Keaton's Birth Story

              

 For all of those who care, here is the detailed story of Keaton's Birth Story. 

               I went to a doctor’s appointment in the morning on Monday (April 16^th) to have a stress test and an ultrasound.  I was a week and a day past my due date (April 6/8) so they needed to double check how everything was going.  Everything looked fine, but my midwife thought it was a good idea that I be induced asap (and I agreed).  The hospital was crazy busy with babies, so they were going to call me when they had an opening, which was not supposed to be before at least 6:30 or 7 that night.  So Tyson called me after school to see if I could come help him with a few things before we had to go.  On my way to the school at 3:30, we get a call from the hospital saying they are ready for us to come anytime.  I told them we’d be there in an hour.  We were kinda freaking out!  So we finished at school (Tys had to finish preparing for a substitute), ran home to grab our stuff and rushed to the hospital. 

               We got there about 4:45, and they started an IV at 5:30 (my very first IV ever!), pitocin at 6, and the midwife broke my water at 6:30.  It had meconium in it, meaning that it was brown b/c Keaton had made his first bowel movement in the womb.  They said it could mean a sign of fetal distress, or just a sign that he really was over ready to come out.  It also meant that we had to have people from the NICU at his labor to get all of the gunk out of his mouth so he didn’t breathe any of it in.  By 11, I had such bad back labor that I decided to get an epidural.  They had to come and give me a second dose b/c I had a huge area that it didn’t cover.  I was also pretty nauseas and went through many little blue barf bags.   When the nurse came to check me at 1:30, I was fully dilated and the baby was at a +2 station.  My midwife was at another birth at the American Fork hospital, so she couldn’t come yet.  They told the nurse to have me ‘labor down’ which basically just meant to see how far the baby would come down on his own during the next hour without pitocin.  It could potentially decrease the amount of pushing.   He came a little further down that hour, but my contractions started to get further apart. 

I started pushing at 2:30…I pushed for about 5 hours.  The problem was, every time I had a contraction, his heart rate would significantly drop.  It would go back up between contractions, but they were monitoring him closely.  They called the OB on call to come look.  They put me back on pitocin since my contractions had now slowed to about 5 minutes apart and it wasn’t giving me a lot of time to push.  They decided I had to get him out quickly b/c his heart rate was starting to drop more with each contraction.  So the OB (Dr. Young) got out the delivery vacuum.  They could see a good few inches of his head.  He had 3 tries to get him out, but it if de-suctioned three times then they would have to do a c-section.  By this time…it was about 6:45am.  My epidural was wearing off, so I could feel every contraction, though my back pain was still gone thank goodness.  I pushed so hard b/c I did not want a c-section.  Fail.  The suction popped off.  If it weren’t for his dropping heart rate, I could have spent several more hours pushing, but they needed to get him out.  Off to the c-section room.

They made Tyson dress in the gown thing, and stand in the back of the room.  I didn’t even realize he was in there, and I remember asking them when I would get to see Tyson.  I’m not really sure why he didn’t get to stand by my side during the prep.  They upped the dosage of my epidural (I was not under general anesthesia). 

Keaton was born at 7:35, weighing 8 lbs 1.6 oz, 20 ¼ inches long.  His APGAR score was a 7 and then a 9.  They pulled him over to the back corner to clean him off, weigh him, etc, and Tys went over to be there for us.  He took lots of pictures, of course :D.  Tyson went back to the room with Keaton while I was getting sewn up.  I was pretty out of it and don’t remember a lot of what happened next other than sleeping.  I was a little sad that we didn’t get to have skin-to-skin time right then, but we did get to have time later. 

He was circumcised on Wednesday morning.  I was too exhausted and in pain to go, but Tyson went. Tyson was able to take him to the nursery with the pediatrician (Dr. Hacking), who cleaned and hacked at his penis (Tys’ vulgar words).

Keaton took to nursing pretty well.  He latched on really quickly.  Unfortunately, he had to leave us after only a few hours after the circumcision and go to the well-baby nursery because his billiruben levels were high causing high-risk jaundice.  He was under the Billy-lights for more than 24 hours.  It was more like 36.  They would only let us take him out about every 3 hours to feed him, and we only got a half an hour.  When you’re nursing, that’s basically no time at all.   We’d feed 10 minutes a side and then supplement with formula.  It was a challenge.  It was also really lonely without him in the room. 

The doctors said that jaundice is a condition where there is a buildup of bad waste in his system. There was a possibility that his kidney weren’t functioning properly which was causing the buildup. He pooped many, many times a day, which was really great b/c that’s how babies get rid of jaundice.  However, what we were really waiting for was for him to pee.  By Thursday he still hadn’t peed, so he had to have a few tests (I wasn’t there for any of this but Tys was). The doctors decided to give him an ultrasound to see if there was anything wrong with his bladder. Before that, however, they called in a nurse to see if they could get him to pee by pushing and massaging his bladder while sticking in a catheter. The catheter didn’t work and the nurse said that she don’t think his bladder was full at all. Things didn’t look promising. Tys and a nurse took him to radiology where he received a simple ultrasound. Tys was able to help by soothing Keaton and they were able to see his bladder. It was full! Everyone was fascinated by the fact that his bladder also had urea crystals (very concentrated pee) in his bladder. They estimated that there as about 45 mL in his bladder which was a lot (baby’s hold about 20-50 mL). We called in another doctor from Radiology for a second opinion who decided to call back for another catheter and see if we could see the catheter go into the bladder using the ultrasound. To make a long story short, the nurse came back with another catheter, stuck it up his penis and in the ultrasound it was shown to be blocked. With a little push and stab they were able to push through a bit of grown tissue and make an opening. Keaton turned into a geyser of pee and let it all go. This was shortly followed by a flow of meconium poo and it took all hands on deck to get the kid cleaned up and back to the nursery without taking out the catheter. They wanted the pediatricians opinion before taking the catheter out, which we did soon under Dr. Hackings orders.

After that, we were just waiting for him to pee on his own.  He did once more on Thursday evening.  He was out of the Billy-lights on Friday morning around 9, and free to go home (we didn’t have to take any lights home—yay!) as long as he peed once more before hand.  They were concerned that the wall might have rebuilt itself or that he might have been dehydrated.  We watched and watched and prayed and prayed, and then at around one pm on Friday (we were hoping to go home around 2) he peed!!!!!!  We were so excited we called the nursery right away and gave them the news.  Of course, we had to walk down and show them the diaper so they could clear that it was a substantial amount, which it was.  I was also cleared to go home the same day.  So after lots of paperwork and drug prescriptions, we got to go home around 4!  We were so excited to finally get to leave. 

Tyson was a trooper.  He took off work the rest of the week and he stayed with me all 4 nights we were there.  He slept in a cot next to my bed.  He would even squeeze into my bed when I needed him for emotional and physical support.  He changed so many diapers.  I didn’t change my first diaper until our second day home. 

My mom, Grandma P, came to help us.  She arrived in UT on Wednesday night, but helped Kalie and Brandon move on Thursday.  She was waiting for us with a clean house and delicious food when we arrived home on Friday afternoon.  She was the biggest help in so many ways, from helping us to start a routine, changing diapers, making food, doing laundry, and most importantly for me, a strong emotional support. 

Keaton had his first doctor’s appointment on Monday, April 23 to double check that his jaundice was still good and that all of his bowel movements were completely regulated.  His jaundice was all completely gone.  He was peeing and pooing completely regularly.  Best of all, he was born at 8 lbs 2 oz, discharged from the hospital at 8 lbs, and at 6 days old he was 8 lbs 6 oz!  That was four oz over his birth weight at less than one week old!  That’s rare, but so great!  He’s doing really well still, and we’re very happy to have him in our family.  We love him!