Leighton’s Birth Story

Can you believe Leighton turned 6 weeks old yesterday?  Neither can I.  Time is FLYING by, and I don’t like it one bit.  She literally changes every single day.  She already looks like a completely different baby, so I am even more grateful to have these pictures to document her birth so I can remember that exact moment when our little miracle came into our lives.  I am so glad I took a friend’s advice to have my labor documented by my friend Emily.  She has 3 children, and I actually felt good knowing she was there and had been through this before.  She was so sweet and helpful, and I love how the pictures turned out.Shane and I went into the hospital Tuesday, October 21 at 4:00am.  We were both so excited that neither one of us could even sleep that night.  Had we known we would never get to sleep again, we might have actually slept that night lol.  = )  They got us back in a room within about an hour, and I had my epidural by 6:30am.  I barely even felt the epidural at all.  I was a little nervous about it, but it was definitely the least of my worries for the day.  I was 80% effaced when I went in and 1cm dilated (only because the doctor dilated me himself the day before at my doctor’s appointment.)  He told me at that last appointment that I would not really be able to dilate on my own because of a prior surgery.  The doctor then came by to check me at 8:45am, broke my water and dilated me to 4cm.  I was still feeling great, which meant that I couldn’t feel a thing!

 

Leighton’s heart rate was elevated at over 180, so they decided to stop the pitocin which was given to me to induce me and help things progress.  They wanted to wait a little while to see if they could figure out what was causing her heart rate to be so high.  I had only been on the pitocin for about an hour, so things had just got started.  After a couple hours, they started the pitocin again since her heart rate had gone back down.  My doctor came back to check me at about 1:30pm.  He had to dilate me to about 5-6cm, and I was 90% effaced.  Contractions were starting to look really good, but they still weren’t very regular yet.  They had put an internal monitor on her, and her heart rate was looking good now also.  It would still sporadically go up and down a little, but they said that was normal as I was having contractions.  Thank goodness the new nurse came and turned down the volume on the machine because I think it was really causing Shane to be anxious every time he would hear her heart rate going up.  He just kept staring at the machine, and honestly it was making me really scared and nervous too.  A couple hours later, I was 7cm dilated, and that is how I remained for most of the night.  Contractions were looking good, but I wasn’t really progressing anymore.  They tried moving me in all different positions and from side to side to see if that would help.  I still felt great though.  I had plenty of visitors, and we were really just playing the waiting game at this point.  The only complaint I had at this point was that the pitocin was making me itch like crazy.  I definitely felt like a crazy person scratching myself constantly.

At 11:15pm, it was finally go time.  I was dilated 9cm so I thought maybe, just maybe I would still have her that same day.  I was definitely wrong.  I still felt great at this point, but within about half an hour, the epidural wore off, and they didn’t do anything because they wanted me to be able to feel to push.  Well, let’s just say I could definitely feel to push.  After 3 hours of pushing, an epidural that wore off at about midnight and a second degree laceration, Leighton was finally here at 2:29am the next morning.  At this point I had already been pushing for 3 hours while I felt most everything.  I had no clue how fast things would progress once the doctor came in at about 2:15am.  Just a couple pushes after he got there, and then Leighton was here.  I remember feeling her come out, and it was such a relief, mentally and physically.  I was in a lot of pain, and I remember pushing while my eyes were closed that entire time.  I rarely opened them.  I was actually starting to fall asleep even through all the pain since I hadn’t slept since Sunday night, and it was now Wednesday morning.  I was tired, sore, hot and sweaty, and I kept begging them to let me have some water since I hadn’t had any in over a day.  Once I was dilated 9cm, they finally let me have small sips of water since they were sure I wouldn’t have a c-section anymore.

When Leighton came out, she had the cord wrapped around her neck twice, and she wasn’t breathing for 2 minutes.  They had to resuscitate her, and it was the scariest moment of my life.  I remember looking behind the doctor, and there were about 5 nurses working as quickly as they could to bring her back to life.  I kept trying to not stress or worry, but how can you not?!  It was absolutely terrifying.  I wanted some reassurance, but the look on Shane’s face really wasn’t making me feel any better.  Finally, they brought her over to me for a minute and said she was breathing, but they were going to have her checked out in NICU just to be sure everything was okay because of all the brusing on her head.  I was still terrified.  Her face was expressionless, and she was absolutely silent.  I was so scared that she wasn’t okay, and I know Shane felt the same way.  Even when we were holding her, we felt like we couldn’t relax quite yet.  They brought her back from NICU about 15 minutes later and said everything looked great.  I was so exhausted and couldn’t stay awake that I barely got to even hold her until later on that day.  When I did, I didn’t want to ever put her down.  I was so happy that she was okay.  She had tons of bruising, but besides that, she was going to be fine.  Thank the Lord.  Thank him for everything.  We are so, so blessed that IVF worked in the first place, and now we feel so fortunate that Leighton is a happy and healthy baby.  After all we went through, it was so scary knowing that we couldn’t control anything.  After all of the ups and downs and scares with IVF, and then we didn’t know if she would be healthy and okay after the delivery.  It was a long day, but like they say, you really do forget the labor part, and all you remember is the priceless moments spent with your baby each day.  = )