Kenzley's Birth Story

I’ve had a lot of people ask me about Kenzley’s birth story. I knew that I wanted to write it out to share with everyone, but I also knew it would be an emotional task and I think I’ve been putting off having to relive some of those moments. Well, that and finding uninterrupted free time with a two-year old, newborn, and a husband isn’t the easiest thing to do. Let me start this off by saying that I am NOT a blogger…I am going to do my best but this just isn’t something I’m very good at so don’t judge my writing too harshly. Also, this is MY story and these are MY feelings. You may disagree with my feelings or think I am being dramatic, but if I am going to share my story then I’m going to share it in its entirety…so I should also probably apologize for it being so long.

Let’s start this story on Tuesday, May 15, 2012, the night before Kenzley’s birth. I was 36 weeks and 1 day pregnant. Around 10:30 pm I started having Braxton Hicks that were off and on all night long. Let’s just say I didn’t get much sleep that night. I wasn’t really concerned with the contractions; in fact I was glad that I was finally starting to have them and that my body was preparing itself for labor. The next morning I spent some quality time resting on the couch while Everleigh enjoyed her cartoons. I remember the Braxton Hicks starting again around 10 am. Again, I wasn’t really concerned. When I was pregnant with Everleigh, I contracted frequently throughout the day from 28 weeks until I delivered at 38 weeks so this wasn’t anything I hadn’t experienced before. They lasted a little over an hour and then things calmed down again. I put Everleigh down for her nap around 1:30 that day and went to climb into bed to watch some TV and catch a nap. I turned on the TV and found that we weren’t getting any cable service. I knew this would require contacting the cable company so I decided to chat with a customer service rep online while I chatted with some of my other mommy friends. Around 2 pm the contractions started again and again I didn’t think anything of it. I remember telling the friends I was chatting with that I was having some nice Braxton Hicks, they told me to lay down or get in the bath to see if they would go away, but I said I wanted to let them go for a little bit so that I would hopefully be more dilated at my OB appointment the next day. I remember looking at the clock around 3 pm while I was still chatting with the customer service department thinking that the contractions were starting to feel stronger. At 3:30 there was no denying that the contractions were stronger and had started to move from just being in my lower abdomen to also being in my back and on the sides of my stomach. I called Nathan and let him know to keep his phone on him just in case. It was around that time that I realized that I hadn’t felt the baby in a while. I decided to drink a little bit of soda to see if that would wake the baby up, then I drank a glass of water and laid down to see if that would help the contractions go away. During the next hour I only felt the baby move once and I was a little concerned, the contractions were still going strong and were 3-5 min apart but only lasting about 20-30 seconds. Nathan came home around 4:30 that afternoon. This was extremely early for a Wednesday which is usually his longest day of work. We decided to take a relaxing walk around the block before dinner to see if that would help calm things down. It didn’t. Even in that moment, after my history of contracting with Everleigh, I wasn’t really thinking that I was actually in labor. I laid back down and drank more water, convinced I was just dehydrated, while Nathan made dinner.

Things really picked up then. Fair warning – TMI ahead! If you want to skip the next paragraph here's a synopsis: I was in denial, lots of gross stuff happens that's normal before labor, more denial, more gross stuff....finally acceptance that I was in labor and off to the hospital.                 

I was lying down and had to go to the bathroom after all of the water I had been drinking. I rolled over and sat on the edge of the bed. When I stood up, I turned around to grab my phone off the bed and noticed two large half dollar sized wet spots on my sheets where I had sat. Had I peed my pants? I went to the bathroom and sure enough my underwear was damp, but it didn’t smell like pee. I sent pictures (yes of my underwear and sheets lol) to my friend Meghan. She of course was convinced I was in labor and that I needed to call my OB. I still wasn’t too sure. (Let’s be honest, I was in total denial!) I finished going to the bathroom and was cleaning myself up when I saw a big chunk of my mucus plug on the toilet paper. It wasn’t the whole thing but I’d say probably half of it. I sent Meghan another text (No I didn’t send her a picture of the mucus plug lol) and she was practically yelling at me to call my OB. I was really starting to accept that all signs were pointing to labor; still I wanted to wait it out to see what would happen. About 15 minutes later I had to go to the bathroom again, when I wiped the rest of my mucus plug had come out. I sat on the toilet for another minute wondering if anything else was going to come out. When I wiped again there was blood. I wasn’t terribly alarmed, I knew that bloody show was a sign that labor had started. There was no more denying it, I was definitely in labor. I literally had ALL of the signs happen within 45 minutes and it was time to call the OB. Of course I was told to come right in because I was only 36 weeks and I was a VBAC,  so I quickly packed my suitcase and we were off. It was about a 25 minute drive to the hospital and the contractions were definitely getting uncomfortable. They were coming about every 2 minutes but only lasting about 30 seconds, so I wasn’t in a great rhythm yet.

We got to the hospital and of course L&D was packed, and we were put in a triage room to make sure that I was really in labor. They tested for amniotic fluid which came back positive meaning my bag had started to leak and got me hooked up to a monitor which also showed that I was contracting regularly. The on-call OB finally came in to check me and I was 3 cm dilated and 75% effaced. She agreed that I was in labor and had me admitted to a birthing room.

I was really excited! Not only because I was about to have a baby, but also because I had gone into labor naturally which meant that my OB was going to let me try for a VBAC! Everleigh was sunny-side-up and got stuck under my pelvis so I had to deliver her by c-section. It had been my DREAM to be able to give birth vaginally. My OB wouldn’t let me go past my due date, but agreed that if I went into labor on my own before my due date that I could try for a vaginal birth…so that became my prayer. I prayed for 36 weeks that I would be able to deliver vaginally and have that sweet birth experience with Nathan that I had seen so many of my patients have. I really felt that even though I was 4 weeks early, this was God answering my prayer.

I finally got moved into my room…L&D #9. I will never forget that room number. I got hooked up to the monitor and was asked if I wanted an epidural. I said no. I wanted to labor on my own for a bit and I was hoping that I would be able to get up and move around while I was still in early labor and not have to be confined to my bed just yet. About 30 minutes after getting settled in our room I asked the nurse if I could get up and walk around. I really wanted to get up and move; let gravity do its job. She said no, that being a previous c-section the OB would want to monitor me closely. I was bummed but completely understood.

Nathan had settled in on the couch next to my bed and I told him to go ahead and try to get some sleep. He had been up since 4 am and I knew it was going to be a long night. Not five minutes after I said that, I felt the most painful contraction...it came out of nowhere and it didn’t let up. And then I heard the sound that made my heart drop to my stomach. The heart monitor that had been happily pounding around 160 beats per minute suddenly slowed down. Boom……..Boom. At first I thought she must have moved and the monitor was now picking up my heartbeat. Within two heartbeats my nurse, along with 2 others, rushed into my room. My nurse tried adjusting the external transducers to make sure that the baby hadn’t moved. Nothing changed. The heart beat on the monitor was at 60 beats per minute. The back of my bed flew down and I was rolled on my side. A nurse behind me threw an oxygen mask over my face and told me to breathe deeply while my nurse desperately searched my stomach to make sure that she was getting a good reading. It felt like an out of body experience. How many times had I been the nurse putting oxygen on a patient? I heard the heart rate pick up slightly. The nurse commented that it was now 73 beats per minute. This wasn’t looking good. One of the nurses asked my nurse if she wanted to put in an internal monitor. She only had seconds to make this decision and I knew exactly what she was thinking. My bag of water had not yet been fully broken, she would have to gather the supplies to break my water, break it, and then take the time to insert the internal monitor into the baby’s scalp…all just to get a more accurate heart rate on the baby…which probably wouldn’t show anything different than what she was seeing on the screen in front of her. In a situation like this, every second counted. She looked up and said, call the OR we have a crash section coming in. I hadn’t noticed until now that I had about six nurses in my room. All at once, some were yanking tubes out of the walls, some were throwing stuff on my bed, some were pulling phones out to call in the OR team and within mere seconds I was being rushed out of the room. I looked over at Nathan, who seemed to be in shock; he didn’t say anything but just looked at me with a blank expression.

I was being wheeled down the hall – one nurse was explaining to me that she was going to give me a Terbutaline shot to help my uterus stop contracting while another was on the phone with the OR room. I’ll NEVER forget the words she spoke to whoever was on the other line. She said “The baby in room nine is down and we can’t get her back up.” A split second later, my nurse, who was on the phone with the on-call OB, said “We’ve lost the baby in room nine. She needs a crash”. The memory of those words still bring tears to my eyes. I just started praying, “God please, please, please. Please save her.”

I honestly don’t know which is better: The fear of the unknown or the fear of the known. There is something to be said about the phrase “Ignorance is bliss”. I knew exactly what was about to happen to me; I knew all of the possible outcomes and all of the possible complications. I knew EXACTLY what to be afraid of.

We got into the OR and there was a team already hurrying around getting things set up. My nurse pulled out the Doppler to check for the baby’s heartbeat. She searched and searched. The OB came in and asked how we were doing and I heard my nurse mutter “I can’t get a heartbeat anymore”. I don’t think I could ever put into words what it felt like to hear that. My heart sank even further and I was desperate for them to get her out. I wondered if I should try to prepare myself for what I might wake up to, but decided to push that thought out of my mind. They threw a sheet over my face, shoved a catheter in me, took a bowl of antiseptic prep and dumped it over my stomach and then they were ready. The anesthesiologist said “She hasn’t had anything yet!” To which the OB replied “There’s no time, we’ve gotta go.” I felt a sharp sensation on my stomach and then hand reached over my face to switch my masks. The anesthesiologist whispered to me to breathe deeply and then said “I’m sorry sweetie this is all you’re going to get.” I knew what was coming and I definitely didn’t want to feel that, so I took the deepest breaths possible.

I remember waking up in the OR to the most excruciating pain I’d ever felt. It was so intense I couldn’t even wrap my mind around it. I tried to scream but could barely get anything out. My throat felt like it was swollen shut and it dawned on me that I had probably been intubated. I forced out a muffled moan. There were only two people in the room, one was my nurse and the other was an OR tech. My nurse looked up and said “I’m sorry sweetie but I have to do this”. She was massaging the top of my uterus. The same uterus that was just hacked open. She called over to the tech and told him that she needed morphine to give me. He made a call. I was screaming and begging her to stop. I’m not sure how understandable my words were but she understood what I was saying. She promised me pain meds and told me to “hang in there”. An x-ray machine was wheeled into the OR for an abdominal set. The nurse explained that they had to open me up quickly to get the baby out and had to close me without doing an instrument count so I wouldn’t lose too much blood. This is what many medical people lovingly refer to as a slash and dash, because that’s exactly what happens. The x-ray was needed to make sure that they hadn’t left anything inside of me. He whipped out the x-ray film board that needed to go behind my back; my nurse told me that I was going to have to roll over so that they could get the film under me. I remember thinking that she was out of her damn mind. Remember, I still hadn’t had ANY pain medication. They had just cut open my skin and fat, separated the wall of my abdominal muscles, cut open my uterus, taken the baby out, and stitched all of that back together…and they now wanted me to roll over, place the film, roll back, x-ray, roll over, remove film, and roll back all without any kind of pain meds. It’s not like I had an option so I did it. Excruciating doesn’t seem like an adequate word to describe the pain but I really thought I was going to pass out or have a heart attack from the pain being so overwhelming. Once that was done another nurse came in with some morphine to give me, not that it was going to do much. My nurse started to clean up my stomach. I screamed some more and begged her to stop. Any touching was unbearable; every wipe of the washcloth felt like I was being attacked with a knife. I told her that I didn’t care that I was bloody or covered in prep…I just didn’t want more pain. She told me that she had to clean me because I looked like I had just walked out of a horror movie. I said “I don’t care, please, please, no more”. I had tears running down my face and I know she felt terrible. She did it as fast as she could and cleaned me up just enough so that I was presentable for those who would see me in the recovery room.

At that moment I realize that no one had said anything about the baby. I was terrified to ask. Normally when you bring someone out of anesthesia you are saying their name, orientating them to the time and place, reassuring them about what just happened. What if they weren’t saying anything because they didn’t want to tell me that she hadn’t made it while I was alone? What if she really didn’t make it? That’s the first time that I had seriously considered that outcome. I didn’t want to ask. If that was the answer, I didn’t want to hear it. I wanted to put off that pain. But I couldn’t, I needed to know. I forced myself to mutter the words “Is she ok?” The nurse walked over to me and said “She’s absolutely fine. Once we got her out she was perfect, Honey, don’t worry.” I don’t really remember feeling much when she said that. It all felt very clinical in the moment; almost as if I could check that off my list of things to worry about. I know that sounds terrible, but in that moment I was in so much physical pain that I had to keep intensely focused on breathing and not passing out or completely losing it. I wanted more than anything to scream and cry; but I couldn’t because that would just make the pain worse, so I just breathed and focused as hard as I could on just breathing.

When I was wheeled into the recovery room Nathan and my friend Meghan were there. The first hour in recovery is a blur. My nurse filled them in on what happened in the OR. Her exact description was “It looked like a horror move in there. She looked like a scene from Sweeny Todd; blood was literally everywhere.” I remember my friend Meghan asked her if I was asleep during everything and my nurse looked at her and shook her head no and tried to whisper “she was definitely NOT asleep” so that I couldn’t hear her but I did. I was put under conscious sedation which means I was awake and could respond but my brain wasn’t registering everything that was happening. I have gaps in my memory, but I remember them beginning to cut me open and then end of being closed up. Meghan and Nathan took turns holding my hand and letting me squeeze that crap out of them. I remember a couple of times Nathan had to step out because he felt like he was going to pass out. I realized then the kind of stress he had been feeling and the toll all of this was taking on him. I promised myself that I wouldn’t let him see just how bad this was for me. I mean, he obviously knew that it was bad; but there was no benefit for him, at that time, to know just how bad. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t do to fix it and it would have added more stress on him and I didn’t want that.  I also remember Nathan and Meghan trying to distract me with conversation. At first I tried to respond to them but that didn’t last long. I couldn’t focus on anything other than the pain or I risked letting it overtake me and I couldn’t let that happen. I was so aware of every nerve ending in my abdomen. The pain was deep and burning, yet still on the surface and sharp. It felt as if someone was sawing me open with a hand saw; like the teeth of the blade were ripping into me, over and over and over. It seemed never ending. My doctor and nurse were maxing me out on all of the pain medications that they could but the simple fact was my pain was so out of control and at such a high level that it was just going to take time before enough medication could get into my system and bring it under control. It was a waiting game at that point and I knew that, so I prayed for strength and told myself that every minute that passed brought me closer to relief. At one point the pain became too much and I actually started to lose it and begged Nathan to find someone, I needed something else. I was getting IV Morphine with a PCA pump, oral Percocet, and intramuscular injections of something else (can’t remember) but it wasn’t enough.

After that first 90 min in recovery I started to feel guilty that I hadn’t asked to see Kenzley. I was worried that it looked bad that I hadn’t asked to see my own baby yet. I thought that maybe if they brought her in and I could focus on her then the pain wouldn’t be so all consuming, so the nurse had her brought in. I’ll be honest, I was a little shocked when they handed her to me. I had expected her to have dark hair and look more like Everleigh, but she didn’t, she looked completely different! I held her for a little bit and tried to feel something other than pain, but I just didn’t. I was so glad that she was ok, but I couldn’t feel attached to her. The nursery nurse brought in some formula and started instructing Nathan on how much to feed her, but I said no I want to nurse her. The nursery nurse looked at my nurse surprised and then looked at me and said ok, if you want to try. At first, I couldn’t figure out why she seemed hesitant, but once Kenzley latched I felt a new, intense wave of pain wash over me. Nursing causes the uterus to contract, which is a great thing. However, my pain level was still out of control, and now nursing her was causing my recently hacked open uterus to contract hard. Suddenly her hesitation made sense. Even though it was causing more pain, nursing her seemed to give the pain a purpose and that helped me keep myself in control for a little bit. Shortly after she was done nursing she was taken back to the nursery. Her blood sugar had been a little low so they wanted to keep an eye on her plus they needed to get me ready to transfer from the recovery room to my postpartum room.

My nurse and another nurse came back to clean me up some more. I had begged them to stop cleaning me in the OR but they couldn’t let me go to the floor as covered in blood as I still was. That was the second time that I lost it that night. I had tried so hard to not let Nathan see how much pain I was in, but when they started to clean me I started to scream and cry and beg them to stop. It was the first time that I had let myself really lose it because I couldn’t take it anymore. They tried to be gentle but I justdidn't have anymore control at that moment and I couldn’t take it...I couldn’t stop myself from screaming. I remember being really upset with myself after they were done because I looked up and saw Nathan standing in the doorway and I could see how helpless he felt. All in all, it took about 4 hours until I started having some pain relief. For four hours I felt like I was being sawed open and for four hours I did everything I could to just survive the pain.

The days that followed were hard. My body was in shock after everything. No matter how much water I drank I struggled with dehydration because my body was pushing fluid to my tissues causing a lot of swelling rather than into my cells so I had to receive IV hydration every day. They struggled to keep my heart rate down. It stayed in the 120’s the whole time I was there. I had been intubated in the OR and they weren’t really concerned with being gentle of course, so the muscles in my throat and neck were injured which made talking and swallowing painful. Kenzley was a premie, so she had a hard time latching properly because her mouth was so small which caused some nipple damage.

Kenzley, though, was perfect! She had her cord around her neck and my uterus had contracted and pinned her cord decreasing her blood and oxygen supply. My uterus didn't fully uncontract after that big one and instead kept contracting on top of itself so they had to get her out fast. I am told that from the moment her heart rate dropped to the moment they pulled her out of me was only 8 min. Think of everything that had to happen in that 8 minutes and thats extremely impressive! Once they got her out of me she was perfect; was breathing fine and her apgars were 8 and 9! Everyone in that portion of the hospital had heard what had happened and I felt like everyone in the hospital was rooting for us. Every time Kenzley met or exceeded expectations everyone celebrated with us. When her blood sugar was in the normal range, or when she passed her hearing test on the first try, or when her bilirubin levels kept coming back perfect the nursery nurses were almost as excited as we were. You would never have guessed that she was a premie or that she had almost not survived delivery. She truly was a little miracle!

The weeks and months after her delivery were difficult.  I think that everyone expects you to be so grateful that your baby is ok and in awe of the miracle that happened, and you are, but they often overlook everything else that happened. I had just gone through something extremely traumatic and now I was left to deal with the feelings of everything that happened that night. On the one hand, of course I was so happy and grateful that Kenzley was ok. I have friends who have lost babies at 37, 38, 39 weeks and that could have easily been me, but it wasn’t and I was so thankful. On the other hand, I was so angry. Why did that have to be my birth story? I longed so much to have a normal birth, to be able to experience the excitement of the moment my baby was born with my husband. I had spent 36 weeks dreaming about the moment when I would first lay eyes on her and hold her. I didn’t get to hear Kenzley’s first cry or get to see her when she first came out. I couldn’t even enjoy the first time I held her because I was so overtaken by pain. I didn’t get a birth experience - I got hacked open and my baby got ripped out of me and when it was all over they handed me a baby and I looked at her trying to rectify in my mind that this is the baby that was inside of me.  People think that just because this all happened in a hospital, in a sterile environment with doctors and nurses that it somehow wasn’t as painful or traumatic. I may not have been completely aware of everything that was happening in the OR but the second those medications wore off I was completely aware of every cut and stitch that was made and I felt every single cut for 4 long hours. Your child’s birth is supposed to be a beautiful and happy time, but when I thought back to her birth it was surrounded in fear and pain. And yet I would do it all over again if it meant saving her life. I would go through every single second of it a thousand times if it meant she was ok. I felt so guilty being angry. She was alive; she had been saved so why couldn’t I just focus on that? As hard as I tried, I realized that I couldn’t rationalize my way out of these feelings. Anyone who’s given birth knows how irrational your feelings are after having a baby (thank you hormones!) and right or wrong that’s how I felt, I need to deal with it and work through it. I did a lot of crying that first month; I still cry thinking about that night sometimes, and a lot of talking to my family and friends. Because of the delivery I had, it took me awhile to bond with Kenzley which didn’t help the anger I felt. Once I started bonding with her though, the anger was easier to let go of and I eventually got to a place of peace about what happened. It’s still hard to think back and relive that night, but now when I do I feel overwhelmed with gratitude. I know that not everyone believes in God, but I do. I can look back on that night and see how He orchestrated every minute and I can take comfort in knowing that things happened that night exactly how they were supposed to and if that’s what had to happen to save Kenzley’s life then I am thankful that it did. I cannot imagine life without our sweet Kenzie! She is the sweetest baby and such a joy in our lives. I call her my sunshine because she is always so happy and seems to know exactly when I’m having a bad day and need a smile. I know that her life was saved for a purpose and I am so excited to see what great things are in store for her and I feel beyond blessed that I get to be a part of her story. I love you so much my sweet Kenzie-Boo!!!!