Braeden's Birth Story

It started on January 30th when I had an ultrasound appointment. The ultrasound took approximately 20 minutes to complete and during that time I was laying on my back. Once I stood up I had a horrible headache and I also felt dizzy. The tech went and got the nurse who took my blood pressure etc. and even though that was fine, she decided that I should not drive and she called Mark to come pick me up and then requested that we head to the hospital just as a precaution.

At the hospital everything was fine and because I was already scheduled for an induction the following morning they decided since it was very quiet that they would do the induction right then. Besides I was already 2cm dilated and apparently the membrane sweeps had been working afterall. So the doc applied some cervadil into my cervix and moved me into a private room.

Mark went home to get the bags etc ready and to tell his brother and a few others what was going on.

So, I was in this room and the nurse checked me over and then told me to try and get some sleep after calling Mark to tell him to get some rest as she thought nothing would happen until morning....

Well...the cramping became pretty unbearable quickly and when she came back to check on me I was 4 cm dilated and ready to be moved to the labor/delivery side. This process only took a few hours. So she called Mark at around 11ish? and asked him to come back!

By the time Mark got to the hospital I was in the middle of getting my epidural and soon things were okay. I was not feeling anything and was pretty thankful for that!

We were in this room from 1130pm on and the doc came in and broke my water and after that I began progressing at a very decent rate. By 6:15 a.m I was ready to start pushing and so that's what I did for about 2.5 hours.

Unfortunitely, Braeden was facing upwards and the doctor tried to turn him twice but when I would push he would turn himself back. He was being stubborn!

His heart rate was slowing down a little bit with each contraction and then sometimes was taking a little longer than they would like to recover. The doctors then decided that the only option would be to have a c-section.

I was really not very happy with this even though I knew it was a possibility with an induction. I had hoped and prayed it wouldn't come to that!

Around that time the epidural wore off and I was feeling every contraction very very very strongly and I had to wait an HOUR from then until the anesthesiologist was able to fix whatever was wrong with the epidural. I felt every contraction and was screaming and crying and being quite a baby about it all...LOL...apparently I have quite a low tolerance for pain!

Anyways, they finally took me into the operating room and prepped me for surgery while a nurse was hugging me and trying to guide me through some imagery to take me to my "happy place" since the anesthesiologist hadn't arrived yet.

Thankfully they had paged an anethesioogist from another floor to come and administer the drugs because the other guy was still busy doing another c-section! I really don't think I could have handled it for much longer.

After that guy came I was feeling much better and then even better once Mark was allowed back in the room. It took just under 10 minutes for the doctors to get Braeden out.

They lifted him up so that Mark and I could see and let me tell you - that was an amazing and surreal moment for us to see our LIVE baby and to hear him cry. We both started crying and then the nurse asked Mark if he wanted to see his son.

Mark went over and was able to take pictures while Braeden was weighed and measured and checked over etc. Then he came back to me and showed me the pics and the nurse brought Braeden over to us and took a pic for us.

Then that was it - I was stitched up and wheeled into a recovery room and Mark went back and forth from me to Braeden with the biggest smile on his face!

I was taken into our private room and was anxious to see my son but it took a long time before they finally brought him to us.

When he was finally brought in the room a lady was there to take my blood and she seemed to be taking so long and so I told her to hurry the heck up cuz I wanted to meet my son! She looked at me surprised but she did hurry up and finally I was able to hold my son for the first time.

One word - AMAZING!

We are so in love with that little guy it's unbelievable! Thank you GOD for giving us this precious gift! We feel so blessed and so lucky to be his parents.