Caleb's Birth Story

Tomorrow morning marks one week. One week since I walked into the Womens Center of the hospital, dilated to a 4 with a broken water.  I'd been in the early stages of labor for days, contractions picking up both in their intensity and frequency throughout each day, only to die off as I slept each night.  I felt like a crazy person, constantly texting Wes at work, wondering if our day had finally come.  And then, on July 24th, my number was called :)

My past 2 deliveries were both routine inductions, where I received my epidural, and pretty much relaxed until it was time to push.  This time, my experience was different in some ways.  For one thing, I had a new doctor here in Arizona, and a new hospital.. So I wasn't sure was to expect.  Given my track record of easy and fast labors, my doc instructed the hospital to get my epidural in ASAP, and he showed up to check my progress within a couple hours.

I'm grateful that not only Wesley was with me, but for the first time, my mom was there too! (Thanks to my dad for watching the other 2 on his own that day).  I was so happy to have both my mommy and my Wesley with me.  It kept me calm even when I felt nervous.

My day wound up having a few interesting moments.  First of all, I had some kind of crazy reaction to my epidural.  It was placed smoothly, and I could feel the meds working their way through my legs, nice and even.  I had warned the doctors that I tend to get a little woozy from the epidural drug, so the anesthesiologist stuck around to observe my reaction for 10-15 minutes.  After about 5 minutes, I told them I was starting to get nauseated. Within 20 seconds, I started seeing spots, became clammy, and then my vision tunneled. The doctor moved fast, putting a medication through my IV to bump my blood pressure up quickly.  I think I was about 5 seconds from fainting when my vision cleared up.  They were surprised at my reaction, but I soon stabilized enough that he left the room to check on another patient.  About 10 minutes later, it happened again.

I've been blessed with good health in my life, so hearing that the nurse had a crash cart on standby, and watching the anesthesiologist burst through the door full speed got me pretty rattled.  I'm grateful that medical people are good at working under pressure.  They were baffled that my blood pressure had plummeted from 120 to 60 twice in about 20 minutes.  But they were able to sort it out, and fortunately I didn't have any more issues for the rest of my labor.  Because of that incident though, they rarely left me unattended, and were hesitant to give me full strength dosing on my epidural drugs.  So for the first time, I was able to feel a little more than just "pressure" during my labor and delivery.

Maybe that was a good thing though.. A few hours into the day, my nurse was surprised to find that my dilation wasn't progressing.  Last time, I went from 4 to 10 in about 45 minutes once my water had broken.  Since my drugs weren't running full strength, I was able to feel a lot of unusual pressure.  After I explained what I was feeling, the nurse realized that our little baby was face up instead of face down.  Not dangerous really, but makes for a harder delivery (and possibly recovery).  They also realized that this was probably why I wasn't progressing.  She positioned me in a way that would make it easier for the little babe to spin back around. Within a half hour, I told my nurse that I'd felt a lot of movement from baby boy, and suspected that he had turned.  She told me I had progressed to a 7, and left to call the doctor and prepare for delivery.  about 2 minutes after she left, I frantically pressed my call button.  I told her that I knew I was at a 10 and that they needed to hurry.  She confirmed my suspicion.  I had to wait quite awhile for the doctor to get there (not my favorite 30 minutes...ouch) but we made it and prepared to meet our little boy.

Once we got to that final part, everything went smoothly--I delivered him at 5:28 pm, in just a few contractions. My doctor was so wonderful.  He had the nurses keep the lighting in the room low, to make our son's adjustment to the brightness a little easier.  As soon as he was out, I had him right on top of me, where I held him as they rubbed him down.  It's hard to describe the sweet spirit of that moment.  I wanted to laugh with joy, and cry all at once.  After 9 months of waiting, we were finally welcoming our 3rd little angel into our family.  I felt so blessed, so overwhelmed.

7 pounds 12 ounces, 20.75 inches of pure joy.

my amazing doctor.

Later that night, after my mom had gone back home to the big kids, Wes and I were alone in the hospital room, getting to know our new son.  We still hadn't decided on a name, and hoped that one on our list would feel right.  The nurse came in the room, where they did his footprints and his first bath. (right there in the room!  I've never been there to see that before, since it was done in the nursery while I recovered with the other two).

 That night things got a little scary.  Around midnight, our little boy stopped latching and refused to suck.  After wrestling with him most of the night, we finally tried just giving him some formula, which he couldn't refuse as easily.  He started throwing up, and continued through the morning.  The pediatrician said that he had most likely swallowed amniotic fluid.  Because of this, his little belly was full, but the fluid was digesting very slowly.  In the end, they had to take him for a quick visit to the NICU, where they suctioned out his stomach and rinsed it with saline.  I felt so sad for him when they put the tube down his throat for the procedure, but as I looked around that nicu room at the other babies (all super tiny), I just felt grateful that our little man was born full term and in every other way was healthy.  Luckily, the rinse worked and he started eating again, so they didn't have to do anything more drastic to him.

Shortly after that drama was resolved, Wesley and I finally agreed peacefully about what we needed to name our boy.

Meet Caleb Max Hurst

 Max is a family name from my mom's side.  Sometime I'll do a post and talk about the meaning of all my kids middle names.  They are each unique and special :)

Once we knew Caleb was out of the woods, I let my mom know that she could go ahead and bring in the big kids to meet their new baby brother!

Waiting for them to arrive.

 for some reason, Wes thought this was funny.

 vitals check!

 Wesley noticed that he could see the kids out the window as they walked from the parking lot to the entrance.  He snuck a few photos of them :)

 coming around the curtain!!!

 They were so excited!!!!! I was greeted with homemade cards, flowers, and of course, lots of hugs and kisses :)

Beautiful flowers from my mom, Jake and Mia. :)

Another overwhelming life moment.  3 kids!!!!!

Jake had done this once before, and could not wait to hold his baby brother.  Mia was definitely interested, but still a little unsure.

We got the kids some art stuff "from" their new baby brother.. they spent the afternoon with us in that room.  By the end, there was play dough all over the floor. :)

My mom took so many wonderful pictures--It was hard to narrow down that ones I liked best.  The expressions on Jake and Mia's faces were unforgettable.  I love that I have photos to go with those sweet memories :)

 Caleb looks a lot like Jake did as a baby.  I'm excited to see just how similar they are as he grows.

A little later that day, my dad drove up with David for a quick visit.

Proud Grandpa :)

We were released to go home on Friday.  

Tomorrow marks one week.  One week since little Caleb came into my life.  I was so busy during this pregnancy, distracted with the other 2 kids, that I hadn't really bonded with my unborn babe.  It's incredible though, in just a few short days, how my feelings for him are growing.  I love him so much, I feel like I could burst.  I was already overwhelmed by my feelings for Jake and Mia, and now--adding this special little boy into the mix.. the joy continues to grow.  I feel so blessed to have these 3 beautiful healthy sweet kids.  It's going to be challenging, but so wonderful.  I'm not nervous anymore, but energized and excited to take on this new chapter in my life.