Caleb's Birth Story

Baby #3 Birth Story

"You guys are sure lucky!" I think we heard that phrase yesterday about 10 times- from the doctor, the anesthesiologist, the surgeon assistant, the nurses, as we prepared for the emergency c-section. But I don't believe in luck. I believe in the hand of God in my life.

Friday night Michael and I enjoyed a wonderful dinner date with our cousins for our night out and we ate good food, laughed, and had a great time. I had been contracting on and off at night for several weeks now, but when we got home there was some discharge. Not a lot, but a little, and I felt more cramp-y than usual. I thought I had just lost my mucus plug and it might be the beginning of a long night of contractions, which may or may not be real labor, so I decided to lay down and get some rest.

Around midnight Michael C. Brinkerhoff tells me our last mama goat had triplets but he was worried about one of them staying warm, and could I help wash them off. Well I wasn't really sleeping anyway so I was grateful for the distraction, and the quiet time to ponder on the miracle of birth. We spent most the night out in the barn warming up the babies and trying to get them to suck. The contractions were getting more intense as well, so I started to think either way I wanted to go in and have them check dilation.

At 8:30am after the kids were up and settled into their morning routine, I decided to head in to the hospital, feeling confident I knew exactly what I was heading into. Ha! I asked Michael to stay home with the kids because I figured even if it was real labor I'd be in the hospital for hours and if it wasn't I'd just come home. So off I went by myself to the hospital.

Because it's the weekend, almost all of the staff had to be called in, including the doctor. My doctor- Dr. Nolte, was NOT on call this weekend, so I waited for Dr. Williams to come take care of me. He delivered Levi and I really like him so I was fine with that. After having about 4 hours of IV antibiotics, he came in about 2:15pm to check baby's presentation, and my progression. They had tested my fluids to confirm that it was amniotic, which meant we were gong to have a baby today, whether I wanted to or not!

As soon as Dr. Williams reached in to check my cervix, he immediately stopped and said, "Wait a minute. That's not a head, that's a hand or a foot kicking me. Let's do an ultrasound."

Then everything stopped while everyone got the ultrasound machine in the room. As soon as Dr. Williams looked at the screen and said, "Yup, that's a foot. And not just one foot, two feet. Your baby is standing up. Double footling breach. We're going to have to do a c-section."

Double footling breach. That's what his position was called. It means he was standing up in the womb with his hands above his head. How did he get there? Why did he move into that position when he was head down just a few days ago? Who knows. But this is when the "lucky" business started happening.

I should tell you I have always hoped to never have to have a c-section, so to go from not knowing if I was in false labor (I'm 37 weeks today) to suddenly having to do an emergency c-section was a little jolting. I think that he sensed my concern so he helped me to understand how lucky we were to catch this situation when we did and that the baby was still alive. In most cases of double footling breach, the cord prolapses (comes out first) and then it's a matter of MINUTES to be able to deliver the baby before it dies. There's a very high mortality rate with a prolapsed cord (up to 20%)and vaginal delivery is also very very risky.

If my water had broken completely (not just leaking) then it would have been VERY likely that we would have lost the baby. Even at that he said our situation was rather urgent so he was going to prep me for a c -section right away in case my water did break.

Again, luckily, the entire operating team was there and prepped and ready because they had just finished another surgery- another miracle for a Saturday. Within 10 minutes I was dressed for surgery and being wheeled back into the operating room. The spinal tap was a little miserable- lots of pokes to get things numb. I felt nauseous the whole surgery and gagged a lot. But within about 5 minutes, I heard a little coughing noise- a baby! A baby. He was here

It was impressed on my mind at that moment that even though this route was totally unexpected, I had been prepared, and extremely blessed for the situation. Even with our goats- I had just witnessed the emergency c-section of our mama goat a few days ago, so felt more calm knowing what was going on. We were blessed that the operating team and anesthesiologist were all here and ready to go at the same time. We were blessed that my water didn't break entirely. We were blessed that we didn't lose our baby.

And even though I've never wanted a c-section, having one meant that I would have a live baby- and not the other tragedy that it easily could have been. I came into the hospital when I could have easily decided to stay home longer because the contractions weren't consistent.Tender mercies.

So now I'm going to have a bit of a longer recovery. But I have a baby boy. A precious child that is alive and is mine to raise. So who cares about the recovery or the scar. I am a mother of a new son- the greatest blessing of all. Happy birthday baby boy.

(And no, we still don't have a name