Our baby boy is here! He was born on July 27, 2017 at 8:20pm – weighing 6 lbs. 11 oz. and 21 inches long. His birth gave us a bit of a scare, but thankfully we are all here, and all healthy, and so thankful. You can read the whole story below…
Since Emerald was breech at 39 weeks, she was born via c-section. This time around, my doctor said I’d be a good candidate to try for a VBAC, so I figured why not – the rule my doctor had was I had to go into labor on my own before 41 weeks, or she’d induce me during week 40, but in order to do that I still had to be dilated to at least 1cm and thinned out. I stayed at 1cm from week 38 – 40 despite all of our efforts to induce labor on our own. So we scheduled for my doctor to induce me on July 27 knowing she’d be on call that day and the following day.
With a VBAC, my doctor wanted to do a gentle/slow induction. It first started with a foley balloon. We arrived at the hospital at 7:30am and the balloon was inserted by 8am (most of the day I had a resident doctor watching my progress which turned out to be helpful in the end). The foley balloon was supposed to dilate me to 3, 4 or 5cm. Luckily at 4pm that day I was dilated to a 5 and 80% thinned out. So they took the balloon out.
Next my doctor allowed me one quick meal (I had been on a liquid diet all day) before they’d break my water, start pitocin and I could get an epidural. The next time they came to check me and start on some of the tasks above I was already at a 7cm. So I said please hurry it up already with the epidural before it was too late!
They broke my water and then the epidural was in. Next, they started pitocin at a “2” which is way less than they give a non-VBAC patient. They would then increase it by “2” every half hour to help get my contractions to be more consistent and stronger. Everything was going great, I wasn’t feeling the crazy-long and on-top-of-each-other contractions – but next Drew and I noticed there was about 8 nurses and 2 doctors suddenly in our hospital room. Maverick wasn’t handling the intense contractions very well and his heart rate kept dropping and taking awhile to recover. They had me switch side to side and breathe in some oxygen to help with his heart rate. At this time I was starting to get worried. I had Drew hand me some earbuds and I began listening to a few songs to help me pray and focus – one being “Trust” by Hillsong Young & Free, which was also a song I had been listening to on repeat the past couple weeks about trusting God that’d he’d bring Maverick into this world when he was ready, and not on my terms.
They finally decide to shut the pitocin off and to give Mav a break. A half hour later they started again at a “1” and were only going to go up by “1” every half hour, however, his heart rate still dropped again. At that time my doctor let me know that both doctors and six nurses were going to be watching the monitors non-stop.
After the third time his heart rate dropped, his heart rate wasn’t recovering, my OB doctor said it was time to do an emergency c-section. Within a minute I was being rushed down to the OR and the anesthesiologist was pumping new meds into me as they were wheeling me down. Things were happening so fast, but I was trying to stay calm knowing if I started freaking out, it would only hurt Mav’s heart rate even more. When the nurses started paging the NICU that’s when my heart sank.
We got into the OR and they hooked me back up to monitors to watch Maverick’s heart rate. Thankfully it had recovered and my doctor let everyone know it was no longer an emergency c-section and everyone could chill out a bit. That gave me such relief, knowing our little boy was doing ok. Even though I had a c-section before and knew what to expect, I was still pretty nervous leading up to them beginning. Thankfully the anesthesiologist was coaching me the entire time, letting me know what was all happening (since Drew wasn’t allowed to be in the OR until surgery began).
After so much crazy pressure, nausea, and pulling (and literally someone kneeling on top of me), our little boy was held up over the curtain and was screaming his head off – that was probably the best sound ever. He looked perfect and healthy and had apgar scores of 9. The doctors discovered the reason his heart rate was dropping in labor was because the cord was wrapped around his neck twice. Thankfully I didn’t progress past 7cm, because we aren’t sure what would have happened if he had been squeezed thru the birth canal even further with his cord like that. I have to believe that was all God’s doing and the song “Trust” helped me understand and gave me peace about how the whole situation when down.
Stitching me back up took a lot longer this time (due to scar tissue from my previous c-section) but after a few minutes of them cleaning up Mav, Drew was able to bring him over and show me and I held his tiny little fingers.
About 45 minutes after he was born, we went to the recovery room (where we stayed for two hours), where I was able to nurse Maverick and they did continual checks on us. Everything continued to look great and we were ready to go back into our hospital room at 11pm.
The next day, my mom brought Emerald to meet her little brother! She was so excited, and one of the first things she asked was if his nails were painted blue like hers. She’s really been the sweetest big sister!
Even though I was the picture perfect candidate for a VBAC, God had other plans and I’m thankful it didn’t pan out to what I had in mind. Recovery from this c-section has been more painful and slower (most likely due to this being my second one, laboring all day, and taking care of a toddler), but one more week of slow recovery and I should be feeling so much better! It will feel great to be able to pick-up Emerald again and have the freedom to drive.
My friend Katie Bingen (also a photographer) came to take photos of us in the hospital on Saturday, here’s some of my favorites. So thankful she captured these sweet memories for us <3
