The Birth of Kyle Steven
I confirmed during my anatomy scan that I was in fact pregnant with another baby boy. I did not tell anyone and kept the news to myself. Through my entire pregnancy people checked in on me, brought me food, made sure I was healthy and as happy as a pregnant lady with a 2 year old that just lost her husband could be. I went in for all my appointments and we did ultrasounds every so often especially at the beginning to check on baby. On January 9th I went in for my 40 week appointment, I was 40 weeks and 1 day. The midwife took my blood pressure and it was very high. She asked me how I felt, I said fine, normal. She checked my legs for swelling, there was none. She drew blood to check my levels. I sat and did a non-stress test. No contractions baby was healthy and his heartrate was normal. She checked my blood pressure again an hour later and it was still sky high. She said she would send off the bloodwork, and that I may have pre-eclampsia, or prenatal hypertension pending the results. She said if the bloodwork comes back positive for pre-eclampsia I would risk out of the birthing center and not be able to have the baby there. My heart sunk, how was this even possible. She left the room for a bit and I sat and pondered what I was going to do. The birthing center was so amazing. They were going to have two midwives come in for my birth because I was adamant that I did not want anyone else present for the birth, but having two midwives there would ensure if for any reason during birth I would need to transfer to the hospital one of them could go with me and the other would continue to attend births at the center. It was perfect, and that whole plan went out the window, immediately. The midwife came back in the room to check on the non-stress testing still going and said “how are your feeling are you ok?” I told her I did not need to hear the results, I already knew it was going to be positive because months ago I was told that this birth would be traumatic and for me in this moment there is nothing more traumatic than having to give birth in a hospital with a bunch of strangers. She was shocked at my remarks and asked if I was always this intuitive, and I just said no, at a loss for words.
So we sat for another hour talking through what would happen if the testing was positive. We called 3 different Doulas and found one that was available to go to the hospital with me that night. I went home completely battered down. I put Brian down for a nap and cried in my bed. I called Shelby and told her what was most likely about to transpire and made sure she could come be with Brian tonight just incase, she of course made it happen. The midwife called me around 4 pm and said the results were positive and I would need to check in to the hospital at 9 pm to be induced. The doula would meet me there. I packed a suitcase, grabbed my picture of Steven and drove to the hospital. I checked myself in and sat on the edge of the bed having no idea what was about to happen. I was anxious, nervous, scared, alone, cold, in a hospital, with bright florescent lights, machines, a tiny crib on wheels, and had no idea what they were going to do to induce me. I can honestly say that I did not have any of these feelings with my birth with Brian and hadn’t with Kyle’s pregnancy up until this moment. The doula walked in my room moments later while I was still just sitting there looking around the room and introduced herself. She was nice and I told her about Brian’s birth and how things went. The midwife already told her the story about Steven so I did not need to do that. She was so kind and donated her time without charging me.
Soon after the midwife walked into the room. The first thing she said was “are you alright with me turning off these lights and just using the lamps?” I was immediately at ease, oh my gosh yes please. We sat and chatted; I told her about Brian’s birth and how amazing it was and how afraid of being induced I was, how much I hate needles and doctors, and that I did not think I could give birth in the bed. She assured me that minus actually giving birth in the tub I would be free to move around and birth how I wanted to and she was just there to support me. I did have to get an IV due to my blood pressure continuing to be so high. They started giving me a medication to help stabilize it, I decided I could tolerate the needle. She said we could do a very minimally invasive induction and gave the option of taking a Cervadil pill orally to help ripen my cervix and we could just wait and see what happened. So that’s what we did. Around 1130 pm I was laying in bed playing some silly charades game with the Doula and I was acting something out and she said some ridiculous guess and I burst out laughing which cause the smallest little pop inside. I looked at her and said I think my water just broke as hot liquid slowly started to come out of me. I went to roll over and it gushed, “oh yeah, yep, that was definitely my water, oh my gosh this feels so gross!!” I got up and walked to the bathroom while it continued to pour out and asked if I could just get into the tub. So I did. My contractions started almost immediately after my water breaking. I was in the bathroom with the Doula and Midwife, and by that time a local Denver Birth Photographer, Monet Nicole, who had donated her services also arrived and was in there. I asked the midwife if she could check if I was dilated at all and she said I was at a 4. I remember looking up at each of them and started to freak out, I felt like they were all staring at me, just watching me, waiting for me to do something as my contractions were coming and going. I said I needed to get out and walk around, so I did and walked to the bed and tried to lay down, nope, that definitely was not going to happen. So I just stood at the edge of the bed.
After about 5 minutes of standing there I told the midwife I felt like I needed to push and she advised me to do so. I was shocked, “Don’t you need to check if I’m dilated?” I asked. She said “if you feel ready, I trust your body, trust your body, you are doing great.” So I stood there and after four pushes I reached down to grab the baby at 1:03 am. I pulled him up into my arms and I looked at him. His face was bright purple and he was not breathing. I looked to the midwife panicked and said something was wrong he wasn’t breathing. She calmly said he was ok to rub his back. After what felt like eternity, I remember saying no please take him he’s not ok. I nervously climbed into the bed and anxiously looked over to where the midwife and nurses were cluttered around him. His Apgar scores were 1 and 4, for anyone that does not know what that means, those are very low, his only sign of life at birth was having a pulse. The cord was wrapped very tightly around his neck three times, it was a good thing I pushed him out quickly.
I laid down with him on my chest in the bed. A few minutes later Brian and Shelby came, at some point the Doula had called her to tell her the baby would be born soon. I wanted Brian to be there right away with me. He came and kissed and loved on Kyle, he shared his goldfish with him and after about a half hour went back home back to sleep with Shelby. Thank goodness for her and our friendship. After they left I remember laying in bed just looking down at this little baby. I started zoning out and not feeling well. I paged the nurse and she asked what I needed. I remember saying “something is wrong, honestly I feel like I am dying.” I am not sure what exactly I felt in the moment everything was fuzzy. I remember her walking in and hooking up the blood pressure machine seconds later a crash cart and 5 people were in my room and Kyle was taken from my arms “oh yeah, she’s crashing,” I heard someone say. Moments later I felt lucid again and looked around at everyone. Basically, they had pumped me full of so much medication to bring my blood pressure down, now that the excitement had worn down and everyone had left my blood pressure dropped. I went from 187/98 down to 47/34 in less than a hour. They pumped me with medication to bring it back up through my IV and it was insane how instantaneous it came up. They gave Kyle back to me so that I could continue nursing him. Nurses were in and out of the room every half hour to check my blood pressure. I remember them telling me and asking me over and over to put Kyle in the little crib, or let them take him to the nursery so I could sleep. I wanted nothing to do with any of it. I could not sleep. I just sat crying with this sweet little boy in my arms in a hospital bed. I asked for more blankets 3 separate times because I just could not get warm. I was in shock and I was alone.
The next morning Brian and Shelby came back and it was just the sweetest couple hours ever. He played happily and would stop and come stare at Kyle and touch his head so gently. He was, and is for the most part the sweetest little boy ever. My blood pressure continued to go up and down and all over the place with the medications they were pushing into my IV. They kept telling me I could not go home until I was stable, and I continued to beg to have them just let me go home, that I would have Shelby stay with me and check it for me. Shelby and Brian were at the hospital and had brought me lunch. Finally, Thursday after lunch they let me go home. I loaded both of my babies into their car seats and drove myself home. It was the most amazing moment ever leaving that hospital with both of them in my truck. Naturally, my blood pressure went back to normal within that day and did not continue to fluctuate. I was so happy to be home.