Welcome Kinsey Faith! A little bit of our birth story...

It is hard to believe that it has been almost four months since this precious miracle was born into our family.  Ben and I feel so blessed to be her parents and have the opportunity to raise her!  Despite the drama associated with her birth, we are so pleased that she is doing so well and both of us have learned so much over the past few months.








As anyone who knows us knows, Ben and I have always planned to have a large family.  We were willing to do whatever it took in order to help grow our family.  While we have always talked about adoption, we believed that we would grow our family biologically before adopting.  This was a decision made after much prayer and the belief that if we adopted older children, it would be better for them to be younger than their siblings!








After much prayer, loss, disappointment and months of fertility treatments we were finally blessed with our first two children two years ago.  They brought so much joy and excitement to our lives that we immediately started trying for more children.  After another round of fertility treatments we were pleased to get pregnant with Kinsey last spring. 








Fast forward 41+ weeks and it was FINALLY time for Kinsey to make her debut.  Because of our desire to have more children, it was very important to Ben and I to attempt a VBAC (natural birth after C-section).  We hired an amazing doula mid way through our pregnancy and met with her to discuss our options for the birth we were attempting.  The doctors at the hospital we were going to deliver at seemed to be very supportive and we felt that with our doulas help, we had a good chance of having the type of birth we desired.  Because of this, we declined the opportunity to be induced or schedule a repeat C-section and waited for Kinsey to decide that she wanted to be born!








Late on Jan 9 (the twins second birthday) after everyone was in bed sleeping, I started to have contractions.  I laid on the bathroom floor watching videos and reading all night so as to let Ben get as much sleep as possible and waited patiently for him to wake up for work so I could tell him it was finally happening!  When he woke up on Jan 10th (his birthday!), I filled him in on all that I was feeling and he called into work to let them know he was staying home.  Luckily, my mom and Ben's two sisters were at the house to help with the twins so we were free to stay upstairs and labor before going to the hospital (this was a part of our plan in order to avoid unnecessary interventions if possible).  








We practiced some techniques we had learned while I listened to some scriptures set to music on the iphone.  Before lunch he called our awesome doula and she came to the house to join us.  With both of their help, I was able to manage the pain and think positively.  However, after lunch I started noticing a pain in my incision site that was concerning me.  At the recommendation of our doula, we decided to go to the hospital to continue laboring where I could be monitored (she felt this would
give me peace of mind)!








I said goodbye to our family and the twins and we headed to the hospital to get checked in.  After being admitted, I was hooked up to an IV for antibiotics since I had tested positive for Strep B early in my pregnancy.  We rejected the epidural and pain meds and after an initial check were left alone to labor.  At 7pm the shift changed and we met the new doctor who also completed a check to see if we were making any progress... however, there had not been much change other than the fact that I was still having some pains that did not seem related to contractions.  It was because of this that late in the evening I decided to go ahead and get an epidural.  Since it looked like we might be laboring all night, it seemed to be the best thing to do in order for everyone to get a little sleep (I hadn't even gone to bed the night before). 








Early in the morning, the doctor checked and said I was at 10, however it appeared that the baby had moved back up.  We decided to give it time for her to make her way back down a little before moving onto the pushing stage.  Because of the epidural, there was not much I could do in order to help this process along (boo :-().  At 7am, another shift change meant another doctor checking to see that there had still been no change.  She gave us a few hours and at noon told us it was time to move on to pushing... so we did.  I pushed for two hours, with the help of the doula and Ben who told me when to push since I was unable to feel anything (did I mention I hate epidurals?).  The doctor came in a few times to check on us, but didn't see us making any progress.  At one point she asked how big the twins were at birth and told us that she didn't think I was built to deliver more than a 3-4lb baby... that made me MORE determined to make progress, but to no avail.  After a little over two hours, she told us she couldn't tell what position the baby was in but that I had obviously developed an infection that was going to require both the baby and I to be on more antibiotics after the delivery. At that point the baby started to show signs of distress and Ben and I agreed that a C-section was going to be the best option at that point.






The doctor explained that I would not be able to hold the baby after birth because she was going to need to go away immediately for testing.  Ben argued that it was important for me to be able to hold her immediately, but was unsuccessful in changing her mind.  Our doula Heidi asked to be allowed to enter the delivery room and stay with me until I was stitched up, but the doctor once again rejected this idea.  Remembering the twins delivery and the fact that I passed out as soon as I saw them, I figured that this was not as important as making sure the baby had someone with her. 






At this point I was pretty emotional and I remembered signing all the forms for the C-section and being told that in case blood was needed during the delivery, they would try to use my blood type, but that in an emergency, they would use whatever they could get ahold of in order to take care of me. 


I was still pretty out of it when I entered the operating room and vaguely remember shaking so much that they had to put some sort of warming blankets on me before Ben came in.  When it was time for Kinsey to be delivered things went pretty fast.  The doctor passed her off to Ben and I watched across the room as they took pictures of him with her.  I could hardly stay awake, but I wanted to tell them not to wash her up til I got to see her, but I couldn't really speak.  I fought to keep my eyes open as Ben kissed me and followed them out of the room with her. 






That's when things started to get crazy.  I heard the doctor tell the others in the room that when she opened me up, and touched my previous incision site that Kinsey's arm just popped out.  I could hear her telling the others that she didn't have to cut me open at all.  I knew at that point that something was wrong and the next thing I could remember hearing was them calling for blood.  I heard someone else ask what kind and someone shouting whatever they could get that they needed as much of it as possible.  I continued to be in and out of it while feeling like someone was taking a rolling pin to the lower half of my body.  I remember feeling like I was being lifted off the table and wrung out.  Then, I heard the doctor screaming for her backup and telling someone else to talk to my husband about doing a hysterectomy.  When she said they were going to lose me if they didn't do it, I could no longer take it.  I wanted to live to see my baby and my kids and my husband, but there were too many thoughts running through my head for me to handle.   For what seemed like the hundredth time I said, SLEEP, and someone finally heard me and called for a machine in order to place a line in me to put me out.






At some point after this, they put me into a medically induced coma, which they didn't bring me out of until the following day.  The next thing I remember was waking up on Sunday and not being able to see clearly... I remember wanting to know how my sweet baby was and whether Ben knew that they had had to do a hysterectomy.  They tried to keep me calm, since I still had a breathing tube in... and was writing things down.  My next memory is of them bringing my sweet little girl for me to hold for the first time.  I was so scared to hold her for fear that I would drop her, but the doctors and nurses helped assist me.  She didn't get to stay with me for long since I was in the ICU, but they promised to bring her back periodically for visits.




The next few days are a blur.  I developed another infection and was not allowed to eat (or leave the ICU) until it cleared up.  Kinsey was kept by the nurses in the Mother/Baby unit and was not allowed to visit me because there was someone else in the ICU with the flu. On Tuesday, they sent her home.  They brought her to me so that I could dress her, get her ready, and say goodbye to her.  Ben took her home to the twins and our moms who would watch her until I was released.  On Wednesday they finally sent me upstairs to the regular hospital ward, but because there was flu & RSV on this floor, Kinsey was not allowed to visit and I was told not to walk the halls in the direction of their rooms.  On Friday, I was given hospital privileges and was allowed to go downstairs to meet her and Ben at her 1 week appointment.  Afterwards they moved me to the Mother/Baby Unit and let Kinsey stay the night with me.  While this was the nicest room I had been in, it was also the noisiest.  The nurses came in to check on me every two hours and woke me up by turning the light on and telling me to get up and walk around (apparently there was a note in my chart to this affect, but no one had specified this was day time instructions only).  By morning Kinsey was nursing like a champ and we were ready to be discharged.  After the sleepless nights, Ben was passed out in the chair and stayed that way til they released us at lunchtime... I woke him and begged him to get me out of there.  8 days in the hospital without seeing or talking to the twins was rough, and there was no better feeling then getting to be back home with them!