Our Precious Baby Boy

On January 14th, 2011 at 10:07 pm, we welcomed Drako John Woodland into our family.  What an incredible experience!  Because of the wonderful care from my doctor, our little boy was given the best chance possible and came into this world when he was full-term; at 37 weeks.  We had reached our "best scenario" goal and it was so worth it because he was healthy and perfect. I love the picture above that my mom took.  Drako was just sleeping in my arms, but it looked like he was posed for the picture.  My heart is so full right now and he totally has me wrapped around his little finger!

The story of his labor and delivery begins on Thursday, January 13th, at my last prenatal appointment.  My doctor had me go into LDS Hospital that night to be induced because my blood pressure and the protein in my urine had increased dramatically. The preeclampsia had worsened to the point that it was time to have the baby.  When we got to the hospital, a stress test was done to see if the baby could handle labor.  Pitocin was started so I would contract and then his heart rate was monitored.  If his heart rate dropped with each contraction, a C-section would be done that night.  Thank goodness he had no problems, and it was decided to stop the Pitocin and give me Cytotec which thinned my cervix and put me into labor.  I was also put on IV magnesium because my labs had come back abnormal and the doctor wanted to prevent the preeclampsia from turning into eclampsia.

Throughout the night, it was like I had one long contraction.  I was in pain all night-not too bad but enough to keep me from sleeping.  Josh and my mom were with me right from the start and I know they didn't get much sleep either, but I'm so grateful they were there to support me!  The next morning I decided to have an epidural and my doctor came in to break my water to help the labor progress.  She and the anesthesiologist came in at the same time and my doctor decided to wait until the epidural was in before doing her procedure. She should have gone first, because the placement of the epidural was a huge trial.  It took the anesthesiologist 6 times before the epidural was safely in place.  He said that the bones of my spine are very close together and after trying 4 different areas while I was lying on my side, suggested we try once again while I was sitting up.  He was finally able to place the epidural at that time, but it went in too deep, so he had to do it once more.  I'm so glad he was finally able to place it because the pain from him trying to was horrible and it would have sucked to have nothing to show for it.  It actually made me get sick and I ended up dry heaving which caused my water to break so my doctor didn't have to do it after all.  Once this was finally done, the Pitocin was restarted and my labor progressed.

The day went by pretty slowly as I continued to dilate.  When I was close to 10cm, the doctor had me turn onto my stomach because I was having bad back labor and this suggested that the baby was face up instead of face down.  After awhile of this, I was fully dilated and it was time to push.  The anesthesiologist came back in to give me an extra dose of medicine but this ended up dropping my blood pressure drastically and the baby's heart rate stopped being variable.  I also got sick again and Josh says I almost passed out.  I don't remember a whole lot about this time, just that the Pitocin was turned off and I had to be given medicine to stabilize my blood pressure and get the baby's heart rate back to normal.  Once we were both okay, the medicine was restarted and I was finally ready to push.  The one good thing about the extra dose of pain medicine is that both of my legs became completely numb and I didn't feel any pain until just before the baby was born.  The weird thing is that I couldn't move my legs and other people had to hold them up for me.

I started pushing at 7pm and had a wonderful team of people to coach me.  Josh and my mom were there, as well as my mother-in-law, Kim, my sister, Becky, and my good friend, Tami.  Each one helped me soo much as the pushing progressed and I am very grateful they were there!  After I had been pushing for an hour and a half and the baby hadn't come, the doctor told me that I could go another hour and a half and then a C-section would have to be done.  This made me try even harder and the Pitocin was increased to get my contractions closer together.  As time progressed and 9:30 came, I started to panic. I had been working so hard and the baby still hadn't come and I really wanted to be able to have him naturally.  My great support team got me through this difficult time and using a vacuum to assist with the birth was suggested.  My doctor agreed to do this but told me that she didn't think it would work. 

Once the vacuum was hooked up, Drako started to crown, but then the suction broke and the vacuum came off.  The doctor quickly did an episiotomy and was able to grab the baby just as he was going back inside.  She then gently helped to deliver him and gave him to the special care nursery nurses who were close by.  When my water broke, there was meconium in it and the doctor was afraid that the baby had inhaled this.  I was worried about him, but as she handed him to the nurses, he started to cry.  What a beautiful sound!  I knew he would be all right because of this and all I could do was cry because I was so happy. 

Josh was able to watch over the baby as he was being taken care of and others from my support team stayed with me as I was being fixed up.  The baby was taken to the special care nursery because he was whimpering and they were worried that one of his lungs wasn't transitioning as it should, but about 10 minutes later Josh came back with the baby in his arms.  Drako was doing fine and was then able to stay with us.

What an incredible time this was for me!  Giving birth was such an amazing experience and all of the pain was worth it because our son was healthy and breathing on his own!  Love for him has totally taken over my heart and I thank Heavenly Father every day that He sent this special little spirit to us!  It's so neat to be a family and I could never show enough gratitude for this precious gift that we have been given!