Caiden - A Birth Story

Wed, August 29 (32weeks, 5days) – Supposed to go see Josh Groban concert that night... I got out of bed to check email and get ready for work, but around 8 am my water broke, I called Logan at work (Starbucks) and called our midwife, she suggested we come in and check it out. I took a quick shower while Logan rushed home from work and slowly started realizing I may not be coming back home until I had a baby - a very far cry from the home birth we had planned! At our midwife's office she confirmed my water had broken and we went to the nice, new north hospital. They ran a bunch of tests, then told us they didn't have an intense enough NICU if I did have Caiden that night, so they loaded me into an ambulance and took me to the old, south hospital. Once there (after more tests and waiting) we decided on a Terbutaline shot to stop contractions. I also received a shot of steroids to help with Caiden's rapid lung development since it looked like he would definitely be delivered prematurely. From there on out I took Clindamycin every 4 hours to hold off labor as long as possible.

I spent next 4 long days in the hospital on bed-rest trying to hold off labor in a tiny, depressing room. Logan went back to work during the days and stayed with me each night.

Sat night, Sept 2 – starting around midnight I had moderate contractions every 10-15 minutes until morning, I received another Terbutaline shot to hold off labor once again, felt very uncomfortable all day, but no contractions, got wheelchair privileges and went outside to the park across the street

Sun night, Sept 3 (Labor Day, 33weeks, 3 days) – Loan and I went to bed around 11, at 12 I was getting more uncomfortable and asked nurse for Ambien (sleeping pill) because I hadn't slept the night before and wanted to be rested when I went into labor, at 1am more uncomfortable asked for second Ambien, increasing discomfort, the nurse began monitoring, but I couldn’t sit still long enough for her to get any readings because the pains were so strong I kept jumping out of bed and flipping around. At 1:30am the nurse checked my dilation and I was at 7cm, I was rushed to delivery room, began having recognizable contractions (before that they were strange shooting pains and I was convinced something was going wrong), I had several intense contractions, was checked again – this time I was 9cm. I felt urge to push just as the doctor came running in. The first set of pushes Logan commented that he saw a full head of hair, on the second set Caiden's head came out, and on the third set, the rest of his body. Caiden started screaming immediately which was relieving to more because lung development was a concern. Logan cut cord and Caiden, Logan and a big team of doctors headed straight to NICU

Caiden Everett Born 2:47am, 4lbs 7ozs, 18” long

Caiden spent the next 2.5 weeks in NICU, gained weight steadily, worked on eating -initially through feeding tube working toward bottles at each feed (every 3 hours) He was put on oxygen after several days, but the nurses impressed that he loudly makes his needs known. I sat with him every day and Logan went back to work, but was with us in the NICU whenever he was off.

Total hospital bill (thank goodness for insurance!!):

Amanda - $17,263

Caiden - $65,000

Thurs, Sept 20 (35weeks, 6days) – We finally got to bring Caiden home!

Sept 24 – 5.6lbs (5%), 18” (6%), Head – 13” (10%)