Kayson's Birth Story

I was SO beyond happy when I made it to 37 weeks on July 19th. I was even happier when my doctor took me off of bedrest. It had been a long 4 weeks. I was actually pretty excited about the potential of possibly making it to 40 weeks. Yeah...that didn't happen.

At around 11am Sunday morning, I started feeling cramps. They were different from the contractions that I had been feeling for 4 weeks straight. They were a lot more painful. I was getting them in my stomach and in my back. Nothing I did was stopping them. I wasn't sure if they were signs of labor or not, so I decided to time them and they were lasting about a minute long and they would come every 3-5 minutes. I text my doula and let her know what was going on. She told me to call labor and deliver to see if the maternity nurses thought that I was having contractions. I called up l & d and the nurse told me to try taking a warm bath and drink lots of water and cranberry juice (they thought that maybe a uti was causing the contractions) to see if the contractions would stop. I stayed in the tub for about 15 minutes. Usually, the tub helps ease my pain. Not this time. I was rolling all around that tub. Then, once I got out of the tub, I started throwing up. I would sip some water and then it would come up. It got to a point where I wasn't holding down anything and I was starting to throw up blood. Labor and delivery told me to come on in.

I was in a ton of pain when I got to the hospital. I remember sitting, waiting in the car for Andrew to come back out with the wheelchair. I was about to just walk myself into the labor and delivery unit because I was tired of hurting and they were taking their sweet time. They came out with the wheelchair and the nurse tried talking to me and asking me what hurt. I couldn't really respond well to her and I ended up almost passing out in the parking lot. They somehow managed to get me into the wheelchair and into triage. I got hooked up to a bunch of monitors and from there, things just got back. I kept throwing up over and over. I have no idea how that was happening considering that my stomach was pretty empty and I had only eaten a bowl of grits that morning. I could taste the blood.

The doctors and nurses kept asking me where the pain was coming from and I told them and showed them. Then it got to a point where I would just moan through the pain. I wasn't getting any relief, so I just shut down my mind and stopped responding to the doctors. I do remember the doctor asking Andrew if I was on drugs or if I had taken any drugs that day. (Um....no) The nurses were also asking, "Didn't she respond to pain like this the last time she was here?" Yeah, the last time I was there they gave me medicine that nearly made my heart jump out of my throat. I guess I can kinda relate to what Bella (from Twilight) was going through when she was changing from a human to a vampire. They finally started talking about a c-sections because I was only one centimeter dilated, was having back to back contractions, and in an excruciating amount of pain. They were fearing the worst (like placental abruption). The doctors were telling me that I needed to communicate with the anesthesiologist otherwise they'd put me under and Andrew wouldn't be able to be in the room when Kayson was born. I managed to answer his questions and we got the show on the road.

It was so hard to sit still on the table waiting for the anesthesiologist to do the spinal tap. I was having horrible pain in my stomach and I just wanted to curl up and die. That's how bad it was. One of the nurses let me cuddle against her and I tried not to focus on the pain. The needle to numb my back didn't hurt at all compared to the other pain that I was feeling. The next thing I know the spinal was all done, they had me lay on a table, and they put the blue sheet up. The spinal was AMAZING. (Yeah...I'm not too sure about the whole natural birth thing now...drugs are AWESOME.) I was actually able to joke with the doctors while they were cutting me open. It only took them about five minutes to get Kayson out. It was amazing and surreal to hear his little cry. I didn't get to see him right away, but Andrew got to watch him get weighed and cleaned up. Everything just went by so fast.

Kayson is such a sweet little guy. It made the horrible experience of labor all worth it. He LOVES to eat and cuddle. That's probably my favorite thing about him. He snuggles up to me. The doctors still don't know why I was in so much pain (they didn't find anything wrong with the placenta...and there had to be some reason for me throwing up blood), but they didn't want to chance the little guy's life. I am so grateful for that.

Here are some pictures of the little guy who has stolen my heart.

Kayson Jerome

July 24 @ 3:15pm

7lbs 4oz; 20 1/2 inches long