On Friday, March 6th, at 4:27 a.m., my water broke and the long chain-of-events began. I awoke Keith and we packed our bags, called the parents, and went to the hospital. They admitted me and we began walking the halls - fun times for Keith b/c they were out of rolling poles so he carried my IV bag the whole time. I was not progressing very quickly so around 10:30 a.m. they started me on pitocin. I still didn't progress much. My doctor (who happened to be the one on-call at that time) said I should be dilating b/c my contractions were coming very regularly, were increasing, and were peaking off the charts. So, he suggested giving me an epidural bolus (sp?) shot b/c sometimes that relaxes the body enough that it will finally dilate. I agreed to that and they gave it to me at 3:45 p.m. (after one failed attempt at placing it, they got it right the second time). So, by 4 p.m. I was feeling relaxed and basically pain-free. The epidural did the trick. I finally started dilating. So when that one started to wear off, he gave me another bolus to help me stay relaxed to encourage dilation to continue. By the time that one wore off, 8 p.m., another doctor was on-call. At this time I was dilated to b/t 8 and 9 and she didn't want to give me another epidural and take the chance of slowing down the process. Then, at 12:30 a.m., after many hours of insane contractions, a lot of pain, and over 2 hours of pushing (and manually turning the baby b/c she was sunny-side up, and again b/c she flipped herself back up), the doctor finally ordered me a partial bolus to take the edge off to finish dilating me. The doctor came back 45 minutes after I received the shot (it was worn off) and we began pushing again for another hour. Finally, at 2:30 she told me that we were going to have to do an emergency C-section to get the baby out. The baby was caught on my pelvic bone and wasn't going to come on her own, especially not in 2 hours (the amount of time left b/c of my water breaking). I accepted this and we proceeded from there.
They took me back to a C-section room, told Keith to wait outside and he would soon be prepped and brought in, and then they began prepping me. The spinal went too high and I could not breathe. It took me a little while to convince the doctors and nurses of this, but they finally believed the panicked look on my face and began breathing for me with the bag. A few times, the nurse got distracted and forgot to squeeze the bag for me. This is the most scared I've ever felt - at this point I could not move any leg, toe, arm, finger, abs, chest, nothing. All I could do was open my eyes wide with panic and move my head just enough to bump the mask to get his attention and make him start squeezing again. SOOO SCARY!!!! The doctor then told me that they were going to have to put me completely under b/c of the breathing problem. I blinked yes and they did this. Meanwhile outside the room, Keith had been prepped and was suddenly told there had been complications, they were putting me under, he could no longer come in for the procedure, and they would let him know more when she was born.
Skip forward to when I come out of anesthesia, ask about my baby, and cry b/c she's not in there and no one will tell me anything. I am eventually informed that when they made my incision, her left foot was against the uterine wall and they cut her fourth toe. They discovered the cut when they were bathing her and had rushed her off to the NICU. While there they: called in an orthopedic surgeon to look at it; discussed flying her to Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock to have a pediatric orthopedic surgeon do the surgery to repair it; had phone consults with ACH and Memphis; determined they could repair it just as well here; and put four stitches in her toe. Finally, almost two hours after she was born, they brought her to Keith to take her to me to hold. Of course I cried the moment I touched her. My mom captured these first (teary) moments of us three on her camera but I have yet to get the pictures from her.
Here is a picture of me taken at the hospital right before I changed into my hospital attire. I was 38 weeks and 1 day pregnant:
After 23 hours of labor, Layla Scout Westbrook was born by emergency c-section at 3:24 a.m. on Saturday, March 7, 2009. She weighed 7 lbs 9 oz and measured 19.5 inches long. Click on the following picture to view 80 photos taken from the day we were dismissed (3-10-09) through today (4-6-09).
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| Layla Scout |
We can't believe our little darling will be one month old tomorrow - already. This past month has gone so fast! She has been such a blessing to us and we thank God for her daily! Please join us in our prayers that we will be the Godly parents He wants us to be and that we will lead and guide her to follow in His footsteps.
Sorry it has taken me nearly a month to post this, but hopefully all you parents out there can remember bringing home your first newborn and be understanding. Another reason for the delay is b/c I knew that a majority of the people that read this blog also have Facebook and the lady doing my maternity leave had posted several pictures there. Thanks for checking in on us!
