Emmett's Birth Story

It's been two weeks in the writing, and I hope it makes any kind of sense. One day I will get around to writing the whole journey to give hope to anyone out there in similar situations if I can. But for now this will have to do.

Emmett Mitchell
March 31, 2009
4 pounds 10 ounces
17 1/2 inches

Really, this birth story should start back in 2008 and someday I will get around to writing it the way it should be, but for now the abridged version will have to do after a very long road including the loss of our very precious Emerson, a cerclage placed at 14 weeks because of an incompetent cerxix, weekly 17P shots in my hip to prevent preterm labor, and shortly followed by 3 months of bedrest as my cervix kept thinning and thinning (84 days total with 74 of them spent in the hospital - not counting the days following his birth), and an emergency cerclage removal one week prior to his birth due to some tearing. I wont lie, I would gladly forget the majority of the past year if I could find a way and that would include the whole of this pregnancy minus getting that positive pregnancy test, the ultrasounds, and holding our little boy for the first time.

By the time Tuesday morning rolled around, I had been having constant contractions for closing in one 3 whole weeks and none of the medications they had me on would ever stop them completely. The Terbutaline slowed them down considerably, but they were still kicking my rear like I can't tell you. Most of them weren't painful per say, but adding in the constant ache from head to toe from lying in the hospital for so long and the side effects from the Terbutaline, I don't know how much longer I could have handled them. I was starting to feel like I was really stuck in my own personal hell and that it would just go on and on and on for all eternity and never end. I had been hovering at about 4-5 cm dilated since my emergency cerclage removal on the 23rd, and his head was engaged. If you had told me months ago that my cervix would hold on it's own for close to a week I never would have believed you.

I don't remember much in that final week. I was barely sleeping because of the contractions which at the most were ever 45 minutes apart, so I was really out of it most of the time. They were giving me medication to help the pain, but nothing really seemed to work and because of some family history I refused any sleeping aids. Rob was still working and making the drive out to the hospital more often, rather than just the weekends, so it was nice to have a little more company and it eased my fears a little that if something did happen he might be able to make it to the birth. He was states away and getting ready to start tech school when we lost Emerson in the week after his graduation from BMT. There was absolutely no way I wanted to go through this alone again. But we didn't want him to take off from work too early.

Come the night of Monday the 30th or else very early on the morning of Tuesday the 31st (Emm-day) I remember my contractions starting to pick up again sometime - maybe around 11:00 p.m.. Time-tracking was certainly not on my mind so I don't really know when everything happened except what the nurses told me, which is when it got down to business, everything went very, very quickly. At I think about 2:00 a.m. when they checked I was still about 5 cm dilated and we were holding out that we'd be able to slow my contractions again without any change but it wasn't meant to be. By about 3:00 a.m. - just an hour later - my contractions were coming every 3 minutes and [b]soooooooo[/b] much worse than anything I had experienced so far and I was dilated to 8 whole cm. I was absolutely 100% not prepared to hear that and it sent me into panic mode. That was when the first call - followed closely by the second because he didn't answer his phone - to get his rear end to the hospital.

Actually, come to think about it, it had to have been later than 3:00 a.m. because as nobodies luck but ours would have it, he didn't make it to the hospital until about 20 minutes after Emmett was born and had already been whisked to the NICU.

Now for the extremely abridged part. According to the nurses my water broke just after 4:00 a.m. and funnily enough our little boy was born at 4:44 a.m. weighing 4 pounds 10 ounces - such a great weight for his gestational age - and 17 1/2 inches. He may not have been an April Fool's baby, but 4:44 has a lot of special meaning for Rob and I so it's very, very fitting. I don't remember much at all in that last hour, at least not the pushing part. I remember the contractions were coming right on top of each other and they hurt so bad, but I was managing to get through them without any more pain medication. Well, I was managing them with a lot of screaming but I couldn't concentrate on anything including them for that long. The screaming was more of the kind that I had pent up for the past 3 months. Later one of the nurses liked to comment that Emmett tried to match his momma in the screaming department, a good sign for his little preemie lungs.

What I do remember was the fear, or lack of it. I have spent the better part of the past year living in fear of everything and everything. I was so sure and afraid that we would have to live through another devastating loss, and so sure it would be the end of everything. I was so afraid this entire pregnancy that something would go wrong. But despite all that, I look back right now on the last couple of hours before I got to hold Emmet for the first time and I think it was the first real sigh of relief I have had in a very long time. It really hit me at that point that he would be in good hands and I had done the best that I could do. I can't even explain it without it sounding silly and cheesy. It didn't even matter to me that Rob wasn't there. And I hate to say it in some ways because, but a big part of me is glad that he wasn't. Does that make me horrible? We have a very long time to be the three of us but those moments when Emmett was on my chest right after he was born, it was just him and me and that was something I really needed. OK, so it was him, me, and a whole medical staff but I don't think I could have cared less.

So I'm lounging here with the little bear watching Mary Poppins and I can't stop the urge to say he is practically perfect in every way. His apgars were 8/9 and has been breathing on his own with no problems since he was born and as known by know his stay in the NICU was short and sweet and came home just shy of one week later.

So this has already been 2 weeks in the making and longer than I intended it to be, but I get weepy and I can't stop writing until it's time to get off the computer again and then the process is repeated. Hope it makes any remote kind of sense.