I have always wanted to go into labor on my own. With my first three kiddos, various medical reasons cropped up and I ended up needing to be induced. The epidural I received for Little Einstein's birth caused nerve damage and I had 8 months of physical therapy and tons of restrictions before I could successfully walk without a cane and get back to normal life again. With baby number four, Cory, my OBGYN, and I all agreed that an epidural would not be an option.
Fast forward to me waking up to contractions throughout the wee morning hours of the day I hit 39 weeks. By 3:30 am I couldn't go back to sleep between them. Cory headed into work at 4:20 and I told him that there was a really good chance I would be telling him to come home. I texted him just before 5 asking when his first staff member arrives because this was getting intense and the contractions were 3-5 minutes apart. He got in touch with the assistant manager and asked her to head in early. I texted my parents, who were living 30 minutes away, and asked them to come down and watch the other kids so we could head to the hospital. By 6:45 they were here and Cory was home. We grabbed the last few things and headed in.
We arrived at the hospital and I was freaking out because I didn't want to be sent home with how strong the contractions were getting. We were checked into the room by a nurse who wasn't ours, but said she was covering for ours for a few minutes. Then she said I wasn't very dilated but my nurse would check in an hour to see if that had changed. I knew if it hadn't, we would be heading home. Then my nurses came in. We had two (one was in training) and they were both awesome. They hooked me up to the monitors and on the first contraction the baby's heart rate plummeted, then disappeared entirely.
Instantly our room was flooded with 7-8 nurses and a doctor who had been passing in the hall. They shoved an oxygen mask on my face and frantically tried to find the baby by moving the monitor around as the doctor introduced himself. After a few agonizing minutes they found the heartbeat again. It was steady so the extra nurses and doctor headed out. My nurse made the comment that I wasn't going anywhere after that and next thing we knew we were being admitted to the hospital.
The next couple hours were spent staring at the monitor. Thankfully, I had studied up on a few natural birthing methods and felt pretty prepared for laboring without an epidural. I didn't anticipate that I wouldn't be able to move. I had to lay motionless curled up on my right side the entire time. Any time I sat up, rolled over, lay on my left side, or stood the baby's heart rate would immediately plummet. My doctor gave me some time to see if we could avoid a c-section, but because of the baby's position I wasn't dilating fast enough. They tried to get him to move but he wouldn't have it. The plummets became more and more frequent with the nurses running in each time as we all stared at the screen praying it would go back up. It reached the point that the plummets came with every other contraction and stopped rising back up quickly when my doctor made the call to do an emergency c-section.
Cory was told to quickly get into the sterile clothes and I was rushed into the operating room and very quickly prepared for the c-section. I had turned down any offering of pain relief during the labor and after a while they stopped asking. Since his heart was struggling they didn't want pain medicine for me to affect him, which I was in complete agreement with. However, having labor pain and being prepped for emergency surgery while having intense contractions 1-3 minutes apart and being terrified for my little baby was absolutely miserable. I began to shake and cry from the pain and stress. Once everything was prepped I was put under general anesthesia and was oblivious to everything that happened for the next hour.
The rest is what Cory later relayed to me. Once they put me under he waited in an adjacent room with huge glass windows where 5-6 nurses and a NICU doctor were waiting for when our little guy was born. It was a very short time from when I went under to when they had him out and Cory remembers seeing our baby but hearing nothing, other than the nurses saying to each other, "Did you hear a cry? I didn't hear a cry!" The operating room nurse came running with our little one, who was quickly turning blue instead of pink, into the room the other nurses, doctor, and Cory were waiting in. Cory was told as she came that if the baby's heart rate was under 60 they would immediately begin CPR. Everyone sprung into action and someone took his heart rate and shouted out, "It's only 20! No wait, 35, 40, it's rising, 60, 70!"
While his heart rate was going up, he still wasn't breathing so he was put on a ventilator. Cory said he heard our little guy's first sounds when he was around 7 minutes old and he grunted. Once stabilized he was moved up to the NICU. He had very low blood sugar and was given formula through a feeding tube and he was given x-rays of his lungs. Once everything had calmed down Cory asked how I was doing and they brought him to see me in the recovery room.
The first thing I remember is waking up and seeing my two nurses standing by me. I quickly asked if the baby was okay to which they responded, "We think he will be. He is in the NICU with your husband." Then I remember feeling completely overcome with excruciating pain. Shortly after that Cory arrived. He asked how I was feeling. I told him I felt like someone cut me open! He said that seemed fitting, considering someone did. It ended up taking the nurses almost an hour before they could figure out how to give me pain medication through an old piece of equipment--not fun.
My Dad joined us a short time later and he and Cory gave me a priesthood blessing, then they headed up to the NICU to be with our little guy and give him a blessing as well. After a few hours I was taken to the NICU where I got to meet my little baby and Cory and I agreed on his name, which shall be "Carrot Top" to the Internet world. They laid him beside me in my hospital bed, with all his tubes and wires, and I fell deeply in love with my little Carrot Top. I was told that other than his breathing he was doing great, and as soon as he figured out how to do that on his own he would be able to leave the NICU and join me in my room. Cory stayed with him and my Dad came with me. When Carrot Top hit about 4 hours old he was released from the NICU and Cory and Carrot Top were sent to the regular nursery for his bath and check up down there. He was 5 1/2 hours old when they joined me in my room. The next day Spiderman, Princess Unicorn, and Little Einstein were able to come meet their new baby brother and they all loved him right away. Even Little Einstein thought he was a pretty awesome addition to our family.
Carrot Top was 20 3/4 inches tall, but amidst all the craziness they were not able to get an accurate birth weight. It came in as 7 lbs 15 oz, but they were attaching tubes to him and listening to his heart, so he wasn't alone on the scale. It had dropped to 6 lbs 14 oz by the next morning, which the nurses were saying couldn't be right. He ended up at 6 lbs 10 oz when we left the hospital and he was 3 days old. The doctor thinks he was probably around 7 lbs 4 oz at birth, but he started gaining weight after we got him home so it all worked out.
We feel so blessed by the many miracles surrounding the birth of Carrot Top. From having family close to watch the kids so we could get to the hospital and arriving when we did so we knew that my movements were putting him in distress, to the amazing doctors and nurses who were able to save the life of our little boy. We are very thankful to our Heavenly Father for the many blessings we received, and I am so glad that we decided to have him in a skilled hospital that quickly identified when his life was in danger and saved him before it was too late.
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