KENNEDY’S BIRTH STORY…

October 13, 2016

I wanted to share with you my birth story of our little angel Kennedy Harper Jones! Since the day she was born, she has been the most amazing and happy baby!

When I was 39 weeks, my doctor gave me the choice to get induced since my baby was already measuring over 8 lbs and was full term. Also, after checking me, the doctor mentioned that Kennedy was not coming anytime soon. My whole body was incredibly swollen and the pregnancy was starting to get really hard on my body (my body would ache and I couldn’t sleep at night anymore). I also thought it would be nice to know when she would be coming so I could be prepared and have family be able to make it to the birth- especially since all of our family lives in California and we live in Texas. So I picked Monday, September 19th to be induced and told my mom to book her flights for the birth. Since my situation was not a medical emergency, my induction was not a top priority and the hospital kept pushing it back to put emergency births ahead of mine. Finally they called me Tuesday morning around 5am and told me to come in at 6:30am! (Keep in mind that in ordered to be induced, I had to stop eating by midnight the day before which made me even more eager to be called into the hospital) We were so excited because we knew we wouldn’t be leaving the hospital without our baby!

My husband, mom and I arrived at the hospital at 6:30am with our bags, checked into the labor room, and I immediately put on my labor gown and received my IV. Due to my excitement, I couldn’t sleep the night before and only got 2 hours of sleep but was not even tired! I guess it was all the adrenaline! Once settled in, they checked my cervix and I was 1cm dilated. Since I was already dilated, they started giving me the pitocin (to induce labor) and restricted me to only eating ice chips or popsicles. Let me tell you that is was torture!! After hours of pitocin, nothing was progressing with my dilation or cervix. I was getting so disappointed that nothing was happening because I was having lots of regular contractions all day. Since the pitocin wasn’t working, they decided to give me cervidil to soften my cervix and see if that would work instead. They inserted the cervidil at 7pm and didn’t take it out until 7am the next day. They gave me an hour break between switching the medications, which allowed me to eat for the first time all day! After that meal, I wasn’t allowed to eat or drink liquids until I had the baby. I basically did not eat or drink anything for over 30 hours!! When I woke up in the morning (Wednesday, September 21), I was only 2 cm dilated. They took the crervadil out and decided to give me the pitocin again that morning. At this point I decided to get my epidural because the contractions were getting REALLY painful. Also every time they checked my cervix it was SUPER painful. At 8am my doctor came in and broke my water. From that point forward we waited all day for things to start happening and the nurses kept checking me throughout the day. Finally, by around 9pm the nurse told me I was 10 cm dilated and I was ready to start pushing! By this point, I was seriously tired of waiting and so ready to get the pushing process started! For the next two hours, I was pushing and pushing and our little baby was having a hard time coming out! While I was pushing, I contracted a fever of over 100 degrees and my doctor said I had gotten an infection called Chorioamnionitis. They think I got it from having my water broken so early in the day, and it taking so long to get dilated. The longer it is open, the more you are prone to infection. They put me on antibiotics right away and the doctor said he needed to do an episiodimy to get her out. They snipped me down there (thank goodness for my epidural haha) and he had to use forceps to pull her out. I did a few final pushes and she came right out! It was the most AMAZING feeling seeing my doctor hold her up and seeing her for the first time. I looked up at Alex and he was crying- which is a rare occurrence- and I just started bawling crying too! I couldn’t believe we were officially parents of the most precious little baby, and she was all ours! After cleaning her up a bit, the nurses immediately took her out of the delivery room and took her to the NICU. I was so sad that I didn’t get to do skin to skin right away or even see her for longer than a few seconds. But they came back a while later so I can do skin to skin with her for a little bit, which was so surreal and amazing getting to hold my baby girl! They put her in the NICU and put her on antibiotics because of the infection I had, it got transferred to her too.

A couple days later, I was in my recovery room and I got a phone call from one of the NICU doctors. She told me that they tested my placenta and both sides of it came back positive for Group B Strep. I was so confused because I was tested twice during my pregnancy for Group B Strep, and both times it came back negative. She said since it was also on the side facing Kennedy and that she most likely had gotten it too. She said that they were going to do a spinal tap the next day to see if it had spread to her spine and she maybe contracted meningitis. Group B Strep is so scary if a baby gets it and especially if it gets left untreated. Luckily Kennedy was put on antibiotics right after birth for the other infection, because those antibiotics helped get rid of the Group B Strep as well! She also told me she had a couple sleep apnea episodes- which is when you stop breathing while sleeping. They said she turned grayish blue. That is a symptom of having Group B Strep. I started bawling crying and was so scared for my little angel. It was the scariest news I’ve ever gotten. My little baby was so precious and fragile, and didn’t know what to expect from hearing this news. We prayed and prayed, and hoped for negative results of the spinal tap. I honestly didn’t sleep that whole week I was in the hospital. I maybe got two hours of sleep a night because I was in so much pain and also was so worried for Kennedy. We were SO relieved when the results from her test came back negative!!! The antibiotics got rid of her infections as well! She still had to stay in the NICU for a total of ten days to make sure she had no more sleep apnea episodes and everything was good.

For the next seven days in the NICU, we drove to the hospital every day and spent almost all day with our little angel! We got to feed her during her feedings and just hold and snuggle her as much as we could. I couldn’t sleep that next week either, just imaging my little girl by herself and without her parents. But the nurses at the NICU were so amazing and cared for Kennedy so well when we weren’t there. She was able to go home on Saturday October, 1st. It was seriously the best day ever!!! We could barely sleep the night before and we were just so grateful she was able to come home with us finally!

Having Kennedy home has been an absolute dream! Being a mom has been the most fulfilling job I have ever done. I feel like my whole goal in life is to be the best mom I can be to Kennedy and I am truly happiest when I am with my little family! I honestly don’t even know what we did before we had her, life is so much more fun and amazing with her in it! I can’t wait to see how she grows and develops and all the fun milestones we have ahead!