*SYLAS’S STORY**

Birthdate 12/9/21

Weight 5lbs 8 ounces

Length 20 inches

Let me start by saying yes my baby boy is little, but he had to over come so much to even be here. At 30 weeks we found out he had IUGR. For some reason, at the time we didn’t know exactly why, sylas wasn’t getting what he needed to gain weight and grow like a normal baby in utero. Every appointment every week there was a possibility we were going to have to deliver. Our goal was to make it passed 36 weeks and we did!!! At 38 weeks his fluid dropped dramatically and I was told it was time to deliver. Labor wasn’t that great 😅 but once I reached 5 cm I got the epidural and was at 10 cm within 45 minutes. There was lots of bleeding that we now know was from cervical trauma from progressing too quickly. Once at 10 cm we did a practice push to see if sylas was ready to come down and he was, but we were waiting on my actual doctor to come in from another delivery which was fine. They put my bed in a chair like positive to promote sylas’s decent. That is when delivery started going down the drain. Almost immediately his heart rate started dropping dangerously low so the nurses flip flopped me into several different positions trying to find a position he wasn’t distressed in while waiting for the doctor to make a decision on what we were going to do next. At this point she checked babys position and determined he had started to descend into my vaginal canal and too late for an emergency c section despite sylas not responding very well to delivery. My doctor looked at me and said we need to get this baby out right now we can not wait for contractions you need to continuously push until he is out. I was determined to push him out with everything that I had! It felt like an eternity and I felt like giving up but I knew if I did I wouldn’t be able to hold my baby. 5 minutes of pushing and my baby was out, but he wasn’t breathing, I was terrified I felt like I had failed because I couldn’t get him out sooner, I failed myself and failed my son. I was a mess, Zach was a mess. My mom was calm trying to hold it together for both of us. I couldn’t bring myself to look and see what was going on. Zach watched as the NICU team worked diligently to get our son breathing. 7 minutes passed before we heard our sons first cry. Those 7 minutes were the most terrifying and the worst 7 minutes of my life! My doctor informed us Sylas had his cord wrapped around his neck twice which is why he wasn’t breathing when he was born. After I delivered my placenta we found out the cause of Sylas IUGR. My placenta was a quarter of the size of a normal placenta. Sylas had to over come so much and he did it. He is small but boy is he mighty!! ❤️