top of page

Rhett's Birth Story & NICU

Well, here we are with a 1 week old baby on our hands, and I want to remember all of it. There's the sleep deprivation I'd come to know during pregnancy, and then there's this whole new element of lost control over when and how I'll get to sleep. I may get 1 hour before he wakes me up, or I may get 5. But either way, this kid is so worth it. The way Marcus put it is, "it makes you understand love at first sight." And I couldn't agree more. I wanted to share Rhett's birth story and how we ended up in the NICU for all those that we didn't give many details or updates to while it was all going on. It's pretty lengthy. Sorry, I'm not very concise! And the pictures are just randomly scattered.

Disclaimer: while I don't really get into any "graphic" labory details, I am talking about the birth of a baby here. So take that with a grain of salt.

Around 1:30 AM on Sunday, July 31, it was getting impossible to get comfortable. Nothing specific ached, but I was very aware of how uncomfortable my entire body was. At 3:30, I felt what I knew immediately to be a contraction. I laid there quietly relishing the early labor discomfort, and I prayed they kept coming. I was actually relieved at this point because all I wanted was for labor to begin. After all, I was now 41 weeks along. I started tracking and timing, and I did so for about an hour and a half before Marcus stirred at all. I could tell he wasn't quite awake, but I knew he'd respond if I spoke. So I asked him, "are you ready to meet your son?" Groggily, he gave me a "...mhm." It took him a moment before he continued, "is it happening?" So I told him what I was feeling and how I'd been timing, and we shared in the relief that the big waiting game was over, but now the uncomfortable apex was beginning. But we were gonna get our baby today! I couldn't stop smiling. I got a shower and started packing up my toiletries. I went downstairs and baked cookies for the hospital staff-- I had planned all along to be a little bit of a suck up since I had a printed birth plan of sorts-- and I made us some breakfast. After all, it wouldn't be too long before I was restricted to ice chips. We waited a while to alert family because we knew this was still early labor, but we still ended up jumping the gun a little. By 6 AM, we had told Marcus's parents, who were staying 3 miles down the road, and my parents who were out of town, but only about an hour and a half away. By that point, I had piddled in the kitchen all I could to pass the time, all while having consistent contractions 4-5 minutes apart. Little did I know, they were mild, short, early labor contractions. A little after 7 AM, we decided they had been plenty close together for over an hour, and we headed in to the hospital.

Once there, Marcus's mom snapped a pic of us under the admitting sign, and looking back, clearly it wasn't time for me to be at the hospital yet if I could still smile for a picture. Rookie mistake! First timer here! I thought I was just handling labor like a champ. HA! They took us on upstairs and put us in a room to monitor me for an hour before admitting me. They turned on the TV and that was kinda nice cause we don't pay for cable at home, and I was so excited to discover it was Harry Potter's birthday and Freeform was running a HP marathon! It was perfect because I had joked with Marcus weeks before that I wanted to watch Harry Potter while laboring. At that point, I was 1 cm (as I had been for 5 weeks) and 60-70% effaced and that didn't change in our hour there. I felt defeated and a little embarrassed. I know a lot of women head in too early or have false labor, but I had been so excited labor had finally started! And the doc was saying come back today OR TOMORROW?! What? I was having this kid today. I didn't care how skeptical any of the staff was. The nurses actually kinda laughed at me as we took the walk of shame out of the unit baby-less, and I told them "I'll see you in a few hours!" Ooooh, was I determined now. And I had baked them cookies! Luckily I hadn't passed them out yet.

We went to Cracker Barrel to get some food in me in preparation for the long day ahead, and I must say, it's uncomfortable to labor in a restaurant. Every few minutes, a contraction would rock me, and I continued timing them meticulously between bites of brunch. Once home, we all waited around impatiently. By this point, I had a house full of family all waiting on my cue that it was actually go time. Several hours in, my mom and sister monitored my reaction to contractions as a better indicator of my pain level. Once I couldn't stand or speak through them for 6-7 contractions in a row, we all decided this really was it. In theory, I didn't want to head back in until I was much more dilated, but I was also in a good amount of pain at this point.

Once back to the hospital, they took me to the same room as earlier in the day, but this time, that hour long assessment was excruciating. I was 2 cm when it started, and 3 by the end of it, but they could also tell how real it was. No way were they sending me home again when one contraction hit me so hard I had to reach for the barf bucket. My mom had joked with me earlier that when she was in labor, her OB had told her vomiting was a good, powerful force that helped you dilate. I suppose at that point your whole body is contracting. It definitely felt like it, too. Finally, they were getting me admitted and an epidural ordered. I hadn't been sold on the epidural until then. Funny how many preconceived notions I had! They said it would be about an hour for the epidural because the anesthesiologist was at home, but that hour wasn't nearly as bad just knowing that it was on its way. In that productive hour, I managed to jump up to 6 cm. Things were really moving along now! With my epidural savior in place, it wasn't very long before I was barely feeling my contractions, and it was glorious. To go from such excruciating pain to a lovely shade of numb is a beautiful, modern thing. I absolutely could have survived labor without it, but there likely would have been lots more vomiting and crying and overall stress. I wasn't prepared for a natural labor, and I'm perfectly ok with that. I did manage to stick to my guns on no pitocin and letting my membranes rupture "naturally," although I'm pretty sure the nurse did that intentionally while checking me.

Everything progressed great, and around 8:40 PM or so, it was time to push. It took some practice to figure out what in the world I was doing, especially because I was pretty numb, but after I connected that I wasn't just trying to squeeze my abs, things got serious. The doc threw on his booties, and after 35 minutes or so of total pushing, we had a beautiful, slimy, squirmy baby boy. They had been on high alert because of the presence of meconium, but the doc quickly suctioned his airway out and didn't even take him away from me. He put that gorgeous creature straight on my belly and delayed the cord clamping a couple minutes. I cannot say enough good things about my doctor, and I'm so thankful our late transfer to that hospital worked out the way it did.

We got through that night about as best as you'd expect for first time parents. We were tired and I was sore, but he was perfect and that made it all ok. Our nurse came in every couple hours to check his vitals and such, and around 5 AM, she wasn't happy with his body temperature. Even after having him skin to skin for a while, he was dipping below 98 degrees. They took him to the nursery to monitor him for a little while and put him under a warmer, and we were a little startled. It melted my heart when Marcus said, "they took my baby." We weren't expecting him to have to leave our sides for a moment, much less for extra monitoring. That morning got more and more tense as they monitored him and waited on the pediatrician, and the discussion of contacting the NICU in Pensacola shook us up.

By the NICU's recommendation, he was going to be transferred via ambulance to their care. Our small hospital just didn't have any extra resources for checking out our little man's slightly irregular heart rhythm, so the pediatrician felt it better to be safe than sorry. My immediate thought was of despair because they were going to take him an hour away and leave me behind to recover, but when I asked, they said it was up to my doctor to see if he would clear me or not and he would be in soon. That was when adrenaline hit. I did everything I possibly could while we waited on the transport team to get to us. I showered and made sure I looked good enough to discharge. I mean if I had been laid up in the bed looking miserable he may not discharge me. I packed up all our stuff, and I was thankful for all the things to do to keep my mind off that my baby wasn't even 12 hours old yet, but he was about to take his first ambulance ride. I'm 26 and I've never been in an ambulance. It all felt like a little too much. I was wishing their was an epidural for all the emotions I was feeling. I would've welcomed more numbness.

Fast-forward a few hours and I had been discharged rapidly by a slew of people handing me different forms to sign. My doc was happy to see me up and about, so he signed off on me heading out less than 12 hours after delivery. Once the adrenaline wore off, I was feeling the effects of that.

So we followed the ambulance to the NICU, and we hurried inside to try to navigate the new hospital setting. We were told they would need about an hour to assess him and settle him into the unit before we could come back, so we reluctantly sought out some lunch. I don't think anyone was hungry at that point, but we knew we needed it. We were only allowed to have 2 people back at a time to see him, so we traded off all day. I was back there the most trying to establish breastfeeding, but that was easier said than done with tensions running high and the IV's and leads coming off of him. He stayed under a warmer and they monitored his heart rate all day, with it occasionally dipping as low as 65 or so BPM. In utero, he stayed around 130-140 so they definitely considered these episodes of bradycardia. They ordered an echo and EKG, and mostly we just waited. They transferred us to a different floor with a private room that evening and told us the echo was normal except for a small hole that hadn't closed yet. It was pretty common and would likely close within a few months. Nothing to fear there. We stayed in that private room from Monday evening around 7 PM until Thursday, taking care of our baby much the way we would at home. We had a cot and a recliner, and the only thing setting this room apart from home was nurses monitoring and writing down every feeding, pee, and poopy diaper. After a while, it all felt like overkill. They were worried about his blood sugar, but after hours of monitoring it and sticking his heel a thousand times, that was fine. They were worried about his temperature, but even after being off the warmer for hours, it was holding steady the way it should. It started to feel like they were grasping at things to worry about, and we grew more and more restless. Slowly, IV's got pulled and less and less was being done. By Thursday afternoon, we were waiting for the nurse practitioner to come discharge us; she was supposed to do her rounds between 10 AM & 2 PM. There was just no reason to be there anymore since there were no tests left to do or hoops to just through. Our nurses kept saying, "he doesn't belong here." "Make sure they discharge you tomorrow." We had done everything we possibly could to speed up the process, from Marcus attending the discharge class the night before to getting as much food in Rhett as possible so he'd be close to birth weight. Rhett had passed every test with flying colors by that point, and his sinus rhythm had pretty much normalized. Looking into it now, it's very common for newborn heart rates to fluctuate the way his was, and it was all a giant precaution to send him to the NICU, but it dragged on much too long. By 2:15 PM, our NP still hadn't rounded on us (and never did), and we were fuming. She'd been the least approachable, least communicative, most condescending person we had encountered in his care, and we felt completely left out of what was going on or what the plan was for his care. After all, they truly weren't doing anything for him. I'm not complaining at all! It was clear he was a healthy baby at this point, so it was a good thing they weren't HAVING to do anything for him. I mean, it's a neonatal intensive care unit. There were very sick babies. The oldest one on the floor after Rhett was 31 weeks! We just didn't have any business being in an ICU anymore. We were dying to take our baby home. I'd had it at that point. I'd been recovering from labor in a locked ward with no bathrooms because it was a sterile environment.

Every couple hours, I'd round up my "personal effects" bathroom bag with my peri bottle, tucks pads, mesh panties, mega super pads, and Dermaplast, and leave the ward to freshen up. I'd have to call to get back into the ward, do a 2 minute scrub doctor-style, and trudge back to our room. Monitors beeped and alarmed around the clock, mostly from burping Rhett, which made the HR monitor shoot sky high from picking up the patting on his back. I left twice in those 4 days, spending the rest of the time on the cot, in the recliner, or just standing around. I'm lucky that I was healing well, but that was no place for my body to heal from the trauma it had faced.

Ultimately, we confronted our nurse in the nicest way possible. We told her how wonderful she and the other nurses had been, but we couldn't continue to wait for a nurse practitioner who clearly wasn't concerned with our well-being or his at this point. She contacted the team leader for the day, and after her assessment of his chart and vitals, we were discharged within a couple hours. We were so relieved that we couldn't even be angry at that point that it was so easy. It was all medical overkill, but we could also rest easy knowing this kid was just fine. He's a super baby, honestly.

We had so much support from our families, and we couldn't have gotten through it without them. Ours was certainly a best case scenario NICU visit, all things considered. We are just so excited to be home and settling into a routine and getting to know our sweet angel boy.


Recent Posts
Search By Tags
No tags yet.
bottom of page