Sweetheart's Birth Story, 4 Years Late

Bear with me, this will be long. Or don't, and just don't read this, pick your pleasure.

I've said it before, I love birth stories! I started this blog the December after Sweetheart was born, and I never have put Sweetheart's story on here. I want to make sure I get it down before I forget anything, so in celebration of four years with our Sweetheart, here it is!

As many of you know, it took us a long time to get Sweetheart. She has never done anything the easy way, and her birth story definitely shows that. The Friday before Labor Day four years ago I went in for a normal doctor's appointment, and after the doctor checked me over she said, "You don't have any big plans for Labor Day, do you?" We said no, and she said, "Well, good, because things look like they are progressing, I wouldn't be surprised to see you guys in here this weekend." 

Now, I wasn't due until September 21, but my sister had her baby three weeks early, so I thought that I would get lucky and follow her lead. But Labor Day weekend passed, and we still had no baby. The next weekend passed, and the next, and still no baby. When my due date came, Marquis and I decided we were sick and tired of waiting for this baby, so we both called in to start maternity leave from our jobs, and we went on lots of walks. We ate eggplant Parmesan. We tried every other old wive's tale out there to start labor except castor oil, and nothing worked at all. Finally, a week after her due date we went in for a scheduled induction. We were very, very ready to meet our little girl.

I got hooked up to Pitocin pretty early in the morning, and it didn't take long before I was feeling some good contractions and things seemed to be well under way. I got a little worried each time one of the doctors or nurses would come in and add another monitor, but I trusted their knowledge, and knew that they would be there to take care of my baby if things went wrong. After I had been in labor for about 20 years (or about 10 hours, either way) I was stalled at a 5, starting to get discouraged, and my cervix was starting to swell. They said they'd give me a little bit longer to do stuff the "old fashioned way," but it wasn't looking that great. 

And then things got exciting. After being in labor for about 12 hours, Sweetheart's heartbeat stopped. The monitor that was watching her heartbeat was at that point attached to her head, so we knew that it wasn't just that she had moved away from the monitor, it had simply stopped. I'm embarrassed about this part, but I completely froze. Marquis kept saying, "Push the nurse's button," but I didn't right away because I was so scared I just couldn't think that much. I finally pushed it, and not long after that a bunch of people came rushing in. About that same time her heartbeat monitor started beeping again. Phew! One nurse was punching buttons to turn off the Pitocin and a few others started messing with other machines and with me, but what I remember the most if the look on the doctor's face as she sat down on the end of the bed and said, "Now hon, I hate to say this, but..." I didn't even need her to finish asking me, I was ready to go. I quickly signed the C-section paper they put in front of me without even looking at what it said, while Marquis geared up in his monkey suit. We took one last photo op before we left the room. 

Here we are, scared out of our minds. At least I was.

Something that I wish I would have known before going in (should have read that C-section chapter of the book after all) was that when they numb you for a C-section, quite often you can't feel yourself breathe. I had an oxygen mask on my face and an oxygen meter on my finger, logically I knew I was 100% fine, but when you are exhausted from being in labor all day, stressed from no progression, and freaked out from thinking that you just lost your baby, logic pretty much goes right out the window, and instead what happened was a full blown panic attack. It took every once of energy I had left to keep myself from trying to get away. Not that it would have worked with my legs all numbed up, but I'm sure it wouldn't have helped those people wielding knives around in my abdomen. I was so freaked out that when Marquis (who was by my side and holding my hand) said, "Look over there," and pointed to the corner, I glanced over long enough to register that there was a baby before I went back to shutting my eyes and pretending to be somewhere else. After seven very long years of trying for a baby and then nine long months of waiting excitedly to meet our little girl, I could barely look at her. Afterwards when I could think again I felt so bad that I couldn't even make myself look over or love on her, but I know at that point I was maxed out, there was nothing else I could mentally handle. It didn't even register to me then that I hadn't heard her cry.

Marquis got up and went over to watch the baby, and pretty soon they let him bring her over by me, and he put her little head by my hand. I was able to calm myself down enough to rub my thumb on her head for a minute before he went with them to take her to the nursery. I didn't realize yet that that was not normal, that they like to keep the babies with the moms as much as possible. They weren't rushing to get her there, so I didn't worry. I stayed there a little longer as they stitched me back together and took me to the recovery room, and left me there all alone. 

After awhile the doctor came in to talk to me. I was much more relaxed now, and already beginning to have some feeling in my legs again, which I was excited about. She sat on my bed again, with the same sad look on her face as before, and I prepped myself for some bad news. She told me that she had a few things to talk to me about. (Here's where it gets gory, brace yourselves.) She held up her teeny little pinky finger (my doctor is an extremely petite little lady) and said, "Your baby's cord was about this wide, and half as high. I've never seen a cord that small, ever. I don't know how your baby was getting any nourishment at all, but if you look at those chubby cheeks, she was somehow." She went on to tell me that usually in a C-section, the way they remove the placenta is they just tug on the cord, and it comes right out. When they did that with me, the cord broke. It broke!! Ahhh!!! She said that I would never be allowed to go full-term ever again, so if I ever got pregnant again I would need to either do a repeat C-section or be induced a week early if I hadn't gone into labor on my own. 

Soon I was taken to my regular room where I would spend the rest of my time in the hosptial, and Marquis came to find me. He had pictures of our sweet baby, and told me that she was having a little trouble breathing so they were moving her to the NICU, but that she was doing well and looked beautiful. About this time is when I started noticing that the hospital rooms were really hot, and started taking layers of blankets off. We talked about the baby for a little while, with me falling in and out of sleep because I was just so very tired. But it was too hot to really sleep, so after he went back to be with the baby I asked a few different nurses to please turn up the AC. I couldn't believe how hot they kept the rooms! Finally someone thought to take my temp, and once they did I was very quickly hooked up to an IV of antibiotics and given some Tylenol. Apparently I had a bad fever and a nasty infection. I don't remember much for the next 10 hours or so after that. 

Finally, about 12 hours after they chopped Sweetheart out of me, they helped me get into a wheelchair to go meet her. It is still crazy to me how you can instantly love someone, and also just how much love you can have for something so tiny. Even though I hadn't been able to see her for so long it was still just instant, I couldn't believe I finally had my little miracle baby!

She ended up staying in the NICU for four days. She had a collapsed lung, so she couldn't eat for the first few days because they were afraid of her breathing in the milk. She also had an infection, so she was on an antibiotic IV, too, and an IV of basically sugar water since she wasn't getting any milk. 

Thankfully after that we both did great. We healed fast and were able to go home together. I know that things could have been much, much worse if we had not had the knowledgeable doctors and staff that we did. I can't believe our Sweetheart has already been here for four years! 

Sweetheart, you are our miracle baby, and I still thank Heavenly Father every day that we have you. You make me laugh all day with the funny and cute things that you say. Your imagination is larger than life and it is so fun to see your stories play out in such detail and with so much excitement and enthusiasm. You are my little artist, and you switch from medium to medium all day long. As I am typing this you have pen and paint all over your arms and hands, and you don't even care, you are just concentrating on the crayons you are now using. You are a wonderful big sister and are always so willing to help with her or anything else I need. You have an amazing smile and a beautiful laugh. Our life is so rich because you are in it!

Happy fourth birthday, Sweetheart!