brayden james {birth story}

{monday, october 17}

I had a really rough night sleeping. Jim had slept in Payton’s bed after being kicked out of our bed by Payton. The dog and Payton were literally sleeping on top of me the entire night. I woke-up wondering what we were going to do with our day and Payton woke up whiny, which never happens. I remembered a friend saying she was going to Kid Ventures so I started looking up where it was, how much admission was and I was texting my friend. I started to feel some cramping and felt very “off”, I sent another text to a friend that I should probably start timing the contractions. After about ten minutes of timing they were coming every two minutes so I made the call to Jim to let him know that today just might be the day. When I spoke to him I told him I would keep timing for an hour and then make the call. The contractions kept coming every two minutes and through a few I had to stop. I would just look at Payton and start crying. We were not ready for this in so many ways! I text Jim that today was the day and that he needed to come home. I worked on a bow order, packed my bag and took a quick shower. We arrived at the hospital three hours after I started timing and they immediately admitted me to triage. We did the routine check-in process and then Dr. Lai came in to check me, I was in between a five and six and said we would be having a baby today! Jim had to take Payton down to our friend Jinger who would watch her while I was in labor. While he was away I was presented with two options from Dr. Lai: go ahead with a c-section at 4:30 PM or try for a vbac. She gave me the risks, how the recovery would be easier, and we agreed that I would not push for more than an hour based on how my delivery went with Payton. Jim came back to my room and we were quickly admitted to L&D room #7. The nurses were amazing, we talked about how my delivery and stay with Payton was discouraging and how we would not walk down that path again. Since I was 36 weeks 4 days they had to pump me with antibiotics, my first dose was 5 million ml’s and I would receive the second dose of 3 million at 6:15 PM. We spent the few hours joking with our nurse, Roberta, who was hilarious. Around 4:30 PM Dr. Lai came back in to check my progress and I was around 6 1/2 cm. We discussed when I should get my epidural, we decided that I would get it prior to breaking my water so we waited an hour and I got the epidural right around 7 cm. It hurt a lot more this time around, or maybe since I was more aware of what to expect it was just more uncomfortable. The epi took into full effect, I got my second dose of antibiotics and waited for the doctor to break my water. Once they broke my water, my epi had started to wear off slightly and I felt the urge to start pushing within twenty minutes. The pushing game is no joke and honestly I was playing my own mind game. I immediately went back to when I pushed with Payton and I did not want to feel like a failure, I pushed to my hearts content. My sister held the left leg, Jim the right and my Mom propped my head up during each contraction. I gazed on at Dancing with the Stars and took in that the Bangles were singing “Manic Monday”, I remember giggling to myself and mouthing “it’s pretty ironic, huh?”  I was so hot, I had a migraine from hell and honestly just wanted to see my baby. My epi wore off again, they called in the anesthesiologist who said it had come out about one centimeter. He gave me a shot and said if that didn’t work they would have to come back in to redo it. Luckily for me it did work, I got to rest for about thirty minutes and then began pushing again. His head was making it’s way down but then would slide back, Kathy, our new nurse kept encouraging me and said she could see his hair. When I asked her what color it was she said blonde and I let out a loud woo-hoo! I felt energized to keep pushing, the doctor came back in to check out my pushing skills and said it wasn’t that I wasn’t pushing correctly, the baby was just being stubborn. She gave me two choices: go for the vacuum and push like hell as she pulled or go for the repeat c-section. It was at this moment that I felt let down once again. I didn’t want to go for the vacuum option and then fail after all that hard work to end up in the OR. I wanted this baby to come out more than anything, I wanted to accomplish a natural birth now that I had come this far so I chose the vacuum option. I remember looking at my Mom and she gave me the “are you crazy” look. I know I probably asked for someones opinion but honestly, I was in my own world. Within a minute there were about ten additional hospital staff in the room to greet our baby with the biggest birthday party yet. 

As the doctor inserted the vacuum I prepped myself mentally. I knew this would be the hardest work yet and I didn’t care what the risk was to me. The word laceration kept running through my mind but I wanted to see my baby. Everything started moving so fast, I would push and through the contraction I would look at the vacuum measure to see how things were progressing. My epidural had worn off again and I didn’t care that I could feel everything. With a few contractions I could feel his head make it’s way through, then the shoulders and then I was holding my angel. Karen and rest of the room looked over at the clock and she let out a high pitched “12:00 AM on the dot, I guess he wanted his own day”.  It was the best feeling in the world, something I feel I was robbed of with Payton. I was screaming of pain, but crying because he was here. Jim quickly cut the umbilical cord and then they took him over to the table where Pediatrics was to measure and see how the cleft took into play. I watched but couldn’t see anything, Jim turned around with tears in his eyes and said that his palate wasn’t affected and our prayers had been answered. I was instantly hysterical. His cleft lip made me smile, he was gorgeous and perfect in every way. All our worrying for months had been swept away, our biggest fear of lifetime of palate surgeries and touch-ups were gone. Our family was all together, looking at our angel. I have never felt so complete then at that very moment. My family left and then it was just Jim, Brayden and I. We kept talking to Karen and staring on at our baby, they moved us over to my new room and that’s when we started our journey as parents of two under two. 

Brayden James has completed my heart, he is absolutely perfect and an angel sent to me by God. 

October 18, 2011

12:00 AM

7 pounds 5 ounces 

19 inches