Knox | A Birth Story

This past week has been a whirlwind. Baby Matthew Knox has officially joined our family and we couldn’t feel more complete. His birth story starts last Tuesday night, Oct 8th. I headed to work, 39 weeks pregnant and fully hoping that the evening would be busy with lots of walking to help kickstart some labor. For those who don’t know, I am a part time ICU nurse. I had what appeared to be one of the lower acuity assignment but as with any ICU patients, they are unpredictable and my night got busy. With the help of my co workers we had settled the acute situation going on and I was working on catching up on my charting when I heard a pop and felt the much anticipated “breaking of water”. I had been having what I thought were Braxton Hicks contractions for weeks and for a slight moment thought in the midst of the action over the last couple hours, “I think I might be having regular frequent contractions?” Not being sure and with a lot of work at hand, I brushed it off and continued working.

When my water broke, it was 3am Oct 9th. I quickly changed gears and wanted to head to triage (at the same hospital I work). I called and woke my husband, worked on a childcare plan for our twin toddlers at home and was wheeled over to triage.

After my water broke, the contraction intensity picked up big time. I let my nurse know I was ready for an epidural. This is actually encouraged when doing a VBAC in case my delivery needs to change to an emergent c-section. A VBAC means attempting vaginal birth after previously having a c-section. The biggest concern with this is uterine rupture. Initially the epidural dropped my blood pressure a little too much so they backed off on the amount, I still felt contractions it just took the edge off. In a way, retrospect, I kind of liked having to “labor” and work through contractions instead of being pain free the whole time.

Over the next several hours of labor I really leaned on my support team in the room. My husband held my hand or rubbed my back from the beginning to the end. My best friend Emily served as my doula and never missed a contraction to calmly and quietly remind me to relax my muscles and breathe through it. My other bestie Michaela documented the day and kept me encouraged throughout the labor and pushing. Around 430pm they checked me and I was fully dilated and effaced. Baby was still higher up than desired which just meant to plan for lots of pushing. However, to everyones surprise, especially my midwife, we started pushing and about one hour later, Baby Knox was here in all his 8.6 pounds and 22 inches of glory.

To be transparent, my first delivery had major complications and in a way left me with a bit of “PTSD” (read Hattie and Hazels birth story here.) When baby Knox was placed on my chest I quickly took note that he was breathing (crying), rooting and was a beautiful pink bundle of goodness. So my attention switched back to watching my midwife and asking a few times; “Am I ok?” “Am I hemorrhaging?” She reassured me I wasn’t and everything looked good, but I still needed to hear that more than once. Eventually I relaxed and realized, I am indeed ok. Baby is ok. We are ok.

This experience couldn’t be more opposite of my first delivery, although I don’t think its fair to compare the experiences. There are a lot of uncomfortable parts to healing after a vaginal birth, but it has been quicker and more tolerable than recovering from my c-section. (Plus, one baby verses two- that is a game changer.) So far for us, the toddler twins are still the more challenging part of parenting than adding a newborn into the mix. I loved each and every health care worker we had on our team over our couple days at the hospital and really felt like they were destined to be a part of our story.

We are home now and adjusting to life as a family of five. The twins initially were not interested or fond of the idea of this “baby” that is requiring mom and dads attention. We are still working on this balance but the girls are starting to warm up to their new baby brother. They wake up asking “where’s the baby?” and like to help say “shh shh shh” when baby brother is crying. Hazel likes to help place his pacifier and Hattie, well she is still keeping a distance but at least is acknowledging his existence. And Ryan, he couldn’t be more smitten with having a son. I don’t think he even knows how transparent it is. He has been the best partner, support and father to our children through this process. He has had to take on the energy of our girls all day while I heal and breastfeed and refuses to sleep through the night if I have to be up too, being on diaper duty, grabbing me water or whatever need he sees.

I know all too well how quickly this newborn stage will be over and his birth story will start to feel like a hazy memory. This is why I love this space. Documenting the pieces I don’t want to lose. The days are long but the years are short and I don’t want to take for granted this sweet time in our family. As the song linked to the page says;

“Let’s not forget these early days

Remember we begin the same

We lose our way in fear and pain

Oh Joy Begin.”

h + h | A Birth Story

The twins were coming. After a night in the hospital for monitoring due to pre-eclampsia, the doctors agreed it was time to deliver. My surgeon thought I was a "ticking time bomb". The symptom that didn't settle right with anyone was my overall feeling of "just not feeling good". Now being a nurse, this is very unhelpful and I knew that but there was no other way to explain it. This along with my borderline elevated blood pressure, lab work heading in the wrong direction and the minor headache all concerned my doctor enough and with approval from the neonatal docs, the C-section was put in the books for later that morning. This date would make the babies 36 weeks and 5 days old. Life had gotten very uncomfortable so I was relieved to hear I would be finally meeting my girls.

What is it they say about healthcare workers being patients? I don't know if there's an exact phrase but I would sum it up with; if there's a chance; it is probably going to happen. What I mean by that is pre-op and post-op could have gone better, but in retrospect they also could have been much, much worse. As a nurse in the cardiac field, OB is a foreign species to me. I had general understanding and a brain but overall as with any patient, you are left to trust your healthcare team to be the experts. Now, don't interpret my tune wrong. I am very happy and grateful to the staff who entered our lives over that hospital stay. Some of them will forever be branded on our hearts for their attentive care.

Pre-op started a little rocky when one of my IVs had gone bad and after multiple (by multiple I mean 7) attempts, I had another IV. Then if that couldn't be topped, anesthesia attempted my spinal epidural 10 times before I finally could say, "YES, I feel the tingling in my legs" indicating I was numbing from the chest down. Surgery itself went flawless and even though it was surgery, the surgeon let me watch as she pulled the babies out and I did indeed see their first breaths like any vaginal delivery. The rest of delivery was a blur as they sewed me up and I had my head arched back to soak up every first minutes of those precious babies I could.

Post-op started out groggy as expected but it started to spiral downward when my blood pressures kept decreasing with each check. To explain my mental awareness is difficult. I knew things were going wrong and felt out of body at the same time.  If the nurses knew things were bad, they did a good job of hiding their concern when they checked under my sheets and asked everyone to step out while they cleaned me up. I was still numb and some blood is expected but the amount of blood and size of clots I was passing, were not. Quickly my room filled with extra staff. My husband had been allowed to stay in the room and during the next scene of my life he was up pacing with a crying baby while watching the staff pull me back from the downward spiral I was on. At one point while listening to the staff talk about what to do, what drugs to give (some foreign to me and a couple as only code blue drugs in my own work world) and demands from anesthesia to go pull my surgeon from a procedure and get her in my room right away; I looked at my husband with one of our two new babies and wondered, how in the world will he raise twin babies by himself? Death was absolutely what could have come of my complication if the staff had not acted quickly. Thank you Jesus for the fast pace care given that day.

To explain what had gone wrong was and still is a little fuzzy. Pre-eclampsia, left over placenta in the uterus, magnesium transfusing and my body heading toward DIC/HELLP Syndrome (look them up if you're curious about those further) were all attributing to my dire situation. My uterus wasn't contracting and I had lost too much blood, in return my blood pressures were in the bucket. The lowest blood pressure I remember being said out loud was 60s/20s. To say I was a little bossy or demanding of information would be a nice way of putting it. I was not use to being the patient and was prioritizing my care in my own head like I was the nurse. Luckily, if the staff was annoyed or offended, I never knew. To save the day, my surgeon arrived to my room and manually extracted all leftovers in my uterus, magnesium had been shut off and multiple drugs and fluid given to bring my blood pressure up. In a moment I could feel myself recovering.

Over the next few days, I slowly recovered. With bedrest and multiple blood transfusions my body was working its way back to normalcy. I am now 7 weeks post op and almost don't notice any discomfort where my incision lies. It took weeks to feel normal mentally and weeks to be able to walk without a hunch. That experience feels like a life time ago. When life becomes so serious in a blink of an eye, at least for me, you learn what matters most. I love my husband more than I knew possible and now have two beautiful babies who have shown me what having unconditional love for another, actually means. Thank you Jesus for allowing Hattie and Hazel to come into my life.