Baby comes home for Mother's Day

The nurse placed the newborn on his mother’s leg. For about two minutes, the Kalispell mother felt his skin on hers and watched his eyes, her hand on his back. For the next few weeks, that would be the last time she would see her son without tubes in his nose.

For some moms, learning how to care for a newborn in intensive care is just part of the process.

“The first time you get to take care of your baby totally unconnected from wires and tubes, it’s amazing,” said Rachel Salyer.

Salyer, 31, tried to get pregnant for seven years. When she finally did, it was a quick pregnancy. Too quick. Her water broke at 32 weeks. A typical pregnancy lasts 40 weeks.

Salyer has cervical insufficiency, also known as an incompetent cervix. “It’s a silly name … I was quite insulted,” Salyer said while laughing.

It’s a condition that occurs when weak cervical tissue causes or contributes to premature birth. It can also lead to the loss of an otherwise healthy pregnancy.

The condition happens in about 1 out of 100 pregnancies, according to the American Pregnancy Association.

“With my first pregnancy, I didn’t even know my water had broken,” Salyer said. “I didn’t have the prenatal care that I should have, which was a lesson that I learned.”

Two days later, she started feeling contractions. She knew while it was too early to have her baby, it was time.

By baby number two, she went to the doctor during her fifth week of pregnancy. That’s when she learned, “I’ll never be able to carry a baby full-term.”

WHEN Salyer’s daughter, Fyah, was born two years ago, she spent nine days in intensive care at Kalispell Regional Medical Center.

“That’s pretty amazing for a child of her gestation,” Salyer said. “... it was almost like nobody had told her she was a preemie.”

Her newborn son, Akwah, spent nearly a month in the hospital.

On a recent afternoon, Salyer walked a memorized path through the infant intensive care unit. Her socks shuffled across the tile.

“After having two kids here, the NICU and labor and delivery nurses feel a bit like family,” she said.

Her son slept in a room with other babies still in survival mode, surrounded by nurses, machines and other mothers.

Fyah was home with her grandma.

“I wouldn’t be able to make it without my mom, especially as a single mom,” Salyer said. “She was a full-time mom to my daughter while I’ve been here.”

Salyer said she’s been in unhealthy relationships in the past. Like most people, she’s wondered what she’s meant to do in life. And often, she hit a wall trying to get there. Having children made some of the hurdles seem small in comparison.

And while her pregnancies have an additional element of worry, she says “it’s more than worth it.”

“Motherhood is scary,” she said. “You realize that moment, that there’s a child watching you, then what you are doing or are not doing is paramount to their stability and growth as a human being. Being a mom made me the woman that I am.”

AS SALYER walked the intensive care halls, she pointed out the room she had lived in for a month while on bed rest when she began to deliver just 25 weeks into her pregnancy. Then, she pointed to the room where she gave birth on April 19. She was 31 weeks pregnant with Akwah.

Until last week, Fyah hadn’t met her little brother.

“She watched him through the [intensive care] window, but wasn’t able to go in,” Salyer said. “She’d kiss the window and say, ‘Hi baby Akwah.”

Thursday, Salyer was able to bring Akwah home and introduce him to his big sister.

For the first time, Fyah was able to talk to her little brother without a window separating them as their mother held him.

“Just in time for Mother’s Day,” she said. “It’s kind of the best thing I could have imagined.”

Reporter Katheryn Houghton may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at khoughton@dailyinterlake.com.