Hello, again! It’s been a while. I wanted to take the time
to share Brogan’s birth story though!
Baby Planning
Caleb and I started talking about the timing of another baby
shortly after Aiden’s birth. We knew we didn’t want too big of an age gap again
(although I loved that gap between Liam and Aiden!), so we decided that after
Aiden was 1, maybe that summer was a good time to start trying. We had a
vacation planned, so we figured, what the heck? That seemed like a good point
to start.
In preparation, I got my IUD out a couple months before June
rolled around. When we were trying with Aiden, it took a few months for my
cycle to return and get regular again, so I decided to give it a few months to
regularize and track things this time around before trying. We had a crazy
couple of months between then and June because we decided to sell our home.
Everything moved really quickly and we sold our house, went on our trip to
Cancun, and then came home and immediately started packing up the house for our
move that took place just weeks later.
Pregnancy Journey
About a week and a half after we got back from Cancun, I went to Girl’s Camp with the YW of our ward and I remember that I was utterly exhausted while there. I went to sleep super early and even fell asleep on the drive back the next day. After I got home, I was pretty preoccupied with packing, but a few days in to it while I was packing up our closet and bathroom, I found a stash of pregnancy tests and realized my cycle was expected soon. On a whim, I decided to take a test (the 26th of June). I remember telling Caleb I was going to do it and he was like “ok, whatever you want”, but I don’t think he really expected much from it. I took the test and left it on the bathroom counter while I waited for the results to show up, and when I looked at it, I felt initial disappointment because I didn’t think there was a line. But then I realized there actually was a line – a very faint one! I remember I ran out to Caleb and told him “Caleb!!! I think it’s positive!” He was pretty skeptical and told me to wait and retest and then he’d believe it. I was not feeling very patient though. I decided to go to the store and get a blue dye test to see if it would also show up positive. To my excitement, it did!
There were two tests in the package, so to please Caleb, I only took one and then took the second 2 days later on the 28th of June. That result was clearly a positive, so we were pretty excited and a bit shocked we’d gotten pregnant on the first try.
We signed on our new house the
next day and then quickly moved things in over a couple of days so that we
could go on a family camping trip the 5th-8th of July.
Things were pretty busy once we returned from that. Connor
broke his wrist, I started a job, the kids had swimming lessons, so the weeks
passed extremely quickly until my dating ultrasound on July 28th. We
started sharing the news right away with our families because I felt
comfortable where I was at in the pregnancy (9 w 1 d). I was dealing with a lot
of nausea and we had an upcoming camping trip planned with Caleb’s family, so I
wanted the news out there before everyone was guessing and wondering what the
heck was wrong with me.
Our anatomy scan ultrasound wasn’t scheduled until the 18th of October and we kept pretty busy the next few months so it was relatively easy not to be impatient or obsess over whether it was a girl or a boy. I was pretty nauseous and puking quite a bit, but not as bad as I did with Evelynn, but more than I did with the boys (except Aiden). We weren’t really leaning one way or another on guessing gender until my first visit to L&D triage on 3rd of October. I had been doing a lot of cleaning while listening to General Conference the day before and in my clumsiness, I took a fall on the stairs. I wasn’t too concerned about it until I started having a pain in my left side. I figured it would go away but when I was still feeling it the next day, I decided to just call L&D and ask if I should worry. They asked me if I could feel the baby move, and then I started to panic because I really hadn’t been feeling baby move AT ALL yet. They said it was better to be safe than sorry, so down to L&D I went.
Everything ended up being just fine and they
suspected I had just strained an abdominal muscle. Baby’s heartrate sounded
good as well, so they weren’t too concerned but the doctor wanted to just do a
quick ultrasound to rule out placental abruption. Thankfully that looked good
as well and the doctor told me I had an anterior placenta this time, which was probably
why I wasn’t feeling baby although he was moving around and perfectly fine. As
the doctor was doing the ultrasound, he asked if I wanted a sneak-peak of
gender. I figured I was almost 18 weeks so the odds of being told the wrong
gender were low, so I responded with a “heck yes!” I was so stunned when he
said that his guess was girl. He said he could see umbilical cord between the
legs but nothing else, and I was so excited by the idea of it being a girl that
I didn’t even ask him to double check. He did follow up with a “don’t quote me
on it”, but after that, I thought we had a pretty good chance of having a girl.
I went home and told Caleb and assured him I wouldn’t get my hopes up, but as
the next few weeks passed before the big ultrasound, I admit my heart was
expecting a girl and my hopes were definitely up.
October 12, 20 weeks
October 13, 20 w 1 d
October 17, 20 w 5 d
Our ultrasound was at 8 am the morning of the 18th. My sister-in-law was so sweet and came and watched the older kids for us because they didn’t have school that day, and I was anxious/excited to hear “girl!” declared at the ultrasound.
This may not surprise you, but when the tech said “it’s another boy!” I thought I’d misheard her and went completely numb with shock. I didn’t even think to ask her to double check. I don’t remember saying much at all after that because I just kept thinking “boy… it’s a boy…. It’s a… boy?????? Wait…. ANOTHER BOY?!?!?!? But the doc said girl!!!!......”. I just kept going over it in my head. When we left, Caleb and I looked over the pictures and commented on how the gender shot looked pretty different than the older boys did (it must have been a weird angle) and maybe it was a cord instead??? I mulled over the possibility of the ultrasound tech being wrong for like an entire day, then I convinced Caleb to schedule another gender ultrasound at a private place for the following Friday so that we could be 100% sure on gender.
When Friday rolled around, I was pretty sure it was a boy,
but still slightly uncomfortable calling babv a boy until I had a second look.
It was totally obvious though that we were indeed expecting another boy when
the ultrasound began! I had originally planned to tell the kids the gender in a
cute way, but felt a little burnt out so I just bought some cute baby boy
pajamas, stuck them in a bag, and let the kids open it. They’d all been hoping for
a sister, so there was some initial disappointment, but Evelynn told us that
she already knew what it felt like to be disappointed after how sad she was
when we found out Aiden was a boy, that she’d be ok. She knows she loves her
brothers! And hey – she doesn’t have to share a room!
In the next month, I had a few conversations with doctors about if we should do anything to treat my blood pressure, but in the end, we decided to just continue to monitor and not do anything else.
On Jan 15th, I had my next unexpected visit to L&D. I had been doing some cleaning and got down to clean up the floor when I felt this pull and burning pain on my left side. It was really weird and I’d never felt it before. I took it easy for a little while, but then when the pain wouldn’t stop, I made a call to the L&D nurse asking their opinion. They said to come on in so they could make sure everything was fine. They checked me in, had me leave a urine sample, and hooked me up to monitors. My blood pressure was showing high, which they weren’t thrilled about, but we chalked it up to stress. I had been fighting off a cold, so I had to be covid tested upon entering L&D and the results came back negative. When the doc came in, she looked me over and it was decided that I probably just pulled an abdominal muscle (again), but she was concerned by what I said about my blood pressure because it came back up while I was waiting. They decided to run additional tests to rule out preeclampsia that might not have been manifesting in the usual way. We had to do blood tests and an additional urine test. And lots more monitoring of my blood pressure. It was quite a process to find a good spot to get blood, so we had to wait for lab to come up and do it. I was sitting at 151/90, so they just didn’t want to send me home without thoroughly investigating. When the doc finally came back in a while later she said my labs came back good so the thought it was most likely just chronic hypertension or gestational hypertension and to monitor my numbers twice a day and take them to my next appointment.
Covid Adventure
The next day (Jan 16th) Evelynn came down with a high fever. We were able to track her down a rapid covid test the following morning and it came back positive. We were hoping no one else would catch it, but that evening the older two boys and myself came down with symptoms. I was hoping to pull through ok, but I took a turn for the worse in the middle of the night. My heart was racing and I had really bad shortness of breath. About 3 am on the3 18th, my heartrate was 127 (my resting heartrate is usually in the 50s!) and I managed to go downstairs and call L&D. The nurse was immediately alarmed and asked me “Sweetie, are you having shortness of breath? You sound like you’re struggling to breathe…” I attempted to explain that I thought it might be covid but I felt like my heart was racing and such, and she told me “I don’t care if it’s covid or not, you need to be seen.” She made sure I had someone to drive me and that I was coming immediately, and Caleb loaded up the kids and me and took me straight down to the ER. Because baby was moving fine and I wasn’t having contractions, they had me seen in the ER instead of L&D. I honestly barely remember all the tests they ran, just that my covid test came back positive and they did xrays and some tests to check my heart. They gave me a couple types of meds before moving me to a room where I was at for a few hours before getting to go home. I was pretty miserable, but they said that was to be expected with covid and being 34 weeks pregnant.
After a few days I felt I was making a recovery and started trying to get stuff done around the house. And just when I thought I was getting back to normal, I started puking. I had been having panic attacks and my anxiety was spiraling really bad, and an on-call doc was very kind to send me in a prescription for anxiety meds that Caleb picked up for me. I initially thought I was dealing with a 24 hr bug, but when the puking continued past that point, I started to feel kind of desperate. I couldn’t hold down even a sip of water or a single bite of food. Finally on the night of the 24th I asked Caleb to take me back to the hospital. I felt very dehydrated, was having some contractions, and wasn’t feeling baby move much. I just wanted to feel better and stop puking! My blood pressure was 156/92 and my urine sample was quite dark, which felt like proof that I really wasn’t feeling well. It took a few pokes to find a good spot for an IV to get fluids in and take labs, but I was so miserable I really didn’t care. They also pumped me full of Zofran which helped a ton. When the doc came in after the second bag of fluids was in me, he said it was all a response to the covid and unfortunately, I was going to be miserable for a while and there wasn’t much to do about it but wait it out. He sent me home with a Zofran prescription that I was hoping not to need, but ultimately did. Caleb picked it up for me the next afternoon and for the next several days I relied on it to even get out of bed and was so relieved to be able to hold food and liquids down again! It took about a week for me to feel normal and wean off the Zofran.
On Feb 1st I had my first appointment with my new
OB/GYN. The one I had started off with went on emergency medical leave and
wouldn’t return until April, so I requested to be switched to a different
doctor rather than be shuffled around with whoever was available. She was so
kind and compassionate about everything I’d been dealing with! My blood
pressure was showing high and she told me she thought the best thing for us to
do was lean towards a 39-week induction, do a non-stress test and try to do
some membrane sweeps at our upcoming appointments to see if we can get labor
moving along on its own rather than inducing.
The next day on the 15th I had my 38-week
appointment. I had progressed to a 2 so we went ahead with stripping membranes.
My fundal height was measuring at 40 weeks so I was reaaaaaallly getting
anxious about baby’s size and wanting things to move along. I was pretty
uncomfortable but didn’t really start getting my hopes up until the next
evening. I lost my mucus plug and had some bloody show and was dealing with a
lot of contractions and cramping. I was so excited thinking it was finally
time! As soon as I hit 3 hours of contractions, they died off though. I was so
bummed!!!
As the next couple days passed, I got excited at every
twinge and pain, and then so disappointed when nothing came of it. My foot was
cramping so bad and I was aching and hurting and was told about this place
called the Magical Foot Spa. I decided that if baby wasn’t coming, I was
getting myself a dang foot rub! My sister-in-law agreed to go with me the next
morning, and man was it AMAZING!
Two days later on the 21st I woke up with a cold.
I was so mad! I resigned myself to the fact that I would be having to kick baby
out, but to do it with a nasty chest cold did NOT sound fun! I had an
appointment with a midwife at the practice the next day that I almost didn’t
bother going to since induction was scheduled for first thing Wednesday, but I
decided to just see if my misery the prior week had been worthwhile and if I’d
made any progress. To my dismay, I was still a 2. We did another membrane
strip, but I had zero hopes it would do anything in the next 18 hours. We were
also told our induction might get waitlisted, but thankfully that evening a
call came telling us we were on for our 7:30 am induction time on Wed, Jan 23rd.
Baby Time/Birth Story
The next morning my parents came to watch the kids and we said our goodbyes and headed to the hospital. We were slightly delayed on checking because there were a couple inductions checking in all at once, but eventually we were settled in our room and answering a million questions for medical records. We got the IV in and waited for the doctor to discuss the process we would follow. It was 10 am by the time we got the foley bub inserted into the cervix. She said she had also inserted cervadil to try to kick start things and would check and see if the balloon came out in 2 hours.
At the two hour mark the nurse checked, but we weren’t quite
ready yet for it to come out. At the 3 hours mark it came out with very little
resistance though. I was feeling mild contractions, but wasn’t in too much pain
at that point. I had progressed from a 2 to a 5 with the help of the foley bulb
and was feeling pretty good with the process. The doctor planned to come in and
break my water, so we were waiting a bit from there on. At around 2 pm, the
doctor came and got situated and was just about to break my water when she
changed her mind. She said that there was a lot of fluid making baby’s head
float higher than she’d like. She didn’t want to break my water and open the
door to the cord wrapping around his neck when his head settled. That made
sense to me, so we opted to focus on getting my epidural in next and starting Pitocin
before we broke water.
I wasn’t in near as much pain as I usually am when I request
an epidural, but I had been told by the midwife that she’d seen a lot of post-covid
labors and they seemed to go long and hard, and that in her opinion, I should
get an epidural sooner rather than later. That’s not the thing I’m used to
hearing from a midwife, so it stuck in my mind. I decided to just go ahead and
get the process started. And MAN was it a rough one this time! The poor anesthesiologist
had to back out and start entrance 3 different times because he kept hitting
bone. It was a way more painful process than I’m used to and much longer!
Eventually it was in though and I was settled, when I realized I was feeling
super lightheaded and got nauseous. My blood pressure dropped drastically, so
they got meds to bring it back up. I was dry heaving but thankfully didn’t get
sick. It was about 3:15 when they started Pitocin and left me to be for a
little while.
The doctor came in and broke my water about 3:45. She kept
remarking on how much fluid there was and later the nurse came and was
adjusting baby’s head to let more fluid out because he wasn’t settling down
into the birth canal quite like they wanted him to. She kept saying “wow, you
have A LOT of fluid! Man!”
Caleb went to get food and I was starting to feel a lot more
miserable by the time he returned. The nurse was rooting for a 6 pm baby, but
by the time she checked me around 5:30, I was still a stinkin’ 5. I think I
started crying a little. Poor me!
With a few of my kids this has happened to me where I feel
every single contraction down low. The nurse told Caleb to keep pushing the button
for the epidural for me and it was probably just pressure, but UGH was I
starting to be in pain! I was breathing through contractions again and miserable.
The nurse checked me again at 6:30 because I told her I was
feeling pressure but I was only at an 8! I was super discouraged and hurting A
LOT. I think I made it about 10 more minutes before I told her I felt like I
was needing to push. I’ll be totally honest, what happened next ticked me off,
but I was in so much pain that I literally didn’t have it in me to argue or
tell her off. She told me that it wasn’t time yet because she’d just checked me
and it usually takes an hour to go a cm. UHHHHHH I know my body. I know what
labor feels like. I know what it feels like to need to push. And I went from a
6 to a 10 in like 15 mins flat with Evelynn. Don’t tell me what I’m feeling or
when it’s time!!!! I was borderline hysterical at that point though. I could
feel my body pushing and I had zero control over the sounds I was making as I
attempted to retain some dignity and handle the pain and try not to push, but
it was futile. At that point, I remember the nurse bustling around and telling
someone “I have a feeling…” and eventually realizing she was setting things up.
Another person came in and said “doesn’t she have an epidural?!” My nurse told
them “yes, she’s just feeling a lot of pressure.” She checked me again and
attempted to adjust where my catheter was and I remember starting to cry
because it hurt so bad. She didn’t say anything about me being ready, so I wasn’t
even aware that they’d let me start pushing soon.
I remember the doctor came in moments later and said the
same thing “doesn’t she have an epidural?!” Then she settled down and said “you
ready to have a baby?!?!?” I got really nauseous again and started dry heaving,
but thankfully didn’t puke. I wish I could say I was super focused on pushing
at that time, but I think the pain and being told to wait pushed me over the
edge a bit. It wasn’t going very well. At some point in the next 10 minutes,
the midwife appeared. I felt a cool hand touch my arm and it brought me to
clarity for a split second and I opened my eyes and saw her there beside Caleb.
The two of them just kept talking to me calmly and encouraging me, and I remember
thinking “I can do this. I can do this!” At some point soon after, the doctor
told me they were placing an internal monitoring system on baby and I felt extreme
pain. I cried out and I’m pretty sure I begged her to stop whatever she was doing.
“I just turned your baby”, she said. The next thing I remember is that the
doctor told me “Rebecca, look at me. We need to get your baby out and we need
to do it now. So, I need you to push with all you’ve got!” I remember for a split-second
thinking “I have got to do this, please don’t let this end in a c-section!” I
had a coughing fit right about then and they attempted to joke about how it
would help him come down. Then I pushed a few more times, and at 7:05 pm little
Brogan entered the world.
They put him on my chest and I was so happy and trying to
encourage him to make some kind of noise, when there were suddenly hands
pushing my arms away and picking him up and taking him. I was so confused, and that’s
when it registered that there were A LOT of people in the room and I heard
people saying NICU. I was so alarmed and looked at Caleb and asked him “is he
ok?!?!?!” Caleb left my side for a split second and then said “he’s ok, he’s ok”
and attempted to calm me. I didn’t really know what was going on, and it was a
shift change so even more people came into the room. The people we were
familiar with left and Brogan was returned to me with the comment “He’s ok,
just had a bit of a rough entrance there”. From that point on, I don’t have a
lot of info. I remember being told I was bleeding heavier than they'd like, but an additional bag of pitocin (i think?) fixed it. Everyone was trying to ask us why there were so many people and
why the midwife was there and why this and why that, and we just didn’t know. We’d
been so focused on me and Brogan that we didn’t’ ask what was going on and were
just glad everything was ok.
The next day our nurse came back on shift and stopped in to
see Brogan and say hi. She told us that baby had to be turned and they had thought
the cord was around his neck. His heartrate had dropped below the 70s for 6
minutes before they put the monitoring on him and then they were having a hard
time monitoring his vitals, so at some point the doc had NICU and extra people
brought in and that’s when she got down to business and told me baby needed out
ASAP. Thankfully everything ended up being fine, it was just an intense little welcoming
to the world there at the beginning.
Our sweet Brogan Leo was born 2/23/2022 at 7:05 pm
After a few hours of skin-to-skin and nursing, we took vitals.
8 lbs 7 ozs
20 ¼ inches long
We have never had an evening baby before. We had a lot of
downtime the next day and played board games between watching TV, taking care
of baby, and Caleb going and helping with the older kids. Brogan’s jaundice
levels came back at intermediate risk for jaundice, so we were told that in
order to go home that night, he needed to be seen first thing tomorrow by his
pediatrician or we had to come back to the hospital for another bilirubin
numbers check. Luckily, we were able to be discharged and got home after 9 pm
that night. The older kids were SO thrilled to meet him!!!
I had a follow-up appointment with my regular doctor on Mon
the 7th and she really helped me see how serious a situation it was
because she said the doc who saw me that day is super laid back and most
doctors, herself included, would have admitted me to the hospital instead of
handling it in triage. We’re really grateful I’m ok though! I’ve learned a
valuable lesson about following my gut and speaking up when something feels
off, instead of worrying about being a burden or inconveniencing people. What
Caleb said is “I really can’t raise 5 kids without you, so please don’t do that
again.”
Overall, we're so glad to have our baby Brogan here with our family! Everyone adores him. Aiden can't stop gently rubbing his head and giving him kisses. Evelynn asks to hold him daily. We all love him so much!
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