Kyce's Birth

On Wednesday, I blogged about the calm before the storm in the morning. Little did I know then just how turbulant and exuberant our lives were about to come. The rollercoaster of life's ups and downs was nearing a huge mountain.

I felt incredible anxiety waking up with sick girls knowing that we might have been exposed to H1N1 and I was nearing the end of my pregnancy with a doctor planned c-section in order to avoid the chance of a ruptured uterine wall.

After many prayers and finally feeling peaceful and calm I took the girls to the doctor where he put into words, "I wouldn't normally treat your family, however with a birth of a baby a week a way, we are going to overkill this one and just be safe." I got a prescription from my ob/gyn for tamiflu and the girls each got one also.

In the stress of the moment worrying about my sick little peanuts and my little peanut on the way I started seeking out the girls' tamiflu, which most pharmacies seemed to be out of due to a back order. After hours we found a Walgreens that would have it ready in a couple of hours.

While sitting at the doctor's office I could feel the stress building and I started contracting pretty strongly, which has happened off and on throughout all of my pregnancies. I find once I relax, drink a ton of water and just lay down, they usually go away. However when we got home I did the normal steps and found that the contractions were getting closer together and very strong throughout my back and not just the normal tightening.
So after some tears and fighting with my stubborn self that kept saying, "I am not going to have this baby before 36 weeks." I asked Benjy what he thought I should do and he asked me, "Are you afraid of dying?" My response was, "No, but I am afraid to lose this little one." He said, "There you go, there is your answer, if you rupture, he doesn't have a chance." That was enough to get me to make the trip to the dreaded labor and deliver, in hopes that they would buy us both at least another week to the scheduled c-section.

Upon arriving, they put me into a back room with a mask (noted in the computer, H1N1 exposure) and hooked me up to the monitors and saw that the contractions taking place were very regular, about every 5 minutes, my blood pressures were coming in at 190/88-90, the babies heart rate took a big long dip and so they kept telling me for two hours...we are going to test this and that and hook you up to an IV in hopes to slow the contractions and buy you some more time. They didn't want to give me a shot of turbutaline to stop it because they didn't like the way my contrations were coming down. (words that were told to me 5 years ago with Karsyn) Benjy stayed with the girls, because who were we going to ask to subject themselves to possible exposure to H1N1, plus Benjy was waiting to be able to go the drive-thru with sick kiddos at Walgreens to get their tamiflu. We didn't want to subject anyone else to this unless absolutely necessary.
I kept asking them for 2 hours, "Should I call my husband?" They kept reassuring me that they were just watching me to see what would happend and that they would let me know.

All of the sudden, in what seems like a blur right now, the doctor came in and informed me that he didn't like the way things were looking and that we couldn't let this go any longer and that we were going to do a c-section. I was invisioning myself getting up and walking out and saying, "Nope, I'll see you next week because I AM NOT HAVING THIS BABY BEFORE 36 WEEKS!" However... I thought, "If I walk out of this hospital and I rupture, I would never forgive myself." So I said, "okay, when? I will call my husband." He said, "NOW. We are doing the c-section now." In walks an anesthesiologist, a nurse anesthetist, someone with a lot of papers, a couple of nurses and someone to draw more blood. As I am on the phone calling Benjy telling him, "you have to get here now," the nurse says, "we can't wait for him, do you have a camera, I can take pictures, we are here for you."

AHHHHHH .... slow down, way too fast. I am not having this baby without my husband here...

So Benjy thought I was kind of kidding and wasn't really sensing the panic in my voice until I hung up on him so that they could start prepping me to leave for the surgery.

Thank goodness, thank goodness for friends like JoDell and others who willingly told us to call, no matter what! Benjy called her and she ran out the door maybe in her slippers and was at our house within minutes because her mom, Judy, was already there to keep her children. She gave Benjy some quick tips on how to get here fast and how to park and RUN... (which I still get teary eyed to think that JoDell herself has a 2 year old with asthma and a 4 month old baby to worry about getting H1N1 and yet she came without hesitation)

The whole team waited about 5 minutes and said," we have to move for the sake of this baby, when your husband gets here, we will bring him in."
As they finished giving me the spinal tap, in walked Benjy and instantly I knew everything would be okay!

He grabbed my shaking hand, kissed me and said, "I love you and don't worry...it is going to be okay." Now...after what seemed like forever... out came baby Kyce at a whopping 6 pounds 8.6 ounces and screaming his head off, just like his sisters.

Benjy said, "no gorey pictures." I think these are beautiful.

A little of Kaydree, a little of Karsyn and a whole lot of hair!

Just as I felt a sigh of relief that he looked and sounded good, they told me that he would still be an automatic admittance into the level 2 nursery because he was shy of 36 weeks by 2 days and that coupled with the possible exposure to H1N1 in our house. Little did I know that my world was about to come crashing down...more to come. (Don't worry everything is a-okay now.)