LIAM'S BIRTH STORY

Monday, May 11, 2015  Michael, my mom and I were headed out the door for my final doctors appointment at 9:30 a.m. Just before walking out the door with my mom and Michael, I all of a sudden felt a rush of water and yelled, "I just peed".  Well once I realized it was not pee because I could not control what was going on I yelled to them that my water had broke. At first Michael and my mom thought I was joking because I was always running to the bathroom, but this time it was not a potty run.  So we hopped into the car and called labor and delivery . They told us to continue on to our appointment instead of going straight to labor and delivery. We thought that was strange, but went to the appointment anyways. Once there my nurse finally called my name back.  When I got to her I told her I was pretty sure my water had broke at home just before coming. The nurse looked a little shocked and was not very sure what to do. As we were walking back to the room my water leaked again and my nurse was kinda  freaking out at this point, so she hurried and got the doctor. My doctor took one look at me and said why on earth are you here!  You need to get to labor and delivery. I told her we agreed, but that they wanted us to go to her first. She said she had no idea why they would do that and that I needed to go over there right now. Luckily they are on the same campus so its not like we had to drive far or anything. so my doctor called Labor and Delivery to let them know I was on my way over. Once there they checked me to make sure it was my water that had broke. Which of course, it had... I was then taken to a delivery room where they put me on PIT to get the contractions going so I could get dilating.   here are pictures of our delivery room

While waiting for the contractions to pick up we had some down time(about 6 hours). So I went for some walks. Let me tell you those walks must have done something because shortly after my walk I was screaming for and epidural. here are the pictures before the epidural

This contraction was about the last one I experienced before they put the epidural in.

waiting for the anesthesiologist to come put the epidural in.

Once the epidural was in the waiting game began.  Which by the way I was so terrified to get an epidural!! like months before I was prepping myself for this moment.  Crazy thing though, the IV hurt more than the epidural.  I didn't even cry when the anesthesiologist  put the epidural in.  I cried like a baby when the phlebotomist put the IV in though. We waited 16 hours until I was fully dilated and effaced. Here are some pictures while we waited.

Sometimes the babies heart rate would dip down and the nurses would come running in to have me change my position.  This is because as the baby is moving down the birthing canal he can pinch off connection with the umbilical cord. Liam liked me on my right side the most, so my right leg/foot got the most numb  and the chubbiest from all the epidural fluid. Picture of my swollen foot!!!

I was so tired the whole time(which you can totally tell in all these pictures).  I literally slept for the whole 16 hours.  Granted most of the wait was during the middle of the night. My mom, Michael and Sherrie were the three people that stayed in the room with me that night, but the next morning Sherrie had to leave at 8 to catch her plane to Europe. She missed the birth by 5 hours.  We were all sad, but they had this tripped planned way before Liam was even thought of, so it was just bad timing all around.  My dad even missed his birth by 2 days because he came and dropped my mom off and  then had to go back to work once the weekend was over. .......... Throughout the time I was there I had different nurses and different doctors/midwifes who were taking care of me(at Kaiser Permanente the doctors and midwifes have to  take shifts so unless you are being induced you are never sure if you will get your doctor you have been visiting with, which didn't bug me at all). I was never really sure what doctor was going to deliver my baby. Which to some people I could see how annoying that would be,  but honestly it did not bug me one bit. So to my surprise the next morning my Doctor(Kathy Wood) came walking in. I was so happy to see her. She told me she was secretly happy to see I had not yet had the baby  because she wanted to do the delivery. She was pretty sure I would be having the baby while she was on shift,  so she checked to see how far I had dilated.  I had dilated to 7.5cm and 100% effaced. She then seemed very confident she would be delivering this baby. I was so excited.  What were the odds of that.  At about 9:30 a.m. I started to get the urges to push. So the nurse came in and we began to push for the next 3 and a half hours. Throughout those 3 and a half hours my doctor would come in to check how far he had come down. Lets just say I have a stubborn little boy.  He was not wanting to come down. The nurses and my doctor kept telling me I was an amazing pusher and very determined to give good pushes every time, but that my baby was just not wanting to budge.  they also said it is normal to be pushing for 2 hours and the baby should come shortly after, but not in my case... So after the 3 and a half hours of pushing hard and needing to be on oxygen, my doctor came in to see if she could really get things started so that I did not have to end up going in for a c-section. She talked to us about using forceps or the vacuum to help assist in getting him out vaginally. The policy at this hospital is that you have to use one or the other you cant try to use both. Which I totally understand because that could be very traumatizing for the baby. She told us that she liked the forceps more because she had more control and a higher success rate of getting the baby out with the forceps. So the forceps is what we decided to go with. Once we decided, they had to announce to the staff what the plan was. And the next thing we new we had 8-9 doctors/nurses in the room ready to go if I had to be taken in for an emergency c-section and of course to help the baby once he got out. I was so scared when the doctor started to go in with the forceps.  For one I was worried about my poor babies head and two I was worried it was not going to work and then I would be rushed in for a c-section. After a few minutes of my doctor trying and trying to get ahold of his head, she gave up. This is when me, Michael and my mom broke down  and cried because we new that meant a c-section was going to happen. But then the nurse next to her asked if she wanted to try the vacuum now.   My doctor paused for a second and then said "well I didn't actually grab his head with the forceps,  so I guess we can try the vacuum.  Oh my gosh I could not believe what I was hearing.  I for sure did not see it going that way. I new in that moment my prayers were being answered.  But I did not want to get my hopes up to high  because we still had to get the  baby to crown, so I just kept praying. The doctor got the vacuum on and ready to go, so once I had a contraction she would start pulling and I would push.  I also began praying like crazy that the baby would come out and that I would not have to have a c-section because I new I would not be able to handle it if I did. After a lot of pushing and I mean pushing like I was going to die if I did not push as hard as I could, my doctor finally said he was starting to crown!  So I upped my game and pushed even harder, so hard that I almost passed out a few times, but wouldn't let myself because I did not want that c-section to happen! Here are some pictures of the pushing and Liam being pulled out. (don't worry there is only a little blood shown.)

If you look really close at my forehead you can see all my blood vessels ready to explode!  

You can see really well in this picture how bad his head was from the vacuum.

  I felt so bad for the poor guy. He had bruises all over his head.

No worries he is all normal now, but for a little bit it was a little scary haha

At 1:33 p.m. on Tuesday May, 12th Liam Michael Nelson was born. Things didn't go quite as planned and they had to rush and try to get Liam to breath. It was a good 4 minutes before they could get him  to breath on his own(they had to put an oxygen mask on him) and get all the fluid out of his lungs.   Michael stayed by my side as we cried and waited for our baby to breath and be put on my chest.  We cried and we cried even harder. We mostly cried because we could not believe he was here and we just wanted to hold him in our arms, but also because we were nervous and hopped everything was going to be okay, which the doctors did not seem frantic, so I had some piece of mind that everything was going to be okay.

In this picture you can see a red spot on the back of his head from where the vacuum was.

After about 15min. of them working on him and getting him cleaned up, they finally put my baby on my chest and we could not stop staring at our beautiful baby!

Once the doctor got me all fixed up(she accidentally cut me with the forceps, so I needed a few stitches, luckily it was only skin deep not muscle deep) we were moved to the upstairs rooms where  we would stay the next 2 nights. Which thinking about it I do not remember much of what happened right after giving birth. The only thing I do remember next is them moving us upstairs.