Tim's Birth Story ~ 17 Months Later

I have been thinking about writing down Tim's birth story for 17 months now, and for some reason just never got around to it.  I'm sad knowing that there are definitely things I have forgotten, but I still want to write what I do remember.

Monday, April 19, 2011 - one of the most beautiful days of my life!


But let's start a few days before that.  Thursday night, I stopped at Jamba Juice for a smoothie.  Chocolate peanut butter in fact.  I drank my smoothie while rocking in the chair.  As I rocked, I thought about how close the time was to rocking my baby boy in my arms in that very chair.  I sat in the nursery often before Tim was born, dreaming of holding him in my arms.  Well, soon after I started rocking, I had to stop because a wave of nausea came over me.  I wasn't sick from the pregnancy anymore, so I didn't know why I was nauseous.  But soon, the sickness started.  I pretty much threw up the whole night, and ended up literally making a bed on the floor in the bathroom.  I was supposed to work at 7 am on Friday, but I thought I would "get it out of my system" before work.  So I never took one of the anti-nausea pills I still had from the beginning of my pregnancy.  I knew it would knock me out and there would be no way of waking up for work.  Around 4:30 or 5, I finally gave in.  I asked Brock to call his brother, Cody (who we could hear was up and getting ready since he lived above us) so they could give me a blessing.  I was so worried about the baby because of how much I had been throwing up.  And let me tell you something, I never want to be 37 weeks pregnant with the flu again!  After getting my blessing, I took what I thought was one of my anti-nausea pills and was out.  Once I woke up, everything was better.  Until I looked at the pill bottle and realized I had taken one of Brock's anti-nausea pills from when he had his brain surgeries.  I was so scared.  That whole day I just waited to feel Tim kick, but I think the medicine made him sleepy too.  That night while taking a bath, I laid so still for probably 20 minutes, and then I felt him moving like normal.  Such a relief!

Over the next few days,  I would wake up with some pains.  Being a first time mom, I didn't know that the pain I was feeling was contractions.  On Sunday morning, I woke up and started having the pains pretty close together - anywhere from three to ten minutes apart.  I called my mom and told her I may be going into labor, but the pain wasn't to severe yet.  So I started cleaning the house and packing my bag.  I was only 37 weeks, and at my appointment six days before, I wasn't dilated or effaced at all.  My doctor told me at that appointment that I should read up on c-sections just in case the baby "didn't fit." That threw me for a loop, but I really didn't worry about it too much.  Back to Sunday - I really didn't think it was time yet, but the pain was definitely there.

Around noon, I decided to take a nap.  Once I woke up, the pain was gone.  I figured it was just my body starting to dilate a little, so it made me happy that I would find out at my appointment on Monday at 3:00 how much progress I had made. Brock left for his shift at work that went from 4 - 11pm that night.

 I cleaned up a little more, and at some point while cleaning, I started having the pains again.  But his time they were hurting a little more.    Luckily we had an exercise ball that really relieved the pain when I sat on it.  I totally will make sure I have one of those handy every pregnancy I have!  By the time Brock got home, the pain was pretty regular, between three to eight minutes in between.  Neither of us really knew what to do because we didn't think that our baby would come three weeks early.

Around midnight, I called the hospital and asked at what point I should come in.  They told me once my contractions were regularly three minutes apart.  So I waited.  Brock went to bed.  I stayed up and packed more into my hospital bag.  I was starting to think that maybe this was it? But I thought I would wait and go to my appointment at 3:00 the next day and find out there.  I definitely didn't want to go to the hospital and be sent home.

I tried to go to bed, but it was getting worse.  So I got in the bath.  And they got worse in the bath.  No one told me before I had Tim that if you take a bath and the contractions get worse, then you are definitely in labor.  Wish I would have known that then!  The bath didn't last very long because of how much it was hurting.  I went in and told Brock that I was hurting pretty bad.  He told me just get in bed and it would go away.  For some reason, probably because we were both in denial, I thought that would work.  So I got in to bed and tried to go to sleep.  That lasted about twenty minutes.  I got up and went and sat on the exercise ball to relieve some of the pain, but at this point I was crying and pretty much hyperventilating through every "contraction," if that's even what it was!  I still really wasn't sure.  I thought contractions would feel much different then they did.

Finally, around 2:00 am, I went in and told Brock that I wanted to go to the hospital just to see where I was at.  I didn't want to admit that I thought I was in labor.  For some reason, I was really embarrassed about not really knowing if I was or not.  Brock really didn't want to go, but as he watched me cry through another contraction, he reluctantly got up.  I can't blame him.  He knows I don't have much of a pain tolerance so I'm sure he thought I just couldn't handle a little pain.  (I'm sure lots of women have been able to labor at home much longer than I did!)  So we packed our bags, grabbed the car seat just in case, and left for the hospital.

There is something so peaceful about being on the roads in the middle of the night.  There were no other cars around, and I'm very grateful for that.  Going over bumps while pregnant and laboring is not so fun!  I was starting to get really nervous, and was really hoping I wasn't going to make a fool of myself for going into Labor and Delivery.  Once we got there, walking into the hospital was really hurting.  We got into the elevator and it was such a mix of nervousness, excitement, and of course, pain.

Once we got checked in, they led us into the L&D room.  The nurse gave me a gown to change into.  I proceeded to apologize in advance because I probably wasn't in labor.  The nurse agreed with me and told me that most first time moms don't know and they send us home multiple times before it's the real thing.  She was actually really snooty when she told me this, so it didn't make my nervousness any better!  I called my mom just to tell her we were there but not to come until I knew if I was staying or not.

Once I was all changed into the loveliness of a hospital gown, the nurse came into check me.  WORST PAIN EVER.  I think I could go labor and delivery with no epidural if I didn't have to get checked.  But.... I was at a 4 and 90 percent effaced!  I couldn't believe it.  But she still didn't know if they were going to keep me.  She hooked me up to the monitors and started to ask me the questions.  Once she got to the pain scale and I told her an "8," she looked surprised and made the comment that they probably won't send me home if I'm in that much pain.  Looking back, I don't really think I was at an 8, but if it keeps me there, I'll say 8 with every baby!  About an hour after the monitoring, she came back in and said I was staying to have a baby!  I couldn't believe it.  I had an instant relief of anxiousness of knowing that I knew my body well enough to know when it was time.  I still don't know why I was so anxious about being sent home.  I called my mom thinking I would be waking her up....again....to tell her that I was going to be having a baby.  It turns out, after my first call, she had the feeling that it was time.  So she got in the shower, got dressed, and waited for the call.  She lived an hour away and wanted to be ready to leave.  It was her first grand baby after all!

The nurse told me to let them know when I needed the epidural.  Once I got to the hospital though, my contractions weren't hurting as bad.  I think taking the guessing game out settled me down enough to be able to breathe better through them.  I did ask for the phentynol though.  This is horrible, but if I was a drug addict, that would be my DOC.  It literally made the room spin.  Pretty fun!  But the pain started to pick up again so I asked for my epidural.  I got it around 8 am.  The epidural worked great the first time, so I was really happy about that.  While I was getting it though, I had my arms around Brock's shoulders.  He looked over my back and went, "Oh my gosh, that needle is huge."  Not the best thing to say to a laboring wife who is TERRIFIED of needles.  Luckily the nurse had given me another dose of the phentynol before my epidural so I was pretty loopy anyway.  But all the nurses laughed when I yelled at him...while laughing myself.

My mom got there and could tell I had my epidural because I was sitting there chilled and relaxed eating a popsicle.  From there, I really don't remember much!  The doctor came in shortly after my epidural to break my water (which Brock watched of course with another "Oh my gosh" inserted somewhere in there).  After that, I progressed to a 5.  After a few hours and no progress, I was given pitocin.  That must have been around 2 pm because at 3 pm, I was at a 10.  Because he was my first baby, the doctor had me wait an hour for the baby to descend on his own.  I'm glad she did this because when I started to push around 3:45, I didn't have too much work to do!  I pushed through one contraction and the nurse went and called the doctor.  I heard something about a vacum and thought "Let me try more than one push!"  It never occured to me that something may be going wrong with the baby, but my mom told me later that the look on the nurses face was kind of panicked.  It turns out, Tim's heart rate went extremely low while I pushed.  The nurse turned me onto my side and gave put the oxygen mask on me.  I still didn't know anything was wrong, and I was glad she turned me anyway because I was having EXTREME pain in my lower back.  My epidural was working great, but I could feel that pain and it was horrible.  I have a really bad tailbone, so it doesn't surprise me that it hurt so bad.  Anyway, I pushed through a few more contractions until I was ready for the doctor to come in.

Once all the birthing stuff came out - the trays, the incubator, the lights, I got a major rush of adrenalin.  No one prepared me for teeth chattering like that, but it was pretty funny.  I was so excited to meet him, and I couldn't believe the time was almost here!  I had set my camera settings so my mom could take pictures.  Brock just stood watching with a lot of anxiousness.  He was in his own world, but so excited to meet his boy.  I pushed a few more times, and he was here!

Nothing in this world can compare to the first moments of becoming a mother, meeting a child, and holding him in my arms.  It was the most amazing feeling, and one that I can't wait to experience again.  The nurse (who I hated because of her onion breath and insistence that I was a bad mom because I didn't want to give my brand new infant a Hepatitis vaccine), took him and cleaned him.  She proceeded to cut him in the face (after she had hit me in the head) with some surgical scissors.  Anyway, she cleaned him off while brand new Grandma took some more great pictures.  And then he was brought back to me to nurse.

That whole day was just a whirlwind.  Watching him get his first bath once we were in recovery and knowing that he was MY SON.  I just couldn't believe it.  Holding him and touching his little red hair head.  I loved him more than I even knew was possible!

They took him to the nursery for whatever reason they needed to, but when they brought him back, they said that they had to give him 6 ounces of formula because his blood sugar was so low.  I was SO MAD.  No only did I not want him to have any formula, but I was so upset at how much they gave him.  Giving him 6 ounces of formula when his little stomach is the size of TWO TABLESPOONS doesn't fix the problem of low blood sugar - it just masks it for a while.  So OBVIOUSLY he was up spitting up the whole night.  And his blood sugar was still low.  I had to keep track of it the whole time were there, but luckily he never got low enough to have to go to the NICU.

As I sat holding him that night and saying my first prayer with him, the spirit was so strong.  I was so grateful to my Heavenly Father for trusting me with this little baby.  I still couldn't believe he was mine.

I love my Timothy Willis.  My life has been blessed since he came into it.  Brock's life has been blessed.  He is the perfect father to our little boy.  I love our little family, and Tim makes us whole.  I will never forget the moment he came into our lives and changed us forever for the better.

Pictures from the hospital