may 31, 2009 - the details...

MASON GRAHAM ROBERTS
BORN 5.31.09 @ 3:32 AM
7 LBS 15 OZ 19 INCHES
BROWN HAIR & DARK EYES

mason's middle name "graham" is the maiden name of two of his great-great grandmas (one on grandma roberts' and one on grandpa roberts' side of the family).

after watching WAY too much TLC in the hospital, i feel compelled to share our birth story (sorry for any details that might gross you out)...

i got up early sunday morning around 1:30 for a potty break, as usual. i had been having intermittent contractions that night, but nothing regular or different than the past few weeks. a few minutes after i got back in bed, my water broke. and boy did it gush. after reasoning with myself about the inevitability of the baby coming that day, i woke russell up and told him and he goes, "Really??" we were both in such shock because i was 4 days late with calvin and we definitely weren't planning to have this baby 8 days early. i didn't have anything packed for the hospital and we hadn't made arrangements for calvin because my mom was planning to come on wednesday. so, i called the hospital to find out if we could wait a little while before coming. they said no. we rushed around getting bags packed and called our friends kari and ben who saved the day and picked calvin up at the hospital. meanwhile, contractions were getting stronger and i'm continuing to soak through clothes w/ the water breakage. (my water broke after we got to the hospital with calvin, so this was a new and unpleasant experience!) we got to the hospital about 2:45 am and i went to check in while russell waited outside with calvin to meet kari. i finished up and had to waddle out there and give him a kiss before he left. i just felt so bad for leaving him so quickly. we wanted to try to make this as stress-free as possible for calvin to help ease the adjustment of sharing his parents with a baby brother and us getting him up at 2 in the morning and running around didn't help. he grabbed two of his friends (stuffed animals) and was so cheerful and excited in the car, though.

anyway, russell and i got into triage and waited for about 10 minutes to see the nurse. she came in about 3:00 and calmly started hooking me up to the fetal monitor and checking temp and blood pressure. my contractions were coming every couple minutes and were pretty strong, so i was anxious for her to check me and see how far i was dilated and then to get us to a labor room where we could more comfortably work through the contractions. she got baby's heartbeat on the monitor and then started to collect a sample of fluid to MAKE SURE it was my water that broke. hmmmmmm. i know that urinary incontinence is an issue in pregnancy, but i've never peed that much on accident and then continued to pee accidentally for the next hour straight! i guess it's protocol, but i was annoyed. so, she finally checks my cervix and says i am dilated to a 5 or 6. i was glad to hear that because i was only a 3 when we checked in to the hospital with calvin and it seemed to take forever to get to 5 or 6. while she's down there, the nurse asks if my doctor talked to me about the baby not being head down. what??? i told her that he was head down a couple weeks ago, but that she hadn't checked for that at my last appt. the nurse said she wasn't sure what she was feeling, but it wasn't a head. she starts calling to try to get an ultrasound brought in and then baby's heartbeat goes down on the monitor. so, she checks me again and then starts calling lots of people quickly. she said she's pretty sure what she's feeling is the umbilical cord and possibly a foot. so, the baby did some acrobatics at some point in the last couple weeks and he was now breach. also, the cord was prolapsed, which means it's coming out first. this accounts for the drop in his heartbeat and is obviously really dangerous because it gets pinched and cuts off blood, oxygen, and food supply to the baby. it also means an emergency c-section. so, nurse starts calling more people quickly and they lay me flat and get ready to move. russell can't come with me because they have to use general anaesthesia (i wasn't getting an epidural and i didn't even have an i.v. in at this point. we're flying to the operating room and they call a doc who is asleep in one of the rooms (waiting for another delivery) to come do the c-section. my doctor had left the hospital about 20 minutes before this and there wasn't time to wait for her to get back. meanwhile, this WHOLE time, the first nurse still has her fingers in my cervix and she is holding the baby off of the cord so he can breathe and monitoring his heart rate. when we got to the o.r., i asked if he was gonna be okay and she said she didn't know. that was the scariest point for me. it's one thing to get to the hosptial in pain and be worried about being able to cope through the delivery, but it's SO much worse to be worried about the baby surviving the delivery. they started the i.v. on the operating table and the anaesthesiologist told me he would be with me the whole time to make sure i was okay. the nurse who is holding baby off of the cord shouts that we need to go because he's down to 30 or 40 (that was his heart rate) and the last thing i remember is feeling like i couldn't breathe. i realized later that it was the drugs putting me to sleep, but i seriously thought i was suffocating and was trying to raise my arms up to tell somebody, but they weren't working.


i woke up and saw russell - he said hi. i asked if baby was okay. he said he was fine and they were bringing him in to see me. what a handsome little miracle! they had him out in minutes, less than a half hour after we got to triage. we spent 3 1/2 days in the hospital and it's so good to be home. my mom changed her flight and came sunday night, which was a lifesaver since russell had finals this week.

mason is healthy and so mild-mannered (just like calvin was - such a blessing). he's eating well and sleeps like a champ, usually just getting up once at night to eat.


calvin is adjusting well and loves his baby brother. he likes to use a high squeaky voice when he says "he's so cute!"russell and i are tired, but we love having 2 boys.