So the child has finally arrived. We went to the hospital at midnight on Friday the 18th to be induced. When we arrived, they hooked me up with external monitors to keep track of my contractions and the baby's heart rate. Everything was normal as far as that was concerned and the doctors continued to monitor me for a couple of hours for any changes. After a few hours, they came in to actually deliver the drugs to induce labor. They began by using a pill to help with the dilation. Soon after we noticed that during a particular contraction, the baby's heart rate dropped into the 80's where before it was a steady 140-150. We were slightly puzzled and asked the nurse what that was about. She told us that sometimes the external monitors can skip a couple beats as the baby moves and it isn't anything to worry about. So we didn't think much of it. But as the contractions continued, his heart rate kept dropping. We tried changing positions to see if that helped. But what ended up happening was he went from a head-down position to a breach position. Why was he being so stubborn? It seemed like everything was taking a turn for the worse. And to add to all that, my water never broke. The nurse decided to call in the doctor. When the doctor arrived, she checked my cervix and said that I hadn't made any progress and that it would take another 24-48 hours to fully dilate. She didn't think the baby could take the stress for that length of time and recommended that we have a c-section while the baby was still healthy. I immediately became panicked. I didn’t want a c-section but decided that if that was the best thing to do for the baby, that was what I was going to do. It wasn’t an emergency c-section but the doctor sure acted like it was. They soon whisked me away into the operating room leaving Jason and my mom behind. Once on the operating table, they gave me a spinal block so that I was numb from the shoulders down to my toes. They then brought Jason into the operating room where he sat next to me and comforted me while they performed the c-section. When the baby emerged, all the difficulty we were having with inducing labor became clear. The umbilical cord was tightly wrapped around his neck and his shoulder. They untangled him and brought him to a table to clean him off. They wrapped him up and brought him over to Jason to hold while they sewed me up. They later inspected the placenta and made another discovery. The umbilical cord did not insert directly into the placenta as it normally should. It first entered into the bag of waters and then into the placenta. They told me that if the bag of waters had ruptured where the umbilical cord was located, there would have been devastating consequences. Looking back we know that the Lord did not intend for this baby to be delivered naturally and all the difficulties we were having was so that the baby’s life was spared. We are so blessed to have Ryker with us today. He was 7 lbs 9 oz and 21 inches long. Here are some pictures taken by our dear friend Heather Ward. Hope you enjoy them!
