I’m sitting down to write my 3rd son’s birth story. I’ve got his tiny warm body swaddled on my chest,  and I’m listening to his little breaths and smelling his new baby smell (heaven). Ian and Gavin are on the couch, playing Minecraft together. Daniel is sleeping in (it is 7:35 am) – he deserves it, he has been the best support and help through this wild time..so thankful for him.

The Story:
December 30th- I go to labor and delivery unit at UTMB for some monitoring because I hadn’t been feeling baby move and was suspecting low amniotic fluid levels. I just wanted to be reassured all was well. I knew that later in the pregnancy I may not feel movements as much due to having an anterior placenta, and it would act as a “pillow” against his kicks and squirms. So, I wasn’t too worried going in. After finding a great heartbeat, and minimal contractions, they also did an ultrasound to take a peek at the amniotic fluid levels. Immediately the doctor went quiet…I’ve had enough ultrasounds to know quiet= not good. Sure enough, fluid levels were at 5…about half of what is considered within normal range. I was admitted to labor and delivery for continuous monitoring overnight. The next morning, I had a follow up ultrasound, and this time fluids were even lower, right under 4. At this point, an induction was scheduled for Thursday, January 2nd-the day I officially hit 36 weeks.  All of Wednesday, January 1st was pretty low-key but a few high-lights were seeing my good friend April, who came by and hung out for a bit (thank you girl!) and my boys came by to see me one last time before the big day. Thursday morning, bright and early, Daniel came up to the hospital and we got things going with the induction. Because I was planning to V-BAC, my doctor was wanting to go as natural, and slowly as possible, so as not to rupture my c-section scar. We started out by attempting a cervical foley. However, it didn’t go very well at all and after three tries, I decided to get an epidural to help me relax…it did the trick! Once I dilated to 3/4 centimeters, it came out on its own…finally 12 hours later.  At this point, it is evening and I’m contracting on my own, but not regularly, so I ate dinner and rested for a few hours. My parents and brother Jason came by for a little visit-it was a nice distraction! I was able to rest through the contractions through out the night, and into early Friday morning. At some point (not sure exactly what time) my contractions started coming every 2-3 minutes and baby’s heart rate started dipping with them. I wore an oxygen mask for a while to help improve things, and started turning over from side to side…after a while it worked because he chilled out. At about 6 am they started the pitocin drip (yuck!). Shortly after 8:00, my doctor came in to check on me, and I was finally at 5 centimeters dilated. She broke my water to help things speed up, and stepped out to check on another patient. Suddenly baby’s heart rate dipped and wouldn’t recover. Another doctor rushed in and checked me, and found that the umbilical cord was coming out ahead of baby, and his head was compressing it, cutting off circulation. The doctor had to hold his head up off the cord, and next thing I know a ton of medical professionals were in the room swirling all around me, attaching various devices to me, and I was being wheeled down to the operating room to have an emergency cesarean. They tried to keep me awake, but for whatever reason, I could feel too much, and so I had to go under general anesthesia. I woke up a short time later to find out that we had a healthy baby boy weighing in at 5 lbs 1oz, and 18.25″ long. He was perfectly fine, and needed NO assistance of any kind, praise God! Our boy was perfectly healthy! He is an excellent nurser, and we only had to stay in the hospital for 2.5 days.
We are so happy with our tiny guy, and his brothers absolutely adore him. Here are some pictures taken during our hospital stay. Daniel took most of them…I am really thrilled with how good he did!