Crystal318: Anthony's Birth Story
Posted
Thursday, October 06, 2011 5:11 PM
A rocky start
I went to the hospital to be induced on October 12, when I was 40 weeks pregnant. I wasn’t too nervous; I’d had a normal and healthy pregnancy, and I was so excited to finally meet my baby! My mom and my fiancé accompanied me to the hospital, where I was given Cervidil to start the induction and then an epidural about 12 hours later. When I woke up the next morning, I chatted with my family, did my makeup and calmly watched my contractions on the monitor. At 11 a.m., my doctor announced, “Well, we should have a baby by 3 or 4 p.m. today!” But when 4 p.m. came and went, the doctor returned and noticed that I hadn’t made any progress at all. Then she realized that one of my nurses had mistakenly turned down my dosage of Pitocin, which was meant to help induce my labor. To my frustration, I was only dilated 9 centimeters. I needed to be at 10 centimeters to start delivering the baby. My epidural was starting to wear off, and I was starving, shaking and in so much pain.
Time to push!
Finally, at 11:30 p.m., it was time to start pushing. After an hour, the doctor said my baby was in distress and that she’d have to do an emergency c-section. I was worried, but also relieved; at that point, I’d been in labor for 30 hours. I was ready to be done—and holding my baby in my arms.
Anxiously waiting
Once I was in the OR, all I remember is feeling a little tugging and then waking up in recovery. When I woke, my fiancé told me that Anthony Joseph was born at 12:40 a.m. But my fiancé was crying—and they weren’t tears of joy. He said there were major complications and that the NICU team was working on our baby. “He wasn’t breathing,” he told me. What does this mean? I wondered. My fiancé went upstairs to be with our son while I waited in the recovery room. I was so nervous and scared.
Beating all the odds
I soon learned that my son had been diagnosed with Group B strep, meconium aspiration syndrome, a collapsed lung, pneumonia, sepsis, a heart murmur and anemia, so he couldn’t come home for a couple of weeks. Those days were scary and long, but we had the most amazing NICU team caring for him. When we were worried that Anthony wouldn’t be home in time for Halloween, one very special nurse dressed him up as a pumpkin! She took pictures and posted them by his bed to surprise us when we visited him the next day.
Our little fighter came home on October 30 after being in the NICU for 17 days. Our son is a miracle; he beat all the odds when there were so many against him. He was born fighting—and he won! Now he’s a perfectly healthy 10-month-old boy who enjoys crawling on the floor and eating everything in sight. He loves to cuddle, be tickled and play peekaboo. He’s the best son we could’ve asked for, and we are truly thankful to have him with us!
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