Birth Story and Baby Pictures

So a year and four days ago, I found out that I pregnant once again, this time I was able to carry my son to term, and actually a week past my due date. My birth story is long overdue, especially since my son, Alex, is now one week from becoming four months old! I'll spare most of the gory details of his arrival, but I'm warning you that nothing went the way I planned.

I was planning on a natural birth with as little medicine as possible, a two-day stay at the hospital and an exclusively breast-fed baby. Yeah, right...

The problem started when I became diabetic during pregnancy and having an incredibly hard time keeping my blood sugars normal. My OB did tell me that he usually delivers at 39 weeks with a diabetic pregnancy, but was keen on trying to appease me and my birth plan, which included waiting up to two weeks past the due date before inducing. As my due date came and went, I received a phone call from my doctor; he was out-of-town. He said, "Kittie, I really don't think we should keep that baby cooking any longer, I'm thinking he needs to come home this weekend." What?! I contacted his business partner, who was very surprised to hear that I was nearly 41 weeks pregnant with gestational diabetes, migraine headaches and (in the last week) hypertension! He wanted to induce immediately.

On my due date, July 16, 2012

The night I was induced, July 20, 2012

I was induced at midnight and labored for thirteen hours. Yes, I got the epidural, but it was only after my husband asked me to because he could no longer sleep through my painful cries of back labor. After the epidural I needed to be on oxygen the rest of the labor to keep my baby's heart rate normal as my blood pressure went higher. About eleven hours in I was dilated to eight centimeters and, as my doctor checked the progression, I leaked meconium fluid. My husband was concerned, I was beginning to get concerned, but as I dilated to nine we tried to push. Nothing happened. One more push, and still nothing. I was prepped for an emergency C-Section.

I remember being uncontrollably shaky, not being able to keep still on the table despite having two epidurals and morphine. Surprisingly, I was very calm, and ready to have my son come home, my husband was scared enough for the two of us. And as the thirteenth hour neared, my son was born at 12:32pm. First we heard the surgeon count, "One, two, three times around..." his umbilical cord wrapped around his baby neck would have, inevitably, caused us more harm had we pursued a vaginal birth. And then we heard suction, like a vacuum. And finally, he cried.

They had to take him to the nursery right after DH held him and I saw him. He was gorgeous! But he wasn't exactly perfect. After my surgery I was wheeled to my recovery room while my husband stayed with baby in the nursery so he could be monitored. Hours passed. I had fallen asleep waiting and recovering, but seven hours later two nurses brought my baby boy in to see me, and I finally held him in my arms. He saw me for the first time, smelled me, knew my voice, latched onto my breast with no problem at all, I had a perfect baby. We discussed having him room in, as we planned, but decided it would be better for him to be in the nursery this first night after a difficult delivery, and I'm glad we did.

About five o'clock the next morning, and mere ten hours after holding my son and two feedings later, a nurse appeared in my room, without Alex. She said he had stopped breathing a couple times after the last feeding, he had sleep apnoea. He was moved to NICU, placed on oxygen, heart rate monitors, blood/oxygen monitors, and into an incubator to keep his temperature up.

Visiting Alex in NICU

I wasn't allowed to breastfeed him any more until his blood/oxygen saturation leveled out, so we bottle-fed him with formula while I pumped my milk every three hours to keep up my supply. I gave the milk to the NICU nurses, who were so supportive and encouraging, and I was able to feed him with it when I had enough per feeding. I was released from the hospital after a three day stay, but my son had to stay in NICU for at least a week, or until his temperature stayed at a normal 98 degrees. I never left the NICU wing that week. My mother-in-law and I took shifts feeding him at night. I was finally able to breastfeed again after four days when he was taken out of the incubator and placed in an isolate, still on all monitors but off oxygen. His sleep apnoea disappeared, and we were finally able to stay in the transition room the night before he was discharged.

The night before we went home

Everything in my six-page birth plan went wrong: no drugs, no c-section, no formula, no bottles. But after all the trauma, transition and the wonderful NICU nurses, I can't think of a better way or better team to bring home baby.

Newborn

One Month

Two Months

Three Months