Graham's Birth Story

I thought I better get this all written down before I forget everything completely. I think it has been better for me to have a few weeks to look back and remember the important things before I wrote this all down.

It all started on a Saturday, May 22nd to be exact. We had moved the date up to be started because we felt it was the right thing to do, it was better for my health and we had a better chance at delivering natural if we moved the date up, and looking back this was the time. We left Coalville and headed towards Salt Lake to meet up with my parents and hand Mitch and Libby over for the weekend. We got to University of Utah a while before my parents and so we just walked around with the kids, they played on the escalator, which wasn't the safest thing to do, but Mike and I's minds were somewhere else. My parents met up with us and we got the kids switched around and then we headed up to Labor and Delivery. My mind was racing, but really I was calm and peaceful. We got checked in and got all the usual stuff done like an IV and all that fun stuff. Mike found his chair that he would spend many hours in and he was freaking out a little because it didn't even recline. So we laughed that this was probably going to be the most expensive hospital stay we've had and the smallest and worst chair he's ever seen yet. (Luckily they had a cot brought in for him later.)

The intial plan was to try and turn Graham to a breach position because Dr. Draper felt like that might relieve a lot of pressure off his head during delivery. I was pretty nervous for that especially once the doctors came in to ultrasound and get an idea of how they were going to do this. Dr. Draper was flying in from a conference and so he wasn't able to be there to turn the baby, but his partner Dr. Porter was going to do the procedure. He came in once and felt around and said that it wasn't going to be a problem to turn Graham. The were trying to round up all the nurses and other residents to help with the procedure and in the meantime Graham had dropped enough that they couldn't get him turned, they didn't even try because they knew it wasn't worth the risk. I have to admit I was pretty happy about that. I had been contracting on my own during all that time and they really felt like things were moving along quickly and that we would probably have a baby late in the night. I thought "Wow, this is going to go smoother than I thought." They got me hooked up and started and we were waiting for active labor to start. I have to admit that I was so peaceful during this entire time. I thought that the anticipation would be overwhelming, but everything was so calm.

Time went on and on and on and on. I was at a 2 and stayed there all night. I was having hard contractions every 2 minutes and they kept turning the PIT up but I wasn't dialating. The nurse sent the anethesiologist in to get paperwork and everything done so that when I was ready they could just come put the epidural in. Before we knew that anything was wrong with Graham I had decided that I didn't want an epidural because it didn't fully work with Libby and I just decided that I could do it naturally, but I changed my mind because I didn't want to feel the pain with Graham, I wanted to be able to enjoy the time that we had. The anesthesiologist came in around 1 or 2 a.m. and she thought that I wanted the epidural then, so we put it in just in case she got busy later on. So the epidural worked well for a while and then I had problems with it only working on one side. By morning time there was still no baby, still at a 2 and I was starting to get really uncomfortable. I had a lot of back labor and I was starting to feel more in my stomach as well. My parents came in with the kids and they were hanging out thinking that I would have this baby anytime. I was getting tired and frustrated and I was in pain. Finally at around 11:45 I had the nurse and doctor come in and check me. I was ready to push and Dr. Draper was 15 minutes away. The epidural wasn't doing much and I was in so much pain, maybe that was a good thing because I didn't have any time to freak out. All I could focus on was trying not to push a baby out. Mike was getting pretty nervous now. Everyone was in the room ready to go. The NICU team was in the room just to look over the baby because we had decided not to send Graham to the NICU, the nurses were in and ready to go and Dr. Draper showed up in his church clothes and changed quicly. The doctors on call hadn't broke my water because they were afraid I wouldn't make it for Dr. Draper, so this was a new experience for me. I started pushing without my water broken. Mike was a little confused about how you knew if your water broke and my mom and I both told him it was a big gush of water. Well when my water broke it was a BIG gush of water and Mike realized that I knew when my water broke. The delivery was hard, but still not long, maybe 10 minutes of pushing. Graham came out and all I wanted to know was how he was. When they handed him of he was taking a breath and as soon as they had him suctioned he started screaming, something we had never expected him to do. I could see the NICU team assessing him and I could hear the neonatologist asking Mike what he wanted to do. I was bleeding a lot and a little worried because the doctors were having a hard time finding where the blood was coming from. Peace was in the room amid all the chaos. My nurse, Mar, was amazing during the entire experience. She was trying to calm me and get me all taken care of. The doctors were making progress and things were slowing down when decision time came.

The neonatologist came to talk to me know to see what we wanted to do with Graham, send him to the NICU or keep him. She told us that they saw everything that they had expected, but that he was much more vigorous than they expected and so she thought they should take him and see how he did. That was the hardest decision of my life to make. How do know what to do when a doctor is asking whether they should try and save your child or give you time with your child before he dies. We knew what we had to do, we knew that we wanted the time with him, but my head wanted to send him off and see if they could really save him. I knew in my heart what the outcome was and that we needed to keep him with us. So we chose to spend as much time as we could with him. They wrapped him up and we finally got to hold him. He was perfect. There were obvious problems, but he was finally here and he was perfect. We brought Mitch and Libby in so that they could meet him and we could have our own little family time. They took right to him, even Libby who didn't like him to begin with. And then we brought our families in and we blessed him there. And we had a photographer come to take pictures. And we enjoyed all our time with him. We held him and tried to take in everything we possibly could in that short time.

And that's Graham's birth story, how he made his grand arrival. And as I look back I long for more time, and I think if I went back I would hold him the entire time and not share, but I know that Graham didn't spend one more minute on earth than he was supposed to. Heavenly Father gave us the miracle of a few hours to have, and that was all the time we needed, though it never seems enough. He gave us peace and comfort and time to get to know our child. And when the time was right Graham left peacefully to his Heavenly Home but he stayed close to us and is still near now. And as I look back, things were perfect, everyone that needed to be there was and I wouldn't change a thing.