Grayson James- Sweet Baby M's Birth Story

On June 20th, 2013 we were blessed to welcome Sweet Baby M!  This is the story of his birth.
On Tuesday June 18th, at about 11:30 pm I started feeling what I thought were contractions.  Since I was a few days shy of 38 weeks I figured I was just having some intense Braxton Hicks contractions.  Everyone had been telling me that since it was my first pregnancy I was likely to go overdue rather than having him early so I wasn't totally prepared to be in labor.  I was just hanging out downstairs while J was sleeping and I noticed that the contractions were starting to get stronger.  I started timing them and they rapidly got closer together.  The hospital told me to come in when they reached 2-3 minutes apart for 45 minutes.  At 4 am the pain was getting pretty intense and my contractions were only 2-3 minutes apart so I decided to wake J up and tell him it was time to go to the hospital.  His response was "Are you serious?" He later said that he immediately started going through a list of things that we hadn't done such as getting the car seat installed (I had an appointment scheduled for the next day).  Once he realized that I was indeed in labor, he got up and got ready to go.  We drove to the hospital where they checked me out and they told me that even though my contractions were really close together, I was only dilated to a 2 and 90% effaced and they wouldn't check me in until I was a dilated to a 5.  I was in a lot of pain at that point so I wasn't very happy to be turned away. We ended up driving down to where J works and having a friend help him install our carseat to pass a little time.  We drove back to the hospital two hours later as they had recommended and were told that I hadn't progressed but I was having back labor which is where the babies position causes the mother to have intense pain in her lower back during contractions.  I was sad and felt silly having been turned away for a second time so I asked J to take me home and I told him to go to work so that he wouldn't be sitting around staring at me while I was having contractions. I had a doctor's appointment scheduled for 2 pm so I decided to just push through the contractions until then because I did NOT want to be turned away for a third time.
J came home around 1 and I promptly threw up so we called the hospital and they said I should go ahead and come in again.  When we got there, all of the exam rooms were occupied so we ended up going up to my scheduled doctor's appointment at 2 where my doctor told me I was dilated to between a 4-5.  She called down to labor and delivery and told them I was to be admitted.  I felt a huge sense of relief because I was finally progressing and I was going to be able to get an epidural. 
When we arrived at Labor and Delivery, they got me checked in and took me back to a delivery room where they started blood work and an iv.  I was finally able to get my epidural at about 5:30 and I have to say that it was the greatest relief ever!  I give props to anyone who decides to go without an epidural but I had no interest whatsoever in continuing to be in pain.  Since my labor ended up being 30 hours long, I don't regret that decision at all!  The epidural was pefect and it allowed me to still move my own legs but not feel anything from the contractions.  I was encouraged to try to get some sleep, particularly since I hadn't slept at all the night before.  I was able to get a few hours of sleep while I very slowly continued to dilate.  At about 4:30 am on Thursday morning I finally dilated all the way to a 10 and was told that I would be pushing soon. At 5:15 I finally started pushing and after half an hour our sweet little guy came into the world at 5:44 am.  He weighed 6 pounds 13 ounces and was 19 inches long.  Unfortunately his umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck twice which they didn't realize until he was almost out so he ended up getting whisked away from me.  I saw the cord around his neck and I was really stressed about what was going on.  I heard a very small cry but nothing else and more people rushed in to the room.  They decided to take Grayson to the special care nursery.  The midwife who was involved his delivery told me that they were just being overly cautious so I asked to hold him at least for a minute before they took him away.  I was able to have about 1 minute with him before they rushed him out.

First time meeting Grayson

Grayson was breathing in a manner called grunting so they decided to do a chest x-ray to see what was going on.  He was getting plenty of oxygen, but his breathing sounded fairly pitiful.  They had started an IV and were monitoring all of his vitals which were all stable but the breathing was still a concern.  They also put a nasal canula (for oxygen) in his nose but they had him on room air and he was maintaining an SPO2 of 99-100%.

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My blood pressure went crazy after the delivery (like 180/130) so they wouldn't let me leave the delivery room to go and see my baby.  It was really hard not to be able to go and see the Little Man but finally after about 2 hours I was able to go to the nursery and hold his tiny hands. 

About 2 Hours Old

The chest x-ray ended up showing signs of "infiltrates" which the doctors told us could be pneumonia or it could just be amniotic fluid so they decided to keep him in the special care nursery overnight.  We were able to spend most of the day with Grayson down in the nursery and by 1 pm they decided he was doing well enough to come off of the oxygen.  The grunting had resolved itself.  I was able to feed him for the first time shortly after that. Everything you read about breastfeeding says that you really need to feed them within the first hour of life or they might not be willing to do it so I was a little stressed about that but our Little Man did just fine!  Fortunately they had two comfy recliners set up that J and I were able to sit in while we soaked up time with Baby G. 

The first night I had to get up every three hours and go down five floors to the special care nursery to feed the Little Man but the next morning he passed several tests so they let him come up to our room for the rest of our hospital stay.  We were hoping to be able to leave the next morning but unfortunately his second chest x-ray was still inconclusive so to be safe the doctors decided that Grayson needed to stay for an extra three days to receive antibiotics for in case it was pneumonia.  We were sad to have to stay at the hospital longer (especially me since the shower was freezing) but G seemed to be doing really well and we definitely wanted to do whatever we needed to to make sure that he came home healthy.  Unfortunately with newborns, by the time you see symptoms of a problem at home things can already be pretty bad so we settled in for an extended stay at the hospital.  The Naval Hospital was awesome and let me keep my room as a "boarder" even though I was discharged because I wasn't having any complications.  This was such a huge blessing for us because we didn't have to either sleep in chairs at the hospital or try to go back and forth between home and the hospital.  All of the staff was awesome and his nurses were especially great!  Finally, on Tuesday the 25th we were able to go home.  Here are a bunch of pictures that we took while in the hospital.

About 8 Hours Old

Our first family photo!

Sweet Baby Boy Gazing at His Mama :)

Love those cheeks!W

Silly faces!

Furrowed Baby Brow

These two make my heart melt :)

Love Baby Snuggles!

Ready to go home!

We are so grateful to everyone who prayed for, called, texted, and sent messages on facebook supporting us during this exciting time in our lives!  Baby Grayson is very lucky to have so many people rooting for him and we are so blessed to have a healthy happy baby boy!