Cooper's Story

****I started writing this over a month ago. I started

crying too many times, so its taken me a while to finish it.****

This week it has been a year since Cooper had his first surgery. I decided it is time to write his story.

Cooper Rainer Topham made his dramatic entry into this world on December 21, 2008.



On December 6, eight weeks before my due date I was in my crafting basement with my sister-in-law making cards. We were trying to make a years worth of birthday, wedding, anniversary and get well cards. Of course in my over the top style, we were in the middle of making 40 “love” cards. I was having contraction, but just barely. I figured it was nothing. Later that night I laid down trying to relieve some of the pain, but that didn’t help. About 5 pm I finally decided to go up to the hospital. They checked several things and realized that I was in labor, but since Cooper was breech, there was “no way” he was coming without a C-section (remember that, it comes up again). They put me on medicine and decided to keep me for the night to stop my contractions. By the next morning, my contractions had not stopped and they decided there must be something else wrong. Because they were concerned I had an infection, they decided to life flight me into Salt Lake. Tooele’s hospital is not set up for premature babies and if there was some kind of problem they wanted me to be near a newborn ICU.



The helicopter ride was horrible, I was strapped to a gurney and I’m very claustrophobic. At least it went by quickly. The drive from Tooele’s Hospital to IMC would take close to an hour. The flight over the mountain took less than 15 min. I spent the day in the hospital. At first they decided I had an infection, told me I would have a C section that day and gave me an amniocentesis. Test came back normal. No infection. Then they decided it must be my appendix. They said they could remove my appendix, leave the baby in and I’d be fine. They did a quick ultrasound and decided that wasn’t it. I started to lie to the doctor about my contractions. They were extremely painful, but they weren’t doing anything. I was still 1 cm dilated, Cooper was still breech and nothing was progressing. I had been 28 hours with no drinks or food. I was starving and tired of being poked. I finally talked them into letting me leave and went directly to the first McDonalds I could find and ordered a Big Mac.



I spent the next week having contractions but feeling ok. I followed up with my doctor and there was still no progression. The Wednesday before Cooper was born, a week and half after the first incident, I spent the day having worse contractions. I stopped by the hospital on the way home to be checked. “Yes you are having contractions, yes Cooper is still breech and no, your contractions aren’t doing anything.” I was still barely dilated and the baby wasn’t coming. The doctor proceeded to tell me that some people can be in labor for weeks and have nothing happen. Very comforting!



I spent the day before Cooper was born finishing last minute Christmas things. I wrapped the rest of my gifts, mailed my cards and cleaned my house. By that night I was exhausted, but no more than any other day when I was that pregnant. I had been having contractions for 2 weeks, but by 2:30 am in the morning I decided that I couldn’t wait anymore. Even if they thought I was crazy, I figured I’d better go up and be told that nothing was happening again. By the time we made it to the hospital and got checked in, it was around 4 am. As I was wheeled into Labor & Delivery, I was in significant pain with contractions on top of each other. I told the nurse that I needed something right away and she said “You are only 34 weeks, lets check you, and hopefully it’s nothing”. I was 5 cm dilated! They once again said he’s breech and he’s not coming out without a C section. They called SLC right away and ordered the helicopter. I was headed back in. It took approximately 45 min for the helicopter to get there and get ready to transport me. The whole time I was complaining (yelling) that I needed something for the pain. But they couldn’t give me anything because of the flight. I even begged for Tylenol, anything! It was classic TV labor. I was yelling I couldn’t do it anymore and my mom and husband were encouraging me. My mom said “the pioneer women did it all the time”, I yelled back “and they died most of the time!”. My husband told me at one point to get a hold of myself and I screamed something to him about this being his fault!!!

The life flight nurse had to check me before we took off and I was 10 cm! She called into SLC and they said bring me anyway, Tooele can’t handle the baby. So the nurses were trying to help me onto the gurney in between contractions (there was no in between). They had the bed all the way tall and were moving me over. I started to throw up into the bucket Mike was holding, and on my second heave, laying on my side with one leg in the air and ½ my body on each bed, my water broke. Now, my water broke with Gracie, and it leaked out and dripped, so I guess the more appropriate word with Cooper was that it didn’t break, it EXPLODED. It soaked the nurse and shot down the hall and I felt instant relief. It didn’t last long. At this point, they decided they could no longer fly me out of there and I was having a C Section in Tooele. They had to call the anesthesiologist to come in. I was told hang in there for 15 min and you’ll have some drugs. As I lay there crying and screaming in pain, I all of a sudden had the urge to push. I told the nurse and she reminded me that “he’s breech, he’s not coming out without a c section”. I screamed with the pain again. Then she proceeded to say the famous words “If it makes you feel better, go ahead an push”. She figured this would get me to calm down for a few minutes until the drugs arrived. WRONG! I pushed once and could feel Cooper coming out. As I yelled that he was coming, I was ONCE again reminded that he COULDN’T come out, he was breech. The Dr. lifted one of my legs and Coopers legs dropped out. He apparently couldn’t hear the nurses saying he couldn’t come out. Two pushes later he was here! I had delivered a breech baby naturally, (not by choice of course). And if I had it to do all over again, I wouldn’t. I’d still beg for drugs and cry and scream. I was later told that Type A personalities don’t do well naturally, it requires too much letting go of control. Shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that I’m not so great at that.

Cooper forced his way out at 5:25 am on December 21, 2008. He was 5 lbs 2 oz. 20 inches long. Pretty big for a 6 week premature baby. He was breathing on his own but they intubated him for the flight as a precaution. Because of hospital regulation, the helicopter that came to get me couldn’t take Cooper. Apparently there is a difference between mom nurses and baby nurses. Another helicopter was ordered and this one had to land in the road blocked off by highway patrol because there is only one helipad at the hospital.

I stayed in the hospital for exactly 12 hours after he was born. The doctor almost wouldn’t let me go, but I finally begged her to let me go see my baby. By the time I got into see him, the tubes were out and he was only little oxygen.

Cooper spent 11 days in the NICU. His main problem was jaundice. He was extremely bruised on the way out. The bruises cause your billirubin to increase which in turn causes the jaundice. He spent several days under the lights and several days learning to eat from a bottle. Babies don’t develop ability to suck until 36 weeks, so he was ahead of schedule. IMC has an extra room that they allow parents to stay in if they need to be closer to their babies. I was able to stay in the room until Christmas night. I missed out on Christmas with the kids, but Mike made it home and took care of it. Luckily I had everything ready the week before, no usually like me!

When Cooper came home, he was 4 lbs 12 oz. He was a tiny thing. He had the most beautiful head. We commented all the time how perfectly round it was since it didn’t spend any time in the birth canal.

At six weeks, right on his due date, we were at dinner at my parent’s house. My mom was in Italy celebrating my twin aunt’s 50th birthday. We were all making fun of Cooper’s head because it seemed out of proportion to his body. My brother called him a “bobble head”. We all thought it must just be because he was a premie and was growing differently. Looking at the picture, how did we now know?

That night, I took him home and tried on his cowboy hat. Two weeks earlier, I had taken a picture of him in the hat. It was so huge, that I had to hold it on in the back. This night, the hat wouldn’t even go on his head. His head also felt squishy like the soft spot was over the whole head. We talked about it and decided to go up to nighttime pediatrics. I thought for sure they would tell me I was crazy. I thought it would bring me piece of mind. We got to the doctors, and he took one look at it and walked us straight to the ER. (They are connected by a hallway). The ER doctor looked at it and called straight to Primary Children’s Medical Center. He didn’t know what was wrong, but knew something was. By the time we made it up to PCMC, it was 11:30 at night. It was a cold February night and the ER was packed. They had folding chairs set up down the hall. Luckily, since we’d been called in, we got in right away. The neurosurgery resident came down and met with us. She ordered a CAT scan and came back to tell us he had Hydrocephalus and needed surgery. The hydrocephalus was caused by aqueductal stenosis. The duct in the back of his brain that is supposed to drain the spinal fluid down the spine was blocked. Normally this is discovered at birth but because he was early, it was found when he was supposed to be born. Surgery was scheduled for 10 am. My dad dropped the girls off at school and came in to be with us. The surgery was a few hours long and was successful, but they said it was under quite a bit of pressure. He had a big headache for several weeks and we didn’t realize. He came home the next day. My mom came home from Italy the next week and I met her at the airport to show her Cooper and tell her about everything. We had kept her in the dark until that point, because she couldn’t have made it home in time for the surgery anyway.

The weeks following the surgery, we notice fluid build up around the wound track. I talked to the hospital several times and they assured me that was normal. Three weeks after his first surgery, my mom was watching him while I was at work. All of a sudden, a bit gush of spinal fluid came out of one of the wounds. She called 911 and me. I drove about 110 all the way to her house to be greeted with 3 cops an ambulance and the fire department. I called into PCMC to see if they wanted him life flighted in or just driven in the ambulance. They said “Everything is fine, just drive him in yourself” SCARY!



So we took him in to the hospital and they decided it was just the stitches malfunctioning. They glued it with their special $150 super glue and sent us on our way. The next day, it was leaking again. Because we were told this was no big deal, my parents took him up to the hospital for us. They called a few hours later saying he was having surgery again. They decided that the shunt wasn’t working properly and were going to replace it. Same surgery, it was only a few hours, everything went well. We could tell an immediate difference with this shunt. The swelling went down a lot faster and Cooper recovered more quickly. He finally started eating better and putting on weight a lot faster.

I’m so grateful for the doctors that spend so many years of their lives studying and working so hard to be able to help my poor baby. This procedure hasn’t been around very long, I think they told me 30 years. Before that, babies died.

I’ll have to write another story about his last brain surgery, but it will probably take me a few more months to be able to do that, its still a little fresh.



We love this little guy. He is the light of our family. We are so blessed to have him!