Kaylee's Collages

As you can see, I have kept myself busy taking pictures and creating collages in photoshop to document these first few months. Hope you all enjoy!

Kaylee's Birth Story

So everyone told me, your baby is unique, you are unique, you will have a birth story that is unique to you. And ours was.

On May 4th, I went to my doctors appointment as scheduled. Kaylee was due on April 27th so I was a little anxious for her arrival thinking it could be any day. The morning of the 4th, as I am getting my blood pressure checked, Caleb tells me that my friend (also pregnant and due mid May), had delivered her son the night before. This of course, gets me really excited. During my check up, the doctor says I haven't dialated and my blood pressure was high. I think that was due to the big news Caleb shared, so the doctor says we would check it again. If it wasnt down, she was going to induce today. Of course with this news, my blood pressure was even higher. She then sent us upstairs to the hospital to be enduced. 

Talk about anticlimactic. I desperately wanted the moment in the middle of the night when I go into labor, wake Caleb up and forget the bags on the way to the hospital. Unfortunatley, it didnt happen that way this time. 

So we headed upstairs to check in to the hospital room. They started me on cytitek to try and jump start labor with the least invasive procedures. I was on this medicine for 4 doses each given 4 hours apart. Caleb went home, got the bags, and called our parents and we settled in for a long day of waiting. 

After I had relaxed and layed down for a while, my blood pressure came back down and the doctor gave us the option of going home and waiting for labor to start naturally. She knew how much I wanted to go into labor when the baby was ready. However, Caleb and I had already come to grips with the idea of not leaving the hospital without our baby. So we pressed on. We walked the halls, used all of our labor techniques to try and get Kaylee to drop into position. After the 16 hours of cytiteck with little progress, the doctor started me on pitocin. We started Pitocin in the middle of the night and the contractions increased dramatically. I had heard from many women that Pitocin increased the pain and they were right. Caleb did an amazing job coaching me through the contractions and we labored for two more hours. The nurses suggested getting the epidural to get my muscles relaxed, once relaxed hopefully Kaylee would drop down. So we opted for the epidural, not originally in my birth plan, and we waited. Early that morning, Dr. Moore comes in to check my progress. In her check, she noticed Kaylee was not only not dropping into position, she wasn't responding. At that time, she recommended a C-section.

Caleb confirmed that this was something we needed to do right away. We gave them the OK and we were rushed into the operating room. Caleb notified the family and was instructed to suit up in a gown. Since I had opted for the epidural, the prep for surgery was that much quicker. I remember being pretty out of it. I am glad that I had read up on what to expect if I had to have a C-Section. I knew they would strap my arms down, strap my legs in (what I later found was cuffs on my leg to keep the blood circulating) and they did. I didnt realize how serious the situation was until a few days later. I remember seeing them lift Kaylee out. She was purple. They said the ambilical cord was wrapped tightly around her neck twice. She would not have been able to come through the birth canal. Looking back, I should have known she was tied up, she is such a mover and a shaker, it would have been natural for her to squirm her way down...

I remember crying with Caleb when they said "It's a girl!". Crying tears of joy :). How fun a little girl would be!! I asked him if she was ok. He reassured me that she was. Little did we know she was not responding as well as the staff would have liked. Her APGAR score was only a 3. Thank God that she quickly bounced back and when tested a few minutes later, she was a 9 (out of 10). Caleb asked if her name was Kaylee Rhea, which we had decided on before hand. I said yes and he went to tell the family eagerly waiting in the waiting room. I remember being so sad that I couldnt see my baby after she was born. They took her to the NICU to observe her for 6 hours. Caleb was allowed in and he took a few pictures. Besides these pictures and a moment to feed her, I was unable to enjoy Kaylee until 8 hours later. They had said 6 hours but she was running late. Who knew a baby could run late? She must get that from her father :).

Once she came in the room to stay with us, we invited our families back to see her. Everyone loved getting to hold her and I have pictures to prove it! Even though our birth story was not ideal, I am so blessed to have a beautiful, healthy,  squirmy baby girl.