Welcoming Baby Will- Part 1

So, remember this post? I was 38 weeks pregnant, and I suddenly had this new onset of high blood pressure out of nowhere. That evening, Hunter brought home a blood pressure cuff for me to keep an eye on those number throughout the night, because it really started worrying me. Sure enough, it continued to be high throughout the night, unless I was lying on my left side completely still.

The next morning (Friday, February 10), I get to work and get one of our nurses to check my blood pressure for me- just to double check the numbers I was seeing last night at home against a legitimate, hospital-grade blood pressure monitor. Sure enough, it was the highest it had been at 155/99. So I tried to remain calm, and called the doctor's office. Of course, my doctor happened to be out of the office that day, but I did talk to his nurse who called him at home. She called me back shortly and told me he wanted me to head over to L&D, "just to be monitored." I asked her if I should call my husband and she told me "no, not necessarily." Of course my follow up question was, "Well, my mom lives out of state. Should I call her?" She said "no" immediately. So her calm attitude made me think that I was just going to hang out with a blood pressure cuff for a few hours, but of course I called Hunter immediately, followed by a call to my mom. Of course Mom couldn't take "no" for an answer, and she headed down from Kentucky as soon as she could.

Hunter picks me up from work, and we hang out in labor and delivery for the day. My blood pressure continued to be elevated, I had actually progressed from 1 1/2 cm to 2 1/2 cm from 24 hours before, and I was "contracting out the wazoo," according to my sweet nurse. Even though I could only feel a few of these contractions (or what I thought were Braxton Hicks), I was apparently contracting every 1-3 minutes and was in "early labor." At one point later in the afternoon, I got up for a few minutes, and was getting back in the bed and the nurse saw something on the monitor that she didn't like- little boy's heart rate had dropped from that little movement, and she told me that I "just earned myself an overnight stay," because they didn't feel comfortable sending me home with that little drop, my contractions, and my continued blood pressure issues. Oh, and by the way, they didn't let me eat anything all day long. So once they made the decision to make me an admission, hungry momma was aloud to eat and I immediately demanded requested Chick-Fil-A. I mean, if this was going to potentially be my "last meal" for a while, might as well make it count, right?

We make it through the night, and on Saturday morning I had completely convinced myself that he was just going to send me home- my blood pressure was still slightly elevated, but my contractions had slowed, and the baby's heart rate looked fabulous all night long. Granted, of course this was good news, but spending 24 hours in labor and delivery got my hopes up- just  a little bit. But, much to my surprise, the doctor came into our room at about 9 that morning and told me "today is the day!"

I progressed much more quickly than I thought I would, and was I was ready to start pushing by 2:45 that afternoon. As I was progressing, they noticed a few more of those dips in his heart rate, so they finally decided to turn off the pitocin and give me some oxygen to make sure he was staying as safe as he possibly could.

And if you know me well, you know there are few moments where I am seen without my makeup. So once I realized we were really, really getting close, I had to put my "game face" on. I didn't want little man to be scared of his momma the first time he ever saw me!

So we started pushing at 2:45. At 3:15 they didn't like what they were seeing, and wanted me to hold off on pushing for a while. So we let him rest for about 30 minutes, and they tried changing my position several times to see if we could get his heart rate to normalize again. It finally got to a point where the nurse was having to hold my belly up in a certain position to keep his heart rate up, and this is when they decided that we needed to head to the OR for an emergancy c section. I don't think I've ever been so scared/nervous/anxious in my entire life. But thankfully, my husband was a trooper and was so calm. Because it was an emergancy section, they only let him back so far.

I remember asking the nurses over and over again "Where's Hunter? Where's Hunter?" They kept telling me he was getting dressed, but he was never able to come inside the OR. The doctor then started pinching on my tummy, and asked if I could feel him pinching me. Somehow, I could feel everything. So they put me completely under. So at this point, not only was my husband not in the delivery room, but I'm also completely knocked out, and my baby is being surgically removed from my tummy as fast as he possibly can.

They never figured out what was going on with Will, but he apparently didn't look good at all when he was born. The doctor told me he was "as white as a sheet," and throughout the rest of my hospital stay, nurses kept saying to me "I hear you caused quite a stir up here."

This was not exactly how I imagined the birth of my child by any stretch of the imagination. But that just goes to show that we don't always know what's best for us. In my mind, I had created this perfect scenario of going into labor on my own, at home, and my husband driving us to the hospital once the contractions got to that perfect pattern of "5-1-1" (5 minutes apart, 1 minute each, for 1 hour). I was going to try to be brave enough to skip over the optional epidural, and I had dreamed for months about the first time that baby would be placed onto my chest and he would start nursing like a champ immediately. However, God had his own perfect plan, and who knows what would have happened if I had tried to do this on my own until it was "time" to go to the hospital. Who knows what would have happened if I had chosen to ignore those high blood pressure numbers, and continued to assume that what I was feeling were Braxton hicks, and not the "real thing."

Back to that scary OR/delivery room where I was phsyically but not mentally/emotionally present, Little Man got rushed to the NICU immediately after he was born. Hunter did get to walk him to the NICU, and our families did get to snap a quick picture (or 2) of him as he was wheeled by in his isolette.

He was born at 4:06 pm, weighing in at 6 pounds, 1 oz, and was 19 1/4 inches long. If you recall, this was about 2 pounds less than my prediction! I couldn't believe I had such a "small" baby. "Small" being a relative term of course, when the smallest baby ever born into my side of the family was 7 pounds, 15 ounces at 37 weeks. Our largest (Sarah-Grace) was 8 pounds and 9 ounces- at 36 weeks.

I finally got to lay my eyes on this precious miracle, and wrap my arms around his sweet little body at approximately 7:45 that night, and I will never, ever forget that moment. Granted, it wasn't the "perfect scenario" I had created in my head, but it was still our moment, and just as special.

This verse is on the wall just outside of the NICU. Talk about a sweet reminder of who is really in control here.

This was the beginning of a nearly week-long NICU stay for our little man, and although there are lots and lots of families that pray that their baby could only stay in the NICU for a week, it seemed like the longest week of our lives.

Part 2- The NICU Journey- coming up