Ty's Story

It all started Sunday, May 30th. I was trying not to complain but I was having pretty bad cramps all day. Mentally and emotionally I felt like I couldn't go another day of being pregnant. I wasn't sleeping, I was uncomfortable, I just felt done. So being the smart girl that I am, that night we were over at my parents and I decided to go outside and jump on the tramp... just to help the baby out a little. After that the cramps did get a little worse and continued to throughout the night. I woke up every 30 minutes to pain I had never felt before and somehow was able to fall back asleep, after only getting about 2 hours of sleep I got out of bed and tried taking a bath, lying on the couch, watching a movie, anything to get my mind off of the horrible cramps! When I honestly felt like I couldn't take it anymore Danny and I decided to say our morning prayers, he was praying and during the middle of it I felt like I had wet my pants. I waited until he was done and then rushed to the bathroom to find that my water had broke! I yelled to Danny that It Was Time!! At this point my "cramps" were literally unbearable! I couldn't even breathe, it seemed like once the pain stopped just a little it went right back up again. It was then that I realized that I was having labor contractions! We called my Mom to let her know what was going on. She talked me through the contractions on the drive and then met us at the hospital.

We arrived a little after 10:30 am, the first thing they did when we got there was check to make sure I was actually ready to have the baby. I was dilated to a 3 (almost a 4) and 100% effaced, I was ready! Now I had two big concerns, especially with it being Memorial Day and knowing that Doctors were only on call. 1) I needed to get the antibiotic in me asap to protect the baby from Group B Strep 2) When am I getting the epidural?! One of the nurses went to call the Doctor while the other one started asking me 100 questions! I don't know why they do this, I don't think any woman in labor is in the right mind set to answer such hard questions like are you married, single, or divorced? To which my reply was "single." This is my proof of how much pain I really was in, Danny and my Mom were dying!

Next they wheeled me into the Labor/Delivery room and started setting everything up. They got the antibiotic going, which was a huge relief, but still feeling all that pain! (I don't know how any of you crazy women can go natural?) After what seemed like an eternity of squeezing Danny's hand and trying to breathe through each contraction, I finally got that AMAZING epidural! Wow am I thankful for modern day medicine! As soon as it kicked in my body relaxed so much that it jumped from a 3 to a 9 in seconds. All the sudden a bunch of nurses ran in, I was put on oxygen and everyone was telling me to push! I knew that something was wrong but all I could do was try to stay calm, breathe, and pray that my little baby would be kept safe. I guess what had happened was my body relaxed so much from the epidural that I jumped from a 3 to an 8 which put a ton of pressure on Ty's head and made it really hard for him to breathe. (his heart rate went from the 160's down to the 60's in seconds) One of the nurses was able to push on my cervix to take pressure off of Ty's head and that helped him to breathe better. After things settled down my doctor showed up, checked me and said I was a 9 and things were looking great. He said he would come back to check on me in a little while and as he got up to leave Ty's heart rate dropped down again to 60... Doc said it was time to get the baby out! Once again I was trying to stay calm, I started pushing and at 11:59 am (less than 10 minutes later) I was looking at our precious little baby. It really was the most surreal thing I had ever experienced, to see that precious little baby and know that he was ours. I was just so thankful that he was out, crying, and everything seemed okay.

They took him down to do the some tests and results showed that too many of his white blood cells were immature, our little guy was sick. They decided to do another test the next morning and see if results came back better, but when they came back things still weren't looking good, they had gotten even a little worse. Now they were also nervous that he might have gotten Group B Strep since I had the antibiotics in me for only an hour so after talking with a lot of nurses and the doctor we decided that Ty needed to go to the NICU. Being first time parents this was a very stressful decision for us, we didn't know what was going on, how severe it really was, and how everything would turn out. My mom called us that morning just to check and see how we were doing and I briefly told her the situation. Within minutes she was at the hospital. My mom seriously saved us that week, for the next two days she came in the morning and sat next to Ty all day long so that I could go back to my room between feedings and try to get some sleep. Knowing that someone who loved my son was watching him while I wasn't there made things a lot less stressful for us. I don't think we could've gotten through that week without her love and support.

After four days of testing, monitoring, and antibiotics Ty was feeling better and we were finally able to take him home. Our experience at the hospital was stressful and not what we expected, but we grew so much as a couple and closer to our Heavenly Father. I know that prayers and the priesthood are what helped Ty get better and am so thankful for all the love and support that was shown to us that first week. I wouldn't take anything back that we experienced, and am so happy to be home with our beautiful healthy baby Ty.