Sawyer

My baby was due May 14th, a Thursday. And Mom and Scott rolled into town late that night. They really didn't need to rush getting here. We waited an entire week for him to make his entrance. It was quite a difficult week, too. I was emotionally and physically exhausted from the pregnancy, in addition to all of the weirdness of this entire year due to Coronavirus + politics + racial wars and rioting in the country. It's been a bit of a roller coaster year -- and not the fun kind. I was also anxious because I didn't know what this delivery would look like -- again, because of Coronavirus. I just wanted it to be over and to have my baby safe and sound.

That last week looked like lots of food (Gramma is a foodie, so, of course, she went shopping multiple times, we went out some, and she made lots of good things. And there always tends to be lots of junk food in the house when Gramma comes), some days hanging out with Brian, Sammy and Scott, lots of movie days with the kids, and trying to rest. One day, Gramma took the kids and I to Gardner's Village in West Jordan for the Fairy Festival, which was so fun, and the perfect way to distract us from waiting. That last week of pregnancy was rough, physically, too. I was so big, so uncomfortable, sleeping so poorly, and so emotional.

Needless to say, it was a rough week for me.

Then, I had an appointment the day before a full week had passed, and we made an appointment to get induced the next day. And he stripped my membranes, just in case that worked.

It did work; just, very slowly. I started having contractions that afternoon, hours apart. They started getting closer together later in the evening. We went to bed, and I slept fitfully, trying to ignore contractions, until about 3 in the morning, when I decided I should probably start timing the contractions. They were pretty close together, pretty consistently, and Daniel and I left the kids with mom and went in to the hospital at about 5 in the morning. We made arrangements for Scott to come stay at the house so that Mom could come to the birth at the hospital.

After checking in and getting situated, the nurses checked me and declared that I was only at a 3. I was actually shocked! In my previous experiences, when I had contractions like those, I was definitely further along. Plus, I was at a 2 the day before when I met with my doctor. How could I have been laboring all night, with contractions coming 5 minutes apart, and have only progressed 1cm?? They started me on pitosin, to get my contractions to come harder -- which they did -- and we were on our way to have a baby. Daniel and Mom were both in the room by this time, helping me work through the difficult contractions and keeping an eye on me and baby.

It was a stressful labor and delivery. Much of the time, whenever I had a contraction, the baby's heart rate would plummet, and oftentimes drop out completely. The nurses were nervous. They kept having me change positions trying to find something that the baby would tolerate better. They once had me put this elongated exercise ball type thing between my legs to see if that would help. Nothing did. Eventually, in the course of the morning, after contractions were getting so much worse, the anesthesiologist came in to give me an epidural, and the doctor came in shortly after to break my water. He broke my bag, and no water came out. And the nurses tried a couple of times after that to reposition the baby's head to see if they could get fluids out, and they never got any water. It's like there was no water in there!

I was so nervous about this labor. Even weeks before, I just felt like something was going to go wrong. And when we were in the throes of it, and the baby didn't seem to be doing well, and nothing we did helped his little heart rate, and it seemed that there wasn't any fluids -- I was extremely anxious. After I got the epidural, I tried to rest. But every time I noticed the baby's heart rate drop or fall out completely, I popped up and watched to make sure he was still alright.

Eventually, the nurses checked me and found that I was at a 9, and they basically said, "You're close enough, we're gonna call the doctor in and just get this baby out." If those words don't bring on an anxiety attack, I don't know what would. The doctor had me start pushing. He gave me a couple of pushes, and then pulled out a vacuum to help get the baby out. He told me, "Okay, you need to push as hard as you can. I'll give you a couple more pushes, but we need to get this baby out, and if you can't do it, we'll have to go to c-section." I was highly motivated to push -- I didn't want a c-section. But it was hard to feel like I was pushing well enough because of the epidural. I did my best, and we did end up getting him out. Apparently, shoulder first. The doctor said the cord was wrapped so tightly around his neck, that he couldn't pull him out head first.

Poor little boy was so purple when he came out. He was screaming so fiercely. And there was an army of people working in our room on him. The doctor said I had minimal tearing, and he was fixing me up. But I was just focused on my baby, and worried that he wasn't okay. They didn't give him to me for what felt like a long time. He screamed for such a long time. Hours, it felt like to me. He just never calmed down, even with me holding him skin to skin. I think the birth was traumatic for us both.

Our baby was born at 10:35am on May 21st, 2020. He came in at 7 lbs. 4 oz. and 21 inches long. He had all his fingers and toes, and a whole beautiful head of hair. He was screaming and purple, but they passed him off as being fully perfect.

Our stay in the hospital was not the best of my experience. The nurses were too anxious about him nursing (or rather, not nursing), and some of them were quite condescending in their manner. Now, I don't pretend to know everything about babies and the best way to take care of them. But I do have 4 of them now, so I don't consider myself inexperienced and I do, in fact, know how to burp a baby, for example. I also have much experience with babies that don't nurse. So when I propose a plan of action that the nurses question repeatedly and give me instructions, I have to roll my eyes. Mom and I were not a fan. We both felt like they were being a little much for someone who's had multiple babies successfully. We were annoyed. I was also annoyed because we couldn't get a moment of peace without someone coming into our room. I didn't get more than an hour or an hour and a half stretch of sleep the whole time we were in the hospital. By the time we left the hospital, I was almost delirious from lack of sleep. It was way worse than regular newborn sleeplessness.

So, all in all, the labor and delivery was panic-inducing, and the hospital stay was anxious, at best. But I was glad to have our baby. He was so cute, so sweet and innocent. I was just happy that we were bringing him home alive and well, and I was ever so grateful that I didn't have to have a c-section. We had difficulty naming this little man in the months leading up to the hospital. I wrote a list on the mirror of names as I thought of them, and Daniel systematically crossed almost all of them. We were left with Beckett, William, Sawyer and August in the weeks before he was born. But Daniel and I had our favorites, and we didn't like each other's favorite. In the end, when we came to the hospital, we had a very short list: William and Sawyer, and a few other names that were basically non-contenders (we were trying to find some name that we both loved). And when he came, it was pretty clear to us that we both wanted him to be Sawyer. Middle name proved very difficult. I liked some of my hispanic family names; Daniel liked the initial D only -- which I could not get behind. And in the end, Daniel just told me to choose. I chose Daniel.

Sawyer Daniel Holbrook. It sounded perfect to me. For our perfect little boy.