Birth # 2

The birth of our 2nd child was not how we thought it would happen. We expected her to arrive in much the same fashion as her big brother but she had other plans. She had been breech just a few weeks before her arrival but had finally turned so we expected nothing out of the ordinary.

Her arrival began with some light contractions. Vinson stopped by the house between his college class and work. When he came in he asked me what was going on and I told him I thought I was having some contractions. He called the doctors office but they were closed and the answering service said they would page the doctor on call. The answering service called us back a little while later and said they couldn't get through to him but they would keep paging him. We decided because it was a 45 minute drive that we would go to the hospital.

On the ride to the hospital the contractions stopped but we were so close to the hospital we decided to go on in anyway. When we arrived the doctor was just coming out of surgery. The nurse told him she would take care of it but he said since he was already there he would go ahead and check on me himself. They hooked me up to the monitors and the doctor checked everything out.

After a few minutes he asked the nurse to get a new belt for the monitor because he didn't think the one we were using was working. She came back with a new belt and hooked it up. The doctor looked at the read outs and shook his head and said lets change to another room because this monitor seems to be broken.

We settled into another room and got a whole new monitor. The doctor looked at the new read outs and seemed very puzzled. They decided to give me a caffeinated drink and used a machine on my belly to try to stimulate the baby and get her moving but she didn't. The doctor started to get very troubled and said that the read out was showing a heart rate but it wasn't changing at all. It should have changed with the mild contractions I was having and the stimulation.

The doctor recommended we break the amniotic sacks. We agreed and he did but there was no amniotic fluid. He sat with both of us and told us that we had two options. We could either do a c-section or deliver naturally. We asked what he recommended. He said I know you want to deliver naturally but if you do I  don't know what you will have, if we do a c-section you will have a baby tonight. We told him if that's what he recommended then we would go with the c-section.

After we made the decision there was a flurry of paperwork to sign and the anesthesiologist came in to give me an epidural. The anesthesiologist just happened to be the same one from our second birth class (yes we took a birth class again). After getting the epidural they moved me onto a gurney and strapped my arms down. The epidural had my arms shaking terribly. They wheeled me to the operating room and started delivering our baby. When Kaia was born she let out one cry. I was so happy to hear that cry because it meant she was okay and I started crying too. The doctor announced she was a boy and we were all very confused.

Here's what I didn't know! My baby only cried once because the lack of amniotic fluid caused her lugs to be stuck together and she was unable to breathe again. Vinson and the anesthesiologist kept me distracted so I wouldn't hear what was going on with Kaia. The nurses were having trouble finding her heart beat but the neonatologist found her heartbeat and told them to bag her. I got only a brief, blurry glance at her as they wheeled her out of the room. The reason the doctor told us she was a boy was because she had a pound of extra fluid in her body and was very swollen.

They put me under and had Vinson leave while they sewed me back up. I came to twice and talked to the doctors. Once telling them that what they were doing didn't feel very good and the second time I heard the Dr. say "Count the instruments we don't want to leave any behind".

When I woke up I was in recovery and very thirsty. It's weird the memories that stay with you. Vins and his mom were there and he let me know that Kaia was in NICU and the doctors were taking care of her. When I woke again I was in a hospital room and my parents were there.

I didn't get to see Kaia until later that day. I had to be wheeled to the NICU in a wheelchair because I was so groggy from the medication they had given me. I was able to touch her but not hold her. No one knew what was wrong with her, only that she was very sick.

Later they told us that she would have to be life flighted to Oschner's in New Orleans. Kaia went on a helicopter and Vins left immediately for New Orleans. I had to stay in the hospital and recover. Three days later I was finally able to see her again.

At Oschner's they figured out that she had a heart problem that occurred in utero and that we were lucky that she had survived long enough to be born. She was two weeks old when we finally got to hold her and at one month old we got to take her home!