Story submitted by Kris on October 05, 1999 at 10:18:17:
Kris is 27, from Minnesota, USA.
Family:husband:33 son, Jack:8 weeks
After reading everyone's story I thought maybe it was time to share mine. Mine begins on August 11th,1999 when my son was born with Erb's palsy. My labour was awful. He was a big baby weighing 10lbs 2oz (and this was after the dr told me the baby was about 7 lbs) My labour was very long. I actually started labour on August 9th. I was having contractions every 5-7 mins but they were strong. I called my dr and he told me the contrations have to be 3-4 mins apart before I can go to the hospital. I even told him I am in really bad pain and it's like he didn't believe me--all he said is take some tyonel and try to sleep. Well I could not sleep I was up all night and finally I called the dr again at 3 in the morning and told him my contractions are the same but the pain is so bad(bad enough were it brought tears to my eyes) he told me to go down to the hospital but he will probably just send me home. Well I wasted my time and went to the hospital only to be sent home. Even though my contractions were strong he didn't want me in the hosptial until they were 3-4 mins apart.
So all day on August 10th I contracted every 5-7 mins. I gave up calling the dr. ( he would not do anything anyways) I finally had enough and at 10:30 pm I called the hospital and said I need to come down. Well I went and to my surprise they actually admitted me. (Contractions were still 5-7 mins) all night the contrations stayed the same. And at 7 am the next morning (8/11) my dr came in and broke my water. Well by 11:00am the contrations still weren't progrssing so he started piticon.
The baby was having a hard time coming down-- I asked for a c-section but that didn't happen. By 5pm I was told to start pushing. The baby's head came out fairly problem free but his shoulders were stuck. The dr tugged and pulled on his head and a nurse applied pressure to my stomach area and finally the baby was out.
He came out very blue and limp. They rushed him to the warmer and finally got him crying. They told me his right arm wasn't moving and that it's probably dislocated. So they took x-rays but the x-rasy were fine. All I was told after that was that "sometimes these things happen--we have to wait and see" They didn't even give me a name for what my son had.
I went home not knowing anything about it. At my son's 2 week check up his pedritian he was referred to a neruologist and that's when I started hearing the names Erb's Palsy and Brachial Plexus Injury.
Currently we are doing PT on his right arm everyday. Somedays there seems to be improvements but other days I'm not sure. We go back to the neruologist in december and my son will be examined again and we will discuss what to do next. The doctor says he is optimistic about his recovery. I pray he's right. The good thing is my son had good wrist flextion and exension and a good grasp in his right arm. It seems that it's his right shoulder down to the wrist that's affected.
I would like to talk to anyone who is currently going through this or has gone through it. I would like to hear good out comes and no so good ones.
Please feel free to e-mail at Krissel@AOL.com
thanks for reading--I'm sorry this is so long.
Kris
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