Levi Thomas McKinney

A little over three months later I guess it is time to tell Levi's Birth Story. I wish I had thought of this with the other two but I will make sure to do it now for Levi. Levi was my third pregnancy. I had a lot of problems throughout this pregnancy. Starting at about 35 weeks I was having severe braxton hicks contractions. There were times that I had to call the doctor because they were so bad. Since he was my third I was always told to wait them out, take some Tylenol and rest. Sometimes they lasted all day, then finally stopped. Every time I went into the doctor for my checkups I was at 3cm and 80% effaced. This didn't change for two weeks. The week before I had him, I was actually sent to the hospital because my blood pressure was so high. I was having pretty high contractions there too so they kept me all day and then per my request sent me home. My blood pressure had gone down. Besides the contractions I was not dilating and since I was only 36 weeks there was nothing they could do. Finally three days after I turned 37 weeks, I was cramping really bad all morning. Aaron and I laid down to take a nap before we had to get Grayson from school. When I got up to get ready, I was spotting a little which was normal since I had just been checked. I got my bag and Aaron and I were standing at the door about to walk out to get Grayson and my water broke. It was not a trickle either. It was a full on gush that was not stopping. There was not anyone close enough to be able to pick Grayson up by 2:30, so I had to go get him. I called his school and had them bring him to the car since I was having a little embarrassing problem. I had also called the doctor. They told me to come in to the office. Luckily my friend Natalie was around so she could meet me at the doctor to watch the boys while I was being seen. Paul was on his way home from work just in case since it takes him about an hour to get home. The doctor told me to go to the hospital because I was having Levi today. I still had not changed any in dilation though so they said I may have to be on potocin. I was not looking forward to that because I wanted to do this naturally and if I had potocin I was going to need an epidural because that stuff makes me feel horrible. Lucky for me, my contractions started on the way home to meet Paul. It got so strong that I was hitting my console and Grayson told me I shouldn't do that because I could break my car. Paul had made it home before me and had almost everything ready. We got bags ready for the boys and they went and spent the night with Natalie(My biggest lifesaver). Finally Paul and I headed to Northside. The entire pregnancy I was so nervous that when I was in labor we would get stuck in traffic on 285. Luckily we didn't because my contractions were pretty strong. We got to the hospital and I had to sit in the sign in area for a little while because they did not have any rooms open. My water was still leaking so I felt so gross. I felt like everyone was looking at me because I had to keep a towel between my legs so I didn't leak everywhere. We got in a room finally and my mom showed up shortly after that. She was also a little ways away when this took place. I told them that I was not going to take any pain meds and the nurses kept calling me a rock star. With this pregnancy, I was positive for Group B Strep, so I had to have antibiotics through my IV. Those burned so bad that they put a glove full of ice on my hand to lesson the burning feeling. My contractions were getting closer and stronger with each one. My dilation seemed to be going rather slowly. Finally around 7:30ish, the contractions became excruciating. I kept feeling lots of pressure and the nurse checked me again and said I still was not ready. Only a few minutes after this, with each contraction I kept feeling the need to push, then I felt like my body was actually forcing me to push. They checked me again and said I was only 8 cm. The nurses kept telling me not to push because I was not ready. Keep in mind I have had no pain meds still at this point. I was starting to get really pissed off and every time they told me not to push I yelled at them that I could not not push because my body was doing it. I remember my mom kept telling me that I had to breath. I guess I was holding my breath every time I felt a pushing feeling. I was also yelling frequently. I do not see how anyone could have a silent birth. Yelling was the only way I felt I could release the pain. When my midwife came in she told me to go ahead and do what I felt. They kept telling me not to push so I would not tear, but at this point I guess she felt like it was no use. Once I went with the pushes instead of fighting them, he started coming down pretty quickly. By this time, I was yelling for meds because I could not handle the pain any longer. They had actually put the order in for meds that would go in my iv. Throughout my pregnancy I talked about different options with my midwife, one of them being a local anesthetic to lesson the ring of fire you get. Well they didn't have time for that either. When his head started coming out it burned so bad. I remember actually yelling how bad it burned. I do have to say that beside the all the pain, the good thing about not having any pain meds was that I could actually feel him come out. In the middle of all the burning, all of a sudden I felt what seemed like a burst and then all the pain was gone. I actually felt his head come out and then the rest of the body. At 8:20 pm on 9/29/11 Levi Thomas McKinney was born. It was amazing to feel his entire birth, besides the pain of course. After all of that, I only had one itty bitty tear. He was our smallest baby. He was 8lbs 10oz and 21 in. He also looked completely different than the other two. Levi had barely any hair and it was red. The other 2 had heads full of crazy black hair. We did have a little hiccup with Levi. Several hours after he was born and they took us to our room, he started choking and turning blue. The nurse took him to the nursery to have him checked out. She came back and told us that they had to keep him for awhile because he kept having choking episodes. It started happening so frequently that they had to send him to transition so he would have his own nurse to watch over him. Every time they would feed him, his oxygen would drop and he would start having choking episodes. He was also spitting up a lot of amniotic fluid. They said because he came down so fast, that he was squeezed how he should have been to get it out of his system. He was in transition for almost 48 hours before they released him to us. Once he was released to us, they actually sent us home that day. Our hospital stay was for 3 days. Oh yeah and on a side note, we had a brief freakout moment on our way home. We made it all the way to the Wade Green exit safely. All of a sudden while we were sitting at the red light to turn onto Wade Green a truck came speeding up the exit ramp just barely missing our car and went up the hill across Wade Green and into the emergency lane on the bridge. God had to be watching over, because he did not hit any car. I was so tense until we got home after that.