Introducing...
Maximilian Scot Kechely
Born January 20th, 3:30am, 2006
Weighed in at 9lbs, 20 1/2 inches long
Was delivered by C-section after 18 hours of labor
Here’s our birth story. I apologize for the length…but well, it took a long time. ;)
On January 19th, 2006, Max’s actual due date, I woke up and got out of bed at 9am. After being up for a few minutes my water broke in the bedroom as I was trying to decide what to wear. It wasn’t a full break but there was enough to be pretty sure it had broken. I called Kev at work to tell him that MAYBE things were happening. He wisely told me to hop in the shower and see if things calmed down. During the whole shower I had more water (and not from the shower) running down my leg. This was it. I got out and called Kevin. He said ”Well?”. I said “Yep”. He said “I’m coming home.” Poor guy happened to be kneeling on a 2ft x 6ft stretch of roof at the time. He had to calmly be talked down by his co-worker so he wouldn’t fall off in his excitement. He made it home safely.
I was only a little bit crampy at the time with no real strong contractions coming….so I decided to start cleaning the house. Go figure. When Kevin got home…I had him cleaning right along with me. He thought it was pretty funny. Around 10:30 the contractions started to be fairly regular so I sat down on the birth ball while Kev was timing them. It didn’t take long for them to get to be regularly 3 minutes apart. Wow…that was quick. My parents got to our house just then and it was time to go. Dad drove Kevin and I with Mom following in her car.
We checked into Triage around 1:45 and they were coming pretty fast and hard. Owie. I was up to 4 centimeters dialated and 80% effaced. Yay! Things were moving along well. We got checked in to our birth room -it was the very one they had shown us on the hospital tour so we felt very comfortable and at home there. Kala got there within the hour and we settled in to get this done! By 5:30pm I was at 8cm and fully effaced. I felt like I would pass out from the pain but I was so excited to be so close. I even felt some pushing coming on. At 7:30 I was hurting so bad I really DID think I might pass out for real, they checked me again….still 8cm. NOOOOOOOO! They started looking a bit concerned …my uterus was very hot, my temperature was too high. They started worrying that I may have an infection in my uterus. They inserted an internal monitor. If I had an infection that could make my contractions ineffectual and travel to the baby. Not good.
At 8:30 I had an epidural. They were starting to see contractions that were giving them signs that the baby was either turned funny or had a cord wrapped around it’s neck. Either way, I couldn’t do it anymore -I felt like things were stacking up against me and I called in the cavalry. I got some immediate respite from the epidural…he missed the first time around causing me to go INSTANTLY completely numb. Ask me if I cared. I didn’t….he did. So we did it again.
At about this time my contractions slowed significantly. We knew this was a strong possibility with an epidural thanks to our Bradley classes. They started me on Pitocin to bring on the contractions again but that didn’t do too much to help. So Kevin took things into his own hands, literally. We had heard in our class that nipple tweaking helps stimulate contractions…so in front of my parents, Kala, the doctors and nurses…Kev started tweaking my nipples and it worked immediately. With every tweak we got a good, strong contraction. They started coming regularly and strong again. Kevin had a grin from ear to ear…aside from the embarrassment of tweaking my nipples in front of my parents.
I was now feeling the contractions again very strongly but was still stuck at 8cm. They had me flip over on my hands and knees to labor for a while to see if we could move the baby a bit so his head was in the right position. He was head down but it was a bit sideways - not a great birthing position. Let me tell you, turning over on all fours with a numb lower half while having painful contractions….fun.
The docs were not happy. My temp rose to 101.1 and according to my internal monitor, my contractions were effective, meaning I should be fully dilated by now. They were still seeing the contractions “sistering” which could indicate a problem with baby. His heart rate was starting to drop a bit with contractions. Not good. At 12:30am they allowed me to labor for two more hours to try to get fully dilated on my own. If there was no progression by 2:30am we were going to have to discuss other options. 2:30 arrived and still no progress and my temp was still way up and emergency C-section was called for. They didn’t want baby getting an infection himself. It turns out that this was a lucky call.
They took me down the hall for prepping. Kevin got dressed in a gown and gear and was let in to the OR once I was ready to go. They started the operation while I was chatting up Greg, the anesthesiologist. I finally asked when they were going to start and he laughed and said they were almost to the baby. Wow. Kevin decided to take a peak at that point. That didn’t last long…he stayed on the other side of the curtain from there on out. Finally they got to the baby. We kept hearing “Wow you’ve got a BIG one here!”
Things got loud and a bit hectic for a moment as they realized he had hit zero station and had crowned. They had to go in from below and push him back up into my uterus so they could get him out. Because of his size, when they got him dislodged and pushed him up he went way up into my ribcage and it felt like all my organs were about to come out of my mouth. Kevin was holding a little blue tub by my mouth as Maximilian Scot Kechely came into this world at 3:30am on January 20th, 2006. He was 20 ½ inches long and weighed 9.04 Pounds. NINE POUNDS!!!! Oi vey.
Kevin got to go and get him instantly. He clamped his lil cord and cut it. He got to clean off his vernix. Max got fussy at this point and as soon as Kevin started talking to him he instantly met his eyes and calmed down. It was obvious to all that he recognized daddy’s voice. All that talking to my tummy paid off! Kevin brought Max over and I got to lay head to head with him while they sewed me up. Precious baby smell.
Max, it turns out, had the cord wrapped around his neck twice, as WELL as having his head sideways. The raise in my temperature turned out to be a blessing because it got them to decide on the c-section a bit earlier then they may have otherwise. We are all happy and healthy. He latched on to boobie within the first hour of life and got a great feeding in before being whisked away to NICU. They had to make sure that he did not have an infection now. Poor lil guy had a spinal tap within his first hours of life. He is a trooper just like his daddy! He was declared free of any infection and totally healthy and happy and only had to stay in the NICU for a day and a half.
C-sections are not fun to recuperate from but I consider mine a miracle. We spent four days in the hospital and are now home and happy with our little family. I know it sounds like a lot of things went wrong with this birth…but the way we remember it is the most beautiful, amazing, miraculous day of our lives. Thank you God for giving us Max.