Xavier's Birth Story - Very Long

So since the last time I posted about our little boy he was in his Momma's tummy waiting his arrival. The last few months have been very stressful.

On December 29th I went into labor and after 4 hours of monitoring and them deciding that it was labor at 35weeks and 6 days they stopped my labor at 11.45 pm because I wasn't 36 weeks yet. I know they could have given me 15 minutes and everything would have changed.

My due date came and went with another bout of labor which was 36 hours of contractions 2-3 minutes apart that did nothing and at my 42 week appointment we said enough is enough.

My heart rate was elevated as well as the babies so the midwife gave us cotton root bark to take. Yes I had a midwife and was planning a natural home birth. I hate doctors with good reason and I'll tell you why another post. We went home and researched the cotton root bark as one thing the midwife had said had scared the living daylights out of us. She told us that this herb is what the slaves used to take to cause abortions. WOW, I have a beautiful baby inside and this is the herb they give me. Fear over took me!

Feb 11 2010
The next morning we called her and asked to go to L&D instead. At this point I was big and uncomfortable, see above! We went to L&D and the first thing they do is a NST where they hooked me up and monitored Xavier's heartbeat and movements and then did a BPP ultrasound as they were worried that he wasn't moving like he should. In that ultrasound they also put him at 10lb 13oz.

The atmosphere changed after that, instead of the nurses being excited and enthusiastic they started telling me, your plans are going to have to change and then I met the Dr.

This Dr. told me that I was carrying a very big baby and after all we had guessed that from day 1 as DH and his siblings were all above 9lbs, his brother was actually longer than the incubator when he was born and is 6'5" today. So our response was okay, the ultrasound can be off as much as 1 to 2 lbs and the Dr agreed but as in the baby could be 13 lbs and not 9. The next words out of the Dr.s mouth stunned and shocked us.

"you have to have a c-section otherwise best case scenario your baby is brain dead, more likely scenario your baby will die"

He left us for a couple of minutes to make our decision in which time a nurse came in and re-emphasized the Dr's sentiments with the added comments of well if you want to be good parents and care about your baby you'll do as the Dr says.


So after a few minutes we signed the consent forms and they took us to a delivery room where they took blood and had Jamie suit up for being in the OR. I will be honest it was all a blur, I had just been told to do whatever they say or I would be responsible for killing my baby(one nurse told us that not consenting is tantamount to child neglect and CPS could be called). Within two hours my MIL was there, 2 elders from the church had come and given me a blessing and I was walking to the OR.

I was still crying, I felt responsible for what they were saying and felt that I could have killed my own baby. I was raw and emotional. It didn't make it easier that I was yelled at for flinching when they tried to do the spinal. It hurt!

Fast forward to 15.49 and Xavier was born, I heard a Dr. saying 'Its a toddler' and to be honest it was the first chuckle I had all day and then I heard him screaming, he had a set of lungs on him. They called Jamie over to look and 'trim' the cord, but at the same time I could hear them saying he's not breathing right, heck he's too busy screaming to breath I was thinking.

A few minutes later the NP came over and showed me my son for a moment and said he has to go to NICU, I sent Jamie with him. Then the wait began, they stapled me back together and moved me back to the room where my MIL was waiting, she had seen her grandson briefly as they had gone past but she had definitely heard him. It couldn't be that bad with the way he screamed could it?

I got prodded and poked and my Blood Pressure taken and I kept asking when I could hold my baby, the new nurse I got was really nice and called the NICU and had them move things so they could wheel me in the bed so I could see him. I was so focused on moving my feet as they had told me I had to move my feet to get to see him.

They wheeled me in and there he was on a little bed with a diaper under a clear space helmet. The NP explained that as he was born he had swallowed excessive amounts of fluid and even aggressive pumping hadn't worked yet. They were diagnosing him with asphyxia pneumonia.
He was on nutritional IV's and continual oxygen as the x-rays had shown a lot of fluid. They were also putting him on antibiotics to prevent possible infections. He looked so delicate and I was afraid to touch him even though they said I could. To be honest it was in my mind that this was my fault, after all I had chosen a home birth and was being told how bad a decision that was and how he would have died in birth if I had even considered trying it. Maybe this was the start of me being a bad mother. One of the nurses grabbed my hand and tried to make me touch my son, but I was scared I would hurt him.

I asked to leave the NICU, later my DH confessed he thought for a few moments I was rejecting my son and that the nursery nurses were scared of the same. I was then moved to another floor for recovery and I could hear all these babies crying, why did they get their baby and I couldn't have mine, what had I done that was so wrong? I focused on my feet and within 3 hours I walked to the wheelchair and had DH wheel me back to my son. I touched him and stroked his feet and back. All the tubes still scared me terribly. I visited every 2 hours waiting for some news of improvement.

The next day DH had to go back to work so we went before he left and the goal was that Xavier would be off the air hood that day. I specifically told them I needed to know straight away as I was told I could hold him at that point. I had to go back to the other floor for breakfast and rounds. The NICU nurse also told me to attend the CPR class in an hour as he had breathing issues and they would rather I was prepared.

The Dr came around, a different one than the day before and spent 5 minutes on his cell phone before asking me my pain level, which I told him the pain pills I had had earlier were doing there job. He didnt check my incision or anything or know I was on a liquid diet, he just said I can discharge you. Here I am less than 18 hours from surgery and he didn't check anything! I was furious. I went to my CPR class and came back. The nurse had told me she would check on me at 12 and give me more pain meds so I waited, by 11 I was hurting but I thought I can hold out an hour so I dont disturb them, by 1 I was hurting so bad I couldn't get out of bed and reach the call button, by 2 I was in tears and my MIL came in. She saw the pain I was in and grabbed a nurse ripping them a few new sets of holes, not only for the pain but the other fact that I had been told at 8am they were going to get me more water and they hadn't yet. After I was medicated and my MIL had had her say we asked to check on Xavier and were told he had been off his hood for almost 4 hours, I was fuming because I had asked to be told asap as I was told I could hold him at this point. My MIL wheeled me down to NICU where I asked to hold my son and was told NO, I explained what the NP had told me and a smart mouthed nurse said well I guess I will just put him back in the hood then. Another set of complaints, to which I got asked to let them do a couple of quick tests to check him first. At 8pm I got a call from the NICU asking if I wanted to give my son a bath, he was just over 28 hours old and I got to hold him for the first time. The next morning I asked again when I could feed my son as we wanted to breastfeed and was told that I could start that afternoon but if his blood sugar dipped they would start formula feeding him. I stood my ground and 2 days after my son was born I was holding him and feeding him in the nursery. The picture above is with him being 3 days old, as you can see no hood but still with an IV in his hand. Over the next 24 hours they weaned him off the IV nutrition checking his blood sugar hourly with me nursing and they was no need for him to be formula fed. We had some issues with nurses being mean to me even in front of DH and to be honest a horrible experience. At 9.30 am Sunday morning he was discharged and brought to my room and at 11am I was asked if I wanted to go home or have one more day...very quickly I asked to go home. We were all home safe and sound by 2pm that afternoon and that's when motherhood began.