The Birth Story Saturday, September 02, 2006

This is long overdue, but better late than never. I'm a little surprised how much more work 3 is than 2. Right now the boys are playing nicely together, and Kiarrah is napping (big sigh). Kiarrah, Grammy and I spent the afternoon together at the hairdressers, so we are feeling very pretty, or at least I am:)

Kiarrah’s birth:

My water broke at 8am on Thursday, August 24th. I called Tom to come home and called triage at the hospital to find out what they wanted me to do. When Tom arrived home, we headed over to the hospital and they monitored baby for about an hour to make sure she was still happy. The nurse sent me home with instructions to come in if labor started or at 7:30am the next morning for induction.

We went to bed that night and I slept for an hour and a half before I woke up at 3am with back pain. I tossed and turned until I couldn’t take it anymore and then jumped in the shower at 4:30. As I was standing in the hot shower I realized that I was freezing cold and I couldn’t stop shivering; great now I have the flu too? I curled up on the couch with a blanket for a while so that I didn’t disturb Tom. Finally at 6:30 I could take the constant back pain anymore and started to think that the fever I had may be more than just a flu, so I woke up Tom and through tears told him I didn’t feel good and wanted to get to the hospital.

I cried all the way to the hospital and through registration. lol
There were 3 of us at the hospital scheduled for induction and I got priority 1 because it had been 24 hours since my water broke. So, I got settled into the labor and delivery room fairly quickly and hooked up to antibiotics and oxytocin (sp?). I was having major back labor, but they wanted to get things going quickly as the fever I had was actually an infection. By about 8:30 I got on the laughing gas (still crying and whimpering in pain; no laughing here). I was only on the oxytocin for about ½ hr. and by then I was in full intense labor. Things from here on are a bit of a blur. I know my doctor ran over from his office a few times as things were extremely intense and Kiarrah’s heart rate was around 190 the whole time with a few drops down to 100. There was talk of an emergency C-section, but later heard that they were worried I would deliver on the way down to the OR. The doctor was in around 10:45 and argued with a nurse on whether I was 7cm or 9cms. I had told him at an earlier appointment that he should be there at 7cms or he would miss the delivery. He got me to turn over and rock on all fours to help turn the baby. He then left and 10 minutes later baby’s head popped out. One of the nurses had turned around for a second to put her gloves on and when she turned around she saw the head. They told me to turn over and then all screamed “no” as I tried to roll over. They didn’t think I knew the head was out. lol How can a woman withering in pain not notice when the babies head is out and the pain level is cut in half! As soon as I rolled over they noticed that the cord was wrapped tight around the baby’s neck. It was so tight that the nurse was trying to push her back in so that she could loosen it enough to cut. As soon as it was cut our little girl was born and seconds later the doctor walked in. Missed it again. Things were pretty tense for about 15 minutes as they worked to get a response from Kiarrah. They let me hold her for a couple minutes before they took her to NICU. I was too sick to really enjoy my brief introduction to my little girl. I spent the next 3 hours in labor and delivery as they worked to control my bleeding and fever. I ended up back on oxytocin for about 6 hours to get my uterus to contract. Not fun!

I was moved to my hospital room at 2pm and got to visit Kiarrah in NICU and feed her a bottle 1/2hr later. Tom had been in several times to see her already, but wasn’t allowed to hold her since she was in the incubator. Doctors were worried about her glucose levels which quickly improved and her white blood cell count was much to high (A possible sign of infection). The doctors decided to do another blood test at 5:30pm and if her levels came down at all they would let us have her, if not then they would keep her in the nursery for 48 hours. So, we waited for her results and were very excited when they told Tom to come help bath her and bring her to mommyJ Her levels had come down ever so slightly, but enough that they felt she could stay with us. Every few hours the nurses were in to check her temp. During our time at the hospital before we were released on Sunday morning our poor little one got about 10 blood tests L. We were so excited to come home. This week we’ve laid pretty low. Kiarrah is still getting used to nursing since they confused her with bottles in the nursery, but getting better and better every day. Colton is absolutely in lover with her and Noah, well he’s been the baby for the last 3 years and is getting used to the changes.

So there you go. We are alive and doing well. Kiarrah will be having a lot of doctor’s appointment in the next couple months. She is being fitted for a hip brace on Tuesday and is being treated for thrush at the moment. (Thrush is a yeast infection common in babies as a result of illness or stress) So please pray that she heals up well. We are so blessed and thankful that her rough start at life isn’t any worse. With everything she’s been through she is a very happy baby. She only cries when she’s hungry and is sleeping pretty good.