Supporting Each Other in a Health Crisis

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Myrtle Alegado: A health or medical crisis can have a significant impact on any marriage, but perhaps even more-so for newlyweds. You’re still finding your footing early on in your marriage, so how do you ensure you support each other enough to help each other get through this ordeal? We’ll find out about Joel and Richelle’s experience in today’s episode.

Welcome to Happy Life, a podcast brought to you by INC Media Audio that aims to help newlyweds navigate through the first years of marriage. I’m your host, Myrtle Alegado, and I’ve been married to my husband, Paul, since 1999. Later, we’ll hear some Bible-based advice through Brother Felmar Serreno, a minister of the gospel in the Church Of Christ.

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Inspiration to make your marriage thrive, you’re listening to Happy Life.

Myrtle: Because the topic of discussion today is an extremely sensitive one, and I know it may be difficult to talk about, I am so appreciative of Richelle and Joel, from London, who are here to chat with me today. Welcome to the Happy Life podcast, Joel and Richelle.

Joel Dela Cruz: Hello.

Richelle Dela Cruz: Hi. Hi, Myrtle. How are you?

Myrtle: I’m good. How are things over there, over the pond?

Joel: We’re good. Thank you very much. Thank you for having us.

Myrtle: So you two have been married for how long now?

Joel: Coming up to three years in September.

Myrtle: Oh, wow! Congratulations. So, now tell me about finding out that you were expecting your baby boy, Noah.

Joel: So, we weren’t really planning. We just left it up to God and if He blessed us with a child, He blessed us. So, we weren’t really actively trying to have a baby or conceive at the time.

Richelle: Yeah, so you can say that we were surprised when we found out. Actually I was the first one who found out. I realized it because that day, it was during the pandemic, and I was working from home and I don’t usually eat junk food. But I realized I finished, like, a bag of crisps, or chips for America. I finished a whole bag and then I looked at it and I was like, “What’s happening?” And then I messaged him, I was like, “Can you actually buy a test?” and when he came home, I tested and we actually filmed ourselves. And yeah, we were really surprised. We were really scared. It’s something that we didn’t expect, and we felt we weren’t ready for it at that time.

Myrtle: But it was God’s perfect time, right? [laughs]

Joel and Richelle: Yes.

Myrtle: And what was your pregnancy like?

Richelle: So my pregnancy went very well, if I can say that. Every stage of my pregnancy, from the moment that we found out that we were pregnant, to finding out the gender, up to the due date, we tried everything that we could to prepare ourselves. So, not just physically for me, mentally, and even more so spiritually. We held our devotional prayers, and I did some exercises as much as I could, tried to eat healthily.

Myrtle: So up until the delivery, was everything pretty normal with your pregnancy?

Joel: Yeah, as she mentioned, everything was normal. The way Richelle planned to have a natural birth, water birth to be specific.

Richelle: Here in the U.K., we have a good kind of support system as well, with a midwife. So every time I would go for my appointment, they checked everything and also we talked about my birth plan. They knew what we wanted to do, if in case something would happen, and they were informed of what we wanted to opt for if something like that would happen.

Myrtle: So at this point, this is where the story does take a turn. I know that you did not have your ideal water birth. Can you tell us what happened during the delivery?

Joel: It started early morning, because around 1am or so where she actually was able to start pushing. So, past the contractions, and actually being admitted, and being able to go into the water and start pushing. At that time, she was trying for a good few hours. It was only when there was a switch between the midwives, where the next midwife decided to check and see if it was okay. So they got out of the water, and that’s when they discovered that her water didn’t actually break just yet. And then when they broke it there was a lot of meconium, which is basically the baby’s poop, that he inhaled. And that’s when they decided to rush her to the birthing center.

Richelle: At this point, I think I was in labor for more than 24 hours, right?

Joel: Something like that.

Richelle: Or 26 hours. So it’s like the next day already, and at the last minute when they found that there was meconium, you know, I was kind of heightened in terms of the labor stage. So I just remember being carried, they put me on a wheelchair, and they transferred me. So I was in the birth center. So from the birth center, they transferred me to the labor ward, and that’s where all the doctors and all the medical facilities are, and I just remember being rushed. I laid on the bed. Within a minute, I have all of these like wires attached to me and then, you know, they were asking me to push already. And there [were] maybe five people around and they were kind of in panic.

Joel: Yeah, no, I think there was a slight delay from when they got her in, because it was early morning and it was during that switch of nurses and midwives and doctors. And I think at that moment, every minute counts or every kind of second counted at that point, especially because they didn’t know how distressed the baby was. As soon as she had her next contractions they asked her to push and go for it, or else if she didn’t do it after I think one or two tries, they were going to go straight to C-section. But because the baby was quite far down already, that even would be quite risky.

Richelle: Yeah, I just remember being in so much pain. At that time I was already fully dilated and I didn’t have any painkillers at all. I think I just had [laughing] gas, but they asked me to stop with it because I was already inhaling too much. So if you could imagine, I had to quickly give birth to Noah to try to save his life. And at the same time I remember thinking to myself, I just want this to be over with. It was just the most painful thing for me. And I remember when Noah came out, I only held him for a second, right? They had to quickly take him away from me.

Joel: Yeah, so as soon as he came out, they literally put him [in] Chelle’s arms. They asked me to cut the cord straightaway, but then they realized. Then they took the baby straightaway, put off to the side, wiped off all the meconium that was on the baby, and then they began to suction out his windpipes for all the meconium, and then start doing basically the revival process, which we didn’t know at the time. But that’s what they were doing, rushing around. There’s more equipment coming in, there [were] the ICU trays coming in on wheels, and things like that.

Myrtle: So you weren’t fully aware of how much in distress he was at that time I guess. But can you try to explain what Noah’s complications were at birth?

Joel: So at birth, they originally just thought it was meconium aspiration, but when they got him into the ICU did a few more tests. Because it’s such a trial and error thing at that age, you can’t ask the baby what’s wrong, they have to try everything to see which one his body [will] react to. So they tried different drugs. They started doing everything they can. They had cannulas in every single part of his body that they could get into, both arms, legs, bellybutton, feet. Literally anywhere they could put up a cannula in they did. I think their main concern was that his blood pressure was constantly dropping in and out, his heart rate was dropping. They deemed him to have multiple organ dysfunction, mainly the lungs and the heart. They didn’t know what to do really at that point. They had a lot of concerns. They were calling different consultants in. They even started to speak to Great Ormond Street Hospital, which is a specialist child hospital in the U.K., one of the top hospitals, for advice on what to do too.

Richelle: To list what the doctors had advised us, his complications were: meconium aspiration syndrome, liver failure, thrombosis of vessels, metabolic acidosis, metabolic disorder, suspected sepsis and acute kidney injury.

Myrtle: I mean, that’s a pretty long list, so it must have been shocking to hear all of that. And then how did he react with all the medications and drugs that they were giving him?

Joel: When they began with the various drugs, he got to a point at Chelsea hospital where he was at literally [the] maximum care that they could give him. There’s nothing more they can do to try and save Noah. Great Ormond Street suggested that they have a procedure called ECMO [extracorporeal membrane oxygenation]. The way they described i