at 6:31 pm on March 27, 2018, at St. Vincent Carmel. Excitement filled the room as this new life was brought into the world. But the excitement didn't last long before being replaced with panic. After only seeing him for a split second and witnessing bubbles come out of his mouth, Abigail Christison's long-anticipated baby boy was rushed to the NICU (Neonatal, Intensive Care Unit).
They quickly sewed her back up from her C-section before telling her that she would have to wait an hour to see her son. She didn't know what was happening to him. All she knew was that her baby had just been taken away from her and that something was wrong. This hadn't happened when she had her daughter, Sailor, who was born just a year prior by C-section as well.
He was a special little boy who had a tedious journey ahead of him. He would be in the NICU for six endless weeks as countless doctors and specialists tried to figure out how to help him. On the first day, he had wires strapped to him, helping him with basic functions such as eating and breathing. Like other babies who were in the NICU, Strider was born premature. He wasn't supposed to make his debut for another 5 weeks.
"I just remember looking at him and he's the most beautiful baby boy ever," Christison said. "... I couldn't believe I was that mom with a baby in the NICU."
Roughly half a million babies spend time in the NICU according to National Perinatal Association. Those babies are admitted for a variety of reasons such as heart conditions, complications of prematurity, blood infections, breathing difficulties, brain injuries, birth anomalies, jaundice, genetic conditions and Rh incompatibility. Strider Fox Christison is one of the half a million babies who spent time in the NICU in 2018.
With Christison's first child, her time spent in the hospital went as expected. She got to hold her, breastfeed her and have her baby by her side as she recovered. However, with Strider, it wasn't like that. She didn't get to hold him or feed him without asking nurses for permission because of all the wires he had attached to him. She didn't get the luxury of having him in the same room as her. After everyone visiting had left and her husband returned home to take care of their daughter, she would be all alone in the room unless she wanted to make the trek to the other side of the hospital to visit him even though she was still recovering from major surgery.
"But in those moments, I was by myself," Christison said reflecting. "I had my mom and my sisters; people came to visit me but then they had their lives to get to. You just feel heartbroken and alone."
During Christison's pregnancy, she was diagnosed with polyhydramnios, a medical condition where there is an excess of amniotic fluid in the amniotic sac that affects 1 percent of pregnancies. With this condition, doctors warned her that there was a chance of going into labor early.
The day before he was delivered, Christison went to the hospital to get a steroid shot to help Strider's lungs develop just in case he was delivered early. The next day when she went back for the second shot, she found out that she was already dilated at 3 centimeters. Christison was in a state of denial. It had only been 34 weeks. Her first child came out happy and healthy and so would he. What was happening couldn't be real.
"I was just in denial like no, I'm tough, I can do this," Christison said. "I can make it to 39 (or) 40 weeks."
It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that her baby had to stay in the NICU when he was overall healthy, besides the fact that he couldn't eat and breathe at the same time. It wasn't fair that she had to teach her baby how to do it instead of just being able to latch him on to her breasts.
She watched as happy families got to take their babies home, yet they had to stay there, and her baby couldn't go home. She was mad, frustrated and upset during the five days she was admitted to the hospital herself to recover.
"I'm still admitted in the hospital, so I wasn't having to take care of my other kid or any other responsibilities, just focus on him," Christison said. "A lot of my feelings were anger and frustration because we were still there."
On the fifth day since Strider's birth, Christison was discharged from the hospital, but Strider wasn't allowed to go home yet. She was told that she didn't have to leave the hospital, but she did have to leave the room that she had been staying in.
Christison and her husband, Chris, made their way to the NICU for the final time before officially leaving the hospital. After a few hours, Chris reminded Abigail that they needed to return home to take care of their daughter Sailor.
As the large heavy double doors shut behind them and the silver elevator took them to the first floor, a feeling a breathlessness overcame her and she began to sob uncontrollably. She had to leave the hospital, without her baby. Every new mile between her and Strider felt like a blow. She felt like she was neglecting him by leaving without him.
"They literally ripped my heart out and left it in the hospital," Christison said as tears made their way down her face and she reached across the table for a tissue.
Things were different than they had been before once she arrived back home. Sailor had no idea that she had a little brother because she hadn't met him yet, and she had been spending the past week with her dad so by time Abigail came home Sailor didn't want to play with her. Chris's parents were a huge help to them as they transitioned into life with a baby in the NICU according to Christison. His father would cook them dinner most nights while his mother was over constantly watching Sailor. Abigail's mom, Diana Faucett, was also a huge help according to Christison.
Faucett had 4 C-sections herself and offered Christison both advice and emotional support. For her, having to watch her daughter's body be jerked around by doctors and witness them take her grandson away was very difficult, but she made sure to put on a strong front for her daughter.
"It was overwhelming," Faucett said. It's hard to see your child in pain no matter if it's physical or emotional... You're connected to them and you feel that pain with them. All you want to do is take it away."
As the weeks started going by it was almost as if she had developed a routine. During the day, she would watch Sailor while Chris was at work. The doctor would call her around 5 o'clock every day and give her an update on how Strider was doing. Once Chris got home, they would all have dinner then put Sailor to bed. Then either Chris would drive to the hospital and drop her off or she would travel to the hospital with her mom who would go inside and offer support throughout the visit. She would typically be with Strider until 1 or 2 am before going back home to go to bed, pump breast milk and repeating the process again.
"I had to sit there quietly and just hear the sound of a machine when I should be hearing my baby breathing and sucking," Christison said. "I was just hearing a freaking breast pump (and) being lonely. You have your husband, you have your kid, but it looks empty. You feel empty. Instead of feeding your baby, you're pumping at four o'clock in the morning by yourself knowing that you've just left your baby there again in strangers' arms."
Each week Strider spent in the hospital came with different emotions. The first week there was lots of depression. The feelings of forcing herself to get out of bed every morning and not give up, to be strong for her baby while still recovering from surgery. Throughout the next 5 weeks he spends in the NICU, Christison said she experienced a lot of frustration and thankfulness.
She was thankful that he was alive and that he only had eating issues because she realized that a lot of other people had it worse. She was frustrated because they had to wait so long before they could run any tests on him. The doctors wanted to wait until he was 40 weeks gestation, the time the baby would be fully developed in the womb, to give him time to make sure that he was developed and see if he could figure out how to suck, swallow and breathe on his own, a major milestone for babies.
"They wanted to give him the opportunity, which is good," Christison said. "They didn't want to intervene unless it was necessary. It's frustrating, but by time the fourth, fifth and sixth week comes around that's all you're waiting for."
"They wanted to give him the opportunity, which is good," Christison said. "They didn't want to intervene unless it was necessary. It's frustrating, but by time the fourth, fifth and sixth week comes around that's all you're waiting for."
After participating in the swallow study, a test that is used with a combination of x-rays and fluids to determine what the esophagus and throat do when swallowing, it was found that when Strider was drinking, the liquid would get too close to his airway causing him to close his airway to try and protect himself. The doctors then took the next step of thickening his formula. His formula was thickened to honey-thick which is a thickness that doesn't have a lot of liquid in it. It was then found that he could drink the formula with no issues.
The end was in sight. The doctors told Christison that he needed to drink so much of the thickened formula a day for so many days and past other tests such as the car seat test before they would be allowed to send him home.
"We're like okay, we're at the end of our rope here, boom," Christison said. "This is not an exact timeline but, I can see us leaving soon."
May 10, 2018, Christison was told that Strider would be released from the NICU the next day as long as he didn't have any incidents such as not breathing or eating. If he did have an incident, his 24 hours before he could be released would start over.
Christison was extremely excited. She was ready to bring her baby home. Between the doctors speaking with her and Chris for the last time, filling out paperwork and them unhooking him from his wires it felt like it was taking forever, she couldn't get him out of there fast enough.
"I just couldn't sit still I was like, oh my gosh, my baby, I get to take him home. He is mine," Christison said.
They went through the large double doors and down the silver elevator one last time, with Strider in their arms, got in the car and let each mile between them separate them from a place they wouldn't have to return to. Sailor got to meet her new baby brother and Abigail got to start adjusting to life as a stay at home mom once again but this time for 2, 6 weeks after the birth of her son.
Christison isn't the only one whose life was altered by this experience; her family was affected as well. Faucett felt very protective over both Abigail and Strider. She wanted to be there for both of them and make sure that others followed the rules, such as using hand sanitizer before holding him and holding him a certain way. She is very thankful that her and her daughter are close enough that she felt like she could lean on her mom during these difficult times.
"I thank God that I was able to be there for her," Faucett said. "I helped support her during that time and that we are close enough that she felt like she could lean on me for support."
Although his life started out with some difficulties and he wasn't the picture-perfect newborn everyone excepts babies to be, he has overcome many challenges as his second birthday approaches.
With the determination of countless doctors, nurses, himself and his family, especially his mother, Strider beat the odds and survived the NICU. The impact that Strider had on not only his mother but the rest of his family as well, will last a lifetime.
"He's now two years old," Christison said smiling. "He's a tough little dude. He's funny. He's adorable and he's like a little diva."