Kyle Jeffrey was born on February 27th, 2014 and
our lives immediately became happier. BUT it wasn’t that simple. Nope, not
simple at all. Here’s the
birth/labor story…
My due date was Thursday, February 20th. At each of my doctor’s appointments the
weeks before, my doctor thought it slightly odd that I was only dilated to a 1
each time I came in for my appointments, with nothing seeming to progress. The following Tuesday after my due
date, Jeff and I went to what would be our final doctor appointment----and yep,
you guessed it--- I was still only at a one. At this point my doctor talked
with us about being induced. We weren’t necessarily against induction, but we
knew that many first babies are past their due date, so we told her we wanted
to wait a little while longer and see if anything more happened on its own. She
agreed to let us wait on the condition that we monitor the baby’s heart rate
before we left her office that day. Lo and behold, the monitor results showed
that his heart rate was not variable enough (which was some cause for concern
but not drastic enough to be an emergency), so she sent us home and told us to
come back the next day.
The next day on Wednesday, February 26th we went
back to the hospital to monitor his heart rate again. It still wasn’t variable
enough so we decided to begin the induction process at 6 that evening. I got
checked into the hospital and put on the really stylish blue and pink polka dot
hospital robe they gave me ;)
They told me I couldn’t eat any food or drink any water anymore. (side note that I was REEEEEALLY jealous of Jeff’s Panda Express meal he ordered in at the hospital). I was also hooked up to all sorts of super annoying monitors/IVs/blood pressure machines. All these uncomfortable things were happening while I was having really painful contractions and dilating more and more because of the induction medication.
After 8 hours of painful labor I stopped dilating again and
my body seemed to stop the progression of labor just as it had done at my
doctor’s appointments. Odd.
Another odd thing was when my water broke (at 2 am). It wasn’t normal
and clear- it was green (the nurse told us this was a sign of fetal distress
but since the monitor showed that his heart rate wasn’t too low, she was not
too concerned about it). I was
nervous to hear that but tried to relax. Some of my relaxation must be
attributed to my epidural, which I got at about 2:30 am. Wow western medicine
is fabulous! (At this point in my
story I must take the time to tell those of you who go through natural
childbirth that you are my heroes and I admire you greatly). As for me, I very
much enjoyed not feeling anymore pain! Hooray for epidurals! Once the epidural was done and we were
exhausted since we were in the wee small hours of the morning, the nurse
suggested that Jeff and I try to get some sleep. She turned the lights off and
Jeff got a few winks, but I couldn’t sleep….
…..I started to have a really bad feeling. It wasn’t
something I could really describe other than “scary”. As I laid there in the
hospital bed, the room dark, I could hear my baby’s heart beat through the
monitors. I suddenly felt very deeply that something was wrong. I felt this
despite all the nurse’s previous reassurances that things were going alright
with my labor, despite some oddities. Something inside me told me they were
wrong (I felt ridiculous questioning their knowledge as they were the ones with
medical knowledge…not me), yet I knew something wasn’t right with my baby. I
have never felt more helpless in my entire life. All I could do was to pray. I
woke Jeff up and told him what I was feeling. He gave me a blessing, which gave
me some comfort, but I still couldn’t shake the scary feeling. All we could do
was wait for the doctor to get there.
A few hours later, the doctor came in and looked over
everything. She told us that now, with every contraction I was having, the
baby’s heart rate was getting scarily low, and that she needed to get the baby
out right away through a C-section. (It was too bad I had to have a C Section after 15 hours of
labor, but I preferred it that way since I knew it was the quickest and safest
thing for our baby).
They prepped Jeff and I and took us into the Operating room.
Jeff held my hand tightly the whole time. And here is where the story gets
crazy…
When the doctors took Kyle out, I heard him immediately
start crying, which was such a relief. But I also heard the doctor’s voices
saying:
“Wow! Look at that!”
“Can you believe that?”
“Oh my Gosh, Oh wow…Oh my gosh.”
Uhhhh……a little more detail please? I remember thinking….”What
the heck is going on??”
Then I heard the doctors say:
“1…………..2……………3………………4!!!!!!” between their gasps of utter
shock.
Turns out that little Kyle had the umbilical cord wrapped
very tightly around his neck 4 times, visually similar to a turtleneck sweater, as my doctor described it to us. She said that in her thirty years
of practice she had NEVER seen anything like it before. She told us that the
birth chart she has to fill out only has 1, 2, or 3 that she can circle
referring to how many times a cord is wrapped around a baby’s neck. Turns out she had to
write in a 4 and circle that one. It was surreal to hear her say that this will go down in her history
of “most miraculous birth” stories she’s been a part of. She kept referring to
Kyle as “The Miracle Baby”…….
…….we certainly think so.
At a recent postpartum doctor visit, I asked her what would
have happened if I had tried to have him naturally. I could tell she didn’t
want to address it on the chance that it would upset me. All she said was, “It
just would have ended badly.” Turns out that was the reason I had been dilated
to a 1 for so long before, on, and after my due date as well as why I stopped dilating
again even during labor…our sweet little guy was being held up high inside me
by the cord and wasn’t able to drop down.
I’ve heard miraculous stories about “motherly instinct”. I’d
like to think that my very first experience with that instinct was that night
in the hospital where I knew something was wrong, despite nurses telling me
things weren’t that bad just yet. I guess I was a mother before I was officially
a mother.
And I LOVE being a mother to this little sweetie. We couldn’t
have been blessed with a more miraculous little son.
