What an overwhelming 24 hours...

Monday night, my fiancé and I walked into labor & delivery to be induced. I was 40+1, and my mom laid in the ICU just two floors down, sick and dying. We visited her before we went up, so our emotions were all over the place. Everything was calm on the L&D floor, we were talking and laughing about what features we thought our son would inherit from which parent, but overall it was a sense of relief that we would be meeting our baby in the next day or two.

Sometime after I got hooked up to the IV for fluids, they came in and inserted cervidil. I was already contracting irregularly, so my hopes were high. I had extreme back pain from laying on my back, so they ended up giving me some pain medicine through my IV and I got some much needed rest. Twelve hours later and no progress had been made. I was still 1 cm and 50%, baby’s head was still pretty high Tuesday morning when I was checked. I was sure I was further along, my contractions felt like they never ended! Shortly after I was checked I was asked if I wanted an epidural due to the constant pain. I quickly agreed. The epidural was done and it wasn’t anything like I expected. It wasn’t super painful for me, just really strange.

A couple hours pass and I’m all smiles. The tears had stopped, people were coming in to visit for a few minutes here and there, and I was happy. I ended up taking a nap, but woke up with a pain that felt nothing like contractions. It was uncomfortable and it turned out that the epidural pump stopped working. They fixed it and checked me again. I was 3 cm and 90% thinned. They also broke my water. Being only 3 cm, I thought it was going to be a long day and we wouldn’t have our son until Wednesday.

Somewhere between 1 and 3 PM, my pain worsened and I started shaking a little. My fiancé was out of the room and his mom was there with me, which made me want to try to hide the amount of pain I was in. It felt like my catheter had been displaced or something. It wasn’t like my other contractions at all. The nurse checked to see if I was getting a fever or if it was labor coming on. I didn’t have a fever, so I was checked. I was 7 cm and my cervix was “paper thin” which completely shocked me.

I had the shakes really bad, but I managed to call my dad and let him know. I got out half of my sentence before he said “I’m on my way!” The shakes died down when I calmed down and being they told me I could push in probably 2 hours, I rested during that time. The epidural machine kept quitting on us, so I just let the relief I still had help me.

I woke up between 4:30 and 5 PM and I called for the nurse. I was in tears again and said it felt like a lot of pressure. She got the doctor and it was time to set up to push. Around 5:20 I started pushing and in just about 30 minutes, our son was born. It was such a surreal moment and he was perfect. They did have to take him to the NICU overnight after we spent some time with him due to his breathing being a little faster than they liked, but we were all happy and our baby was healthy. That’s all that mattered.

The next morning, I woke up to a text from my stepdad letting me know my mom had passed away. It felt like everything had been put into place this way on purpose. Some kind of higher power or being knew I would need our son to cope with my mom’s death. She got to see the video my fiancé took of us with our son before she passed, and I believe it made it easier for her. Knowing that I was doing well and her grandson was here and healthy. She waited for him to be born before she let go.

We left last night to come get some rest at home while they kept our baby on the bili blanket for jaundice overnight. It was extremely hard for me to leave without him, but I know he’s in good care and we get to possibly bring him home today.

The world works in weird ways. Not always how we want, but it always works.

This was our sweet baby boy, Kairon Elias, after he was cleaned up, and the second picture is from the next night. He weighed 8 lbs 10 oz at birth, and is 21 inches long. Head full of hair and the cutest chin dimple that he got for his daddy. We are in love 💙