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Monday, June 23, 2014

Sawyer's Birth Story

My sister Kylie and I at her bridal shower.
 I had a feeling that Sawyer was going to make an early arrival. He "dropped" right around 34 weeks and at 35 weeks I had to make a visit to L&D for contractions. I was throwing my sister a bridal shower when I was 36 wks and 5 days and I was praying I would make it past that! I was busy planning, crafting, and running errands the whole week before and I actually felt pretty good. My back/hip pain wasn't as bad as it had been, I surprisingly didn't feel huge (even though I was), and I wasn't feeling that lovely end of third trimester nausea that I had been dealing with a bit in the last couple of weeks. Saturday came, we had the shower (which was so much fun btw), and I felt so relieved once it was over that I had actually made it all the way through. 

I had seen my doc the Thursday right before and he said that he didn't think I'd go into labor in the next day or two but he couldn't promise anything beyond that. Well, he was right. Saturday night at midnight a really hard contraction woke me up. I got up to use the bathroom and couldn't lay back down because the contractions were so uncomfortable and felt like they were one right after the other. I started timing them and they were coming every 2 minutes so I called my mom and she came over to stay with the kids while they slept. We got to the hospital around 2 am and of course my contractions stopped almost completely once we got there. I was 3 cm and 60 % effaced, not really contracting anymore but baby wasn't very reactive with his heart rate so he had to be monitored for awhile before we could be released. We were discharged at 5 am and the nurse discharging us assured me I'd be back delivering the baby before her next shift that night. We grabbed some breakfast on the way home and crashed for two hours before getting up and heading to church.

At church I wasn't having more than a random contraction here and there but I just wasn't feeling good. I was feeling a little crampy and nauseous and couldn't eat more than a tiny slice of pizza for lunch. My family took the boys for the afternoon so we could get some rest. After we napped and cleaned the house up a bit we decided to head out for a walk to Starbucks with Harper before the boys got home. We decided that I'd go into L&D that night just to make sure I hadn't dilated farther because of my history with that and we wanted to make sure we were able to make it to the hospital had my water broken at home. Kaleb's Mom met us back at the house to stay with the kids after we put them to bed. We headed out for the hospital around 9:30.

I started having some contractions but they felt super far apart. The nurse who had taken care of me early that morning was surprised that I was just now coming in and said she'd get me checked and hooked up to monitors right away. I was 4 cm and 90% effaced and contracting between 8 and 11 minutes apart. She called my doc and he decided that I needed to be admitted. At that point I was thinking "Ok this is not labor. He's definitely going to have to break my water to get things going." They took me back to my labor room at about 10:15 pm, got me hooked up to monitors, my IV started, and I had to be given antibiotics because my group B strep test hadn't come back yet and I had a history of it with previous pregnancies. Better safe than sorry!

This picture was taken right after we got to our labor room.
At 11 pm I started really contracting. They were 2 minutes apart and pretty strong but definitely manageable. At midnight I was still contracting every 2 minutes but the intensity had picked up a bit and the nurse offered to check me if I was up for it. I was 6 cm and completely effaced at that point and she said if I was opting for pain meds this time around now would be the time to do it. I wasn't in an uncontrollable amount of pain at that point by any means but thoughts of my last experience with Harper started crossing my mind and I really started doubting whether or not I wanted to risk going through that again. Kaleb was so incredibly supportive! He reminded me that I wanted to go all natural this time and assured me that I could do it. I opted out and continued breathing through contractions. He was AMAZING and definitely knew exactly how to help and encourage me. I was standing up next to my bed because that was definitely the most comfortable position for me. He would hug me and hold my head to his chest as soon as he saw a contraction starting on the monitor and would remind me to breath and assure me it was coming down when the contraction was almost over.

A little after 1 am I had a contraction that felt a little different than the others and I felt a slight urge to push at the peak of it. I told Kaleb to grab the nurse and she ran right in to check and see where I was at. Sure enough I was at 8 cm and she immediately called my doctor and started rushing to get everything ready. While we were waiting for the doctor I had told Kaleb that I did not feel like we should already be getting ready to meet our baby. Sure, I was in pain but the transition part of my labor was nothing near what I had always been told it would feel like. It was honestly pretty easy. 

My doctor was amazingly fast at getting there! He had been at home, sleeping I'm sure, but he was in the delivery room fully dressed 15 minutes after the nurse left my room. He checked me and I was fully dilated but my water hadn't broken so he decided to go ahead and rupture it for me which I was really grateful for! I did not want to labor laying on my back any longer than I had to. Three pushes and maybe three minutes after he broke my water baby Sawyer was born! He came out so fast that Kaleb didn't even realize he was that close to being born. He had leaned down to say something to me and looked up to see baby Sawyer for the first time!

He came out crying the cutest baby cry we had ever heard! It seriously is adorable...
June 9, 2014
1:32 am
5 lbs. 9 oz
19 inches long

First time meeting Daddy.

 Bonding time with Mama.

Daddy visiting baby boy in the NICU.
The neonatologist (who was amazing) came in that morning to do the routine check that every baby gets right after birth. Sawyer was born at exactly 37 weeks so he was considered full term but the doctor noticed that his breathing was a little rapid. He wasn't too concerned and thought it'd resolve on its own. He promised he'd come back by to check on him later in the day but assured us he wasn't worried. Within the hour he came back and explained that Sawyer's blood work had come back elevated and he said combined with the rapid breathing he may be developing sepsis and needed to be evaluated and monitored in the NICU for the next 12-24 hours. Normally they want to keep Mama and baby together but they felt it was medically necessary for him to be constantly watched and monitored by machine so they could help him ASAP if he started to get sick. Since my group B strep results were unknown and he was showing signs of infection it totally made sense that they'd want to keep a close eye on him. Baby Sawyer never declined and we made our way to the NICU every 2 hours to feed and cuddle him for the first 24 hours. 
 
The kids came to visit and were really happy to see us but very confused as to why baby Sawyer was out of my belly but nowhere to be found. We tried to explain to them that he was a little sick and the doctors were taking care of him in another room. It was fun (and crazy) to have them there with us for a little bit.
 
They redid his blood work the next morning and it had gone down, the rapid breathing had also resolved and baby Sawyer was given a clean bill of health.
We were able to go home later that day and introduce him to his brothers and sister...more on that later!
 

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