The Arrival

I thought I should probably do a post about the exciting arrival of little Cameron. This experience was so drastically different than Addy's delivery, Brian and I couldn't believe it. Wednesday started with me having a scheduled visit with my doctor that included an ultrasound, a non-stress test to monitor Cameron and an exam. Everything came out perfectly, no red flags, no signs of labor, nothing. I'll admit I was disappointed, I was so ready to have this baby. My doctor mentioned that if nothing happened in the next 5 days that I was on the schedule for Monday to come in again. I told her that I really didn't think I could make it to Monday and that I just wanted to have this baby now. She talked me through my options and said that she was on call that day so they could call the labor and delivery dept and see if they had any beds available. We were told that they did and we would get a call in the next 2 hours to come in. Brian and I talked through it and decided to go for it, we were going to go have a baby that day! We were checked into the hospital by 2:00 and I was hooked up and ready to start the pitocin to get the labor going. Everything was going perfectly, I started contractions, I got an epidural, they broke my water and the nurse joked that we would have the baby in time to order dinner before the cafeteria closed at 7:30. All signs pointed to a 12/12/12 baby! Then just before 7:00 pm the nurse helped turn me from one side to the other and suddenly within 1 minute there were 5 other people in the room. I had no idea what was going on, other than it couldn't be good. I instantly started crying and they tried to reassure me everything was fine, but I could tell they weren't 100% confident. Finally, a few minutes later they all seemed slightly more relaxed and explained to me that Cameron had experienced an extremely sharp decline in heart rate, it was so fast and so sharp they couldn't find the heart rate for several minutes. They gave me a shot to stop the contractions because they needed to make sure he had recovered fully and could handle them again. So the next few hours we just waited and they monitored Cameron. Thankfully everything was looking great and then my body started contractions on it's own. He and I were both ready to start the process again! The contractions continued, although slowly, but everything was fine. In the next few hours there were 2 more significant declines in his heart rate, but not as drastic or severe as the first one. Finally, shortly after 1:00 am they were ready to have me push, when he finally arrived his cord was wrapped tightly around his neck and he was all blue and purple. I have never been so scared in my life. They put him on me and I honestly didn't think he was alive. They pulled him away and I watched as two nurses rubbed and rubbed him to try and get a response. Finally, after the longest 2 minutes of my life, I heard a loud scream, it was the best sound I've ever heard. Cameron was fine, although still purple with white hands and feet, but fine. He was so adorable and Brian and I were so relieved that everything was ok. It wasn't until they were moving us to the recovery room that the nurse admitted that Cameron had given everyone on staff a lot of gray hairs and I was very close to needing an emergency c-section. She reassured me that coming in early still was the right decision because the cord would have been wrapped around him either way. That was also a relief to hear and Cameron recovered so quickly that they even let us out of the hospital earlier than the recommended 48 hours. All of the doctors have assured us that he is completely healthy and has no side effects from the stressful delivery. We are so thrilled and proud of our little man.