A Baby Story

Some of you know the story/chaos that happened during Weston's birth and why he has an IV in the picture, but some of you don't, so I'm going to give a synopsis. It is a little long and none of the details are very graphic or anything, but you've been warned.

It all started late Sunday night (March 30) around 10:30. I was sitting on the couch watching TV and Casey was taking a shower. I was having a few contractions like always, but these were actually feeling consistent, so I went into the bathroom to get my watch. Casey asked me what I was doing, and I said, "Don't get your hopes up, I'm just checking." They were about 7 min. apart and 30-40 sec. long, but soon got a lot closer, so Casey called the hospital around 12:30am to see what we should do. They said that I could come in, they'd check me, wait an hour then check me again, but if I hadn't made any progress then they'd send me home. I didn't want that to happen, so I decided to wait it out a bit longer. I straightened my hair, we attempted to watch a movie, but my contractions were getting pretty bad, so we decided to go. By the time we got checked in and settled, it was around 1:50am. The nurse checked me and I was only dilated to a 3, lame, but then 20 minutes later my water broke, so I was there indefinately, great news to me. They asked me if I wanted my epidural, but I said I'd wait, but I changed my mind quickly. Epidurals are the greatest thing ever and made me a whole lot happier : )

We called my parents soon after that so they drove down and got there around 3:30ish. From then on, it was just a waiting game. I think I got like 40 min of sleep total, so I was pretty exhausted, as was Casey. Casey tried to sleep on the ground because my dad was in the chair : ) It was pretty cute. Later he discovered that he could sleep at the end of bed and it was a little more comfortable. Around 8:00am they put me on pitocin because my progress had stalled a bit, but by 11:30am I was dilated to 8cm. I was 10cm an hour later, but with a rim. Around 2:15pm it was finally time to push.

Just to give you an idea of how it worked, you push with a nurse, then when the baby's head has crowned they call the doctor to come in (at least at this hospital). I started pushing which is pretty painless, but REALLY exhausting! Finally, around 3:10 his head crowned and the nurse went to call my doctor and informed us to continue pushing. Well, the next set of pushing and his head was out and Casey, my mom, and I were the only people in the room. Casey and my mom were looking at each other not knowing what to do, but then Casey went to tell the nurse. He went out and said, "His head is out." The nurse smiles at him and says, "You mean his head has crowned" (she had just explained crowning to Casey a few minutes earlier). Casey was like, "No, his head is out." Nurse: "You mean ALL the way out?" Casey: "ALL the way out." At this point, they sound the alarm. Seriously. It is a "Code White" when you're baby is coming and your doctor isn't there. My dad heard it down the hall in the waiting room and was a little worried, but we couldn't hear a thing. A couple seconds later, 8-10 doctors and nurses rush in, and the next push (3:18pm), his body was out. The whole time I was thinking, "All this because my doctor isn't here?" But in fact, it was a little more serious. He was in distress when he was born and had pooed while still inside me and it was all over. I had no idea there was anything wrong (I was telling Casey to make sure and get pictures), but Casey was freaking out. They were worried that he had ingested some of it, so it was off to the NICU for him in his "tupperware container" as Casey calls it. I didn't even get to hold him : ( Once in the NICU, they had to hook him up to all these wires and tubes because he was having some respiratory problems. It was so sad. Casey asked if it was okay if he went with Weston, and of course I said yes. My mom was still with me, so I was okay. All of this took mere minutes, at which point my doctor finally showed up to give me a few stitches because I had tore a bit. This wasn't very fun because I could feel every time the needle went in and out and him pulling the thread through. My mom asked him if I could have a local anesthetic because she could tell that I could feel it, but my doctor said that it would probably hurt more than the stitching at that point, so I said, "I'll be okay," but was thinking, "forget it" and just told him to continue so we could get it over with. They then took me down to my recovery room so I could get some rest and my parents and Casey went back to the NICU before my parents left that night. Casey came back and told me that they wanted to keep him there for 24 hours just in case. He also didn't have enough fluid in his lungs so they put some surfactant in his lungs to help him breathe. I got to visit him for the first time that night around 8:00pm after I had got settled in, but we still couldn't hold him.

The next morning (April 1), Casey went up to the NICU a few times, but when he went up the second time around 7:00am, they told him that he had a bacterial blood infection (the bacteria was e. coli, but not the big bad kind you hear about in the news. It is the kind that we all have naturally in our intestines) and would need to be on antibiotics for 10-14 days (which means that we would not be taking him home). They don't know how he got it either. They were also going to do a spinal tap on him that night to make sure that it hadn't spread to his Central Nervous System. Our wonderful pediatrician came by later that night and explained the procedure and possible complications, but was very confident and said he had done plenty of these before, so we weren't too worried. We went up to watch about an hour later, but Casey said he couldn't watch so he left and I stayed. Weston was a little trooper and only cried when they put the needle in in the beginning and just sucked on his pacifier and was SUPER good after that. I was so proud of our little man. That night we also got to hold him for the first time. It was so nice to have him close.

I went home on Wednesday afternoon. It was kind of weird going home without a baby and we didn't really feel like parents when we were home since he wasn't with us. Then a couple days later the blood cultures for the spinal tap came back negative, but they said that he would definately need to stay for 14 days on the antibiotics to make sure the bacteria was all gone. We went back multiple times a day over the next week and a half so that I could feed him and so we could just be with him. The next couple of posts are pictures from our visits. We were so blessed to have such great doctors and nurses watching over him and that they were able to find the infection. They told Casey that it was a good thing he had respiratory problems and that they kept him overnight so that they found the infection, otherwise it could have been really fatal (he could have died). We're so glad to have our little Weston and for all the prayers and support from everyone.