Chris's POV: William's Birth

**I just want to warn you guys, Chris is WAY better at describing emotions and feelings. This re-telling is not for the faint of heart. As he said, "If this doesn't make you cry, you don't have a soul." It's pretty heart-wrenching. Read at your own risk.**

Alright. So, I’m hoping to pick up from where McKell left off with this - The Day of William’s Birth.

So, from my point of view, McKell was in the middle of delivery and William’s numbers were dropping on his little monitors and I could tell that the doctor was getting worried. He called in some NICU people to be on call. We had been seeing William’s head for a while but then he just got stuck and wasn’t really moving. The doctor pulled out the vacuum and right before he was going to try use that on William to pull him out, he [William] popped out which was exciting because we were getting worried that he was sitting in there so long. The doctor had to drop the vacuum and just catch him basically, but William was completely limp. He came out and I saw his little mouth open and there was a tiny little gasp. The doctor commented about how slippery he was. He was blue and didn’t breathe, didn’t cry, and didn’t move.

William's Birth Card shows his APGAR scores:
2 at one minute and 5 at five minutes.
(Any score lower than a 7 is a sign that the baby
needs medical attention.)

The doctor fumbled and finally got William’s umbilical cord cut and then passed him off quickly to the NICU respiratory doctors and they went to work on him. So, I just kind of stood there next to McKell and as the doctor finished up with McKell’s labor and stitched her up and I remember them mentioning all the numbers of how William looked and how well he is responding (APGAR Score) and he was getting low scores for everything for what felt like forever. It was at least four minutes of no breathing at all, they were just pumping oxygen into him, trying to get him to do something. He started receiving oxygen and wiggled a little bit, but wasn’t really doing much. So about eight minutes later, or a lifetime later, he finally cried out and that was the biggest sigh of relief because I was thinking,

“Alright, he’s crying, awesome. He’ll get through this, he’ll be fine, they’re gonna let us hold him and it’ll be great.”

They wrapped him up and they gave him to mom and he already had a little tube going down his throat. They gave him to McKell and he was crying. McKell gave him a little kiss and said hi to him and then the NICU doctors said, “Alright, we have to take him.” So, they took him back and put him in the little tub, the little baby NICU beds that have the plastic covers and they said,

“Dad, you need to come with us, because mom has to stay here.”

And so, I kind of looked back and McKell just said, “Okay.” And Bunny said, “I’ll stay with her.” And I was like okay, this is more serious than I thought, so I walk out of the delivery room and I feel like I’m abandoning my wife because you know: 1) she can’t hold her baby and 2) her husband is leaving, so I feel terrible because I want to comfort her but I was so worried about William. We walk down the hall, get to the NICU, they put him in the little NICU “room”, and they tell me,

“You have to stay ten feet away from him because we have to do some procedures on him.”

And that scares me of course and makes me feel horrible because at this point William is crying. His lungs are starting to work and he’s crying out but it’s the saddest little cry ever – it was breaking my heart listening to him crying. They have the head doctor come over to me and he explains that because of his [William’s] condition - not having blood flow for such a long time, not having oxygen to replenish his blood stream, and just the trauma of his birth - that he was at a severe risk for brain damage. That he possibly had heart damage as well, and acidic blood and that they needed to operate immediately or he wouldn’t make it. And so, after all this - nine months of waiting around for him and getting excited to be a dad - the first thing that happens is, you know, I might lose him.

I told the doctor, “Just do whatever you have to do.” They explained to me the cooling treatment they were going to put him on. They were going to keep him in a cold blanket which when they told me this, I thought, “That sounds horrible. You don’t want to make a baby cold! That’s just the cruelest punishment I could think of.” But that it would slow down his metabolism and give his organs time to take a break so that his heart and his brain could recover at a good pace. That he could have a better chance at recovering. And you know, these words that they kept using: “have a better chance”, that he could “have more time”, things like that were scaring me because I was thinking, “What if we do all this and he still not make it?” And for the first while, it depended on William. Was he going to make it?

There's a baby in there... somewhere.

I sat there and watched as he cried. There were nurses and a few doctors holding his arms and legs down as they put tubes into his umbilical cord, attached sensors all over his body, put a thermometer down his throat, put wires and little needles into his head, put the CPAP up his nose, and wrapped him in this blanket that pumped cold water from a refrigerator through it to make sure his temperature stayed cold. And I sat there for what felt like forever, I was sitting in the chair, watching this from a distance and not being able to be there for him. The most I could do was just support him from a distance and pray for him. During this, I’m trying to stay strong and be optimistic, but I’m pessimistic at heart so I’m having this inner battle with myself just trying to stay positive and fearing the worst.

And they finally finish and they say, “okay dad, you can come over.” I go over and at this point they’ve started to sedate him because he’s going to be sedated on this treatment so he forgets that he was cold and uncomfortable and unable to nurse or interact with anyone really. And I just stood there and looked at him. I remember staring at his head and staring at his little face just covered in all this equipment, seeing his curly hair all messed up and I have this crazy feeling just like “This is my child and I love him.” And I don’t know if dads really hit that at that point, but I just couldn’t not care about him. He was my son and I was terrified for him and I didn’t want to lose him.

William has quite the grip.

A nurse said that I could hold his hand and have him grab my finger. So, I put my finger by his hand and - this is when I couldn’t really contain myself - he grabbed on to my finger and his fingertips were white because he was squeezing so hard. He was just softly crying because he didn’t know what else to do and I’m sure he was uncomfortable and in shock from everything that happened. I just kind of held on to his fingers and sat there. I just tried to talk to him and let him know that he would be okay and that we were watching out for him and that he would get to see mom soon. Then I just cried and couldn’t believe that all of this was happening. I was so worried for him.

And so, I don’t remember how long it was, but after a while, they brought McKell into the NICU so she could see him. They pulled the curtains around us so we could have a private moment and we both just kind of held on to his little hands and just sat there and looked at him. And honestly, I just felt defeated. I didn’t know how I was going to overcome this and be able to stay strong because my wife had just gone through this really painful process and now she’s like, “Was it all for nothing? Is he going to be gone, do I not get to enjoy him in this life?”. We just sat there for hours I think, just staring at him, wishing we could hold him and wishing things were different.

This shows all the machines that were in the "room" constantly monitoring our baby. It was hard to get near him because there were so many cords and wires surrounding his bed.

Then grandma (Bunny) wanted to come see him so I decided to go back to the room where McKell was staying. I just went back there and I prayed and I cried, that’s all I did. And by some miracle, after everything, William made an amazing recovery and McKell will tell you guys more about it. But that was kind of my experience with the first moments of William’s life and my first moments being a dad, really. And I know that our family has been through a lot and we’ve been prepared for a lot, I’m just grateful that we’ve had the blessing of seeing him recover and being able to be with him. It was really the only thing that would make that situation better, is knowing that he would grow up and that we could be with him and that I could be his dad.

Yeah, that’s pretty much it.

William's Birth Story

I figured I should write this now since Will is almost a year old. Better late than never!

If this photo doesn't scream
"I'm so totally done being pregnant"
I don't know what does!

I had a relatively normal pregnancy. I had minimal morning sickness (Thank goodness because I still had to hike up the hill to BYU campus for one more semester! – That was the one time I almost lost it.). I was working full time basically my entire pregnancy. The first half of my pregnancy I was finishing my last semester at BYU, preparing to graduate, working as a supervisor at the Wilkinson Center Information Desk, and had just started training to become a manager at Jersey Mike’s. We found out the sex of the baby a week before graduation and announced both the gender and the pregnancy to our families when pretending to take graduation photos. After that, I pretty much just spent the summer working full time as the Jersey Mike’s manager for their store in Orem. I trained the whole crew from scratch and helped the Franchise Owners open and run the Orem store. Our store then became a hub to train new employees for the American Fork store that opened towards the end of the summer. I spent my whole shift on my feet and never stopped working.

My blood pressure was high at every doctor’s appointment. My Dr. wanted to make sure my hypertension didn’t turn into pre-eclampsia, so he had me come for weekly check-ups for the last two months of my pregnancy (Aug – Sept). These appointments continued to go as well as could be expected. They had me do a non-stress test where they hooked me up to a machine that monitored the baby’s heartbeat for 30 minutes. They also had me get an ultrasound at each appointment (this is why we have so many ultrasound photos in William’s baby book). Then I would meet with Dr. Young and he would always start off with, “Your blood pressure is a little high.” He told me he wouldn’t keep me pregnant past 37 weeks because they were worried about the effect this would have on the baby. Because of this, I told Jersey Mike’s that September 3^rd would be my last day of work (since the week after that I would be 37 weeks pregnant). I had a relatively relaxing week and we planned to have my mom come into town the Sunday after that (September 11^th). My dad was teasing me, asking how likely it was that the baby would come that early.. Anyways, my mom came with me to my doctor’s appointment that Tuesday (September 13^th). Everything went how it normally would, this time the ultrasound tech printed up a nice profile shot of the baby and a 3D photo as well. When Dr. Young came in, we discussed my high blood pressure again and he said, “Alright, when would you like to be induced? Tonight or tomorrow?” That came as a bit of a shock but my mom immediately got excited and started texting up a storm. I responded, “Uh, Tomorrow? We absolutely can’t wait til next week?” He explained that that would be too risky so I agreed to go in on Wednesday September 14^th. He called Timpanogos Regional Medical Hospital while I was still in the room and scheduled the induction bright and early at 5am. My mom and I hustled to pick Christopher up from school and ran around buying a ton of last minute things for the baby.

That belly is HUGE!!!

The next morning, we woke up and called in to the hospital to make sure no emergency deliveries came in before us. They said no and that I was first on the list. So we drove to the hospital and got all checked in and settled in the delivery room. Around 7am they started me on Pitocin. They also brought me breakfast, but I wasn’t allowed to eat so Chris ate it. There was a TV in the delivery room that had nonstop movies playing all day. I remember watching The Hunger Games and The Good Dinosaur. The Good Dinosaur was not at all what I expected it to be. I asked for an epidural the same time one of the doctors came in to break my water. I feel like things went pretty fast after that. At 10:50am I was dilated to 5cm. At 11:40am I was at 8cm. By noon, the nurse started talking me through “practice pushes”, but they felt pretty real to me. I remember she had Dr. Young come in pretty soon after that so I could REALLY push. Pushing took a while. I remember reading somewhere that on average you’re pushing for an hour for your first baby. But that hour came and went. By the two hour mark I was getting discouraged, but I could see the baby’s head thanks to the handy dandy mirror they kept at the end of the bed. William’s heartrate would drop every time I had a contraction and pushed, so Dr. Young told me he was going to use a vacuum to speed the process up and help me push the baby out. But right after he opened the packaging, he pretty much had to drop it so he could catch the baby.

William Jeffrey Hughes was born September 14^th, 2016 at 2:29pm.

He weighed 6lb 11oz and was 20 inches long.

Everything up until this point felt pretty robotic and instinctual, I didn’t let myself think about anything too much or else my nerves would get the best of me. I had no idea what I was doing or what to expect, I just did whatever the nurses and doctor told me to do.

However, once he was out, he looked like a limp fish. Nothing could have prepared me for the extreme dread I felt. I know babies come out a purple-ish color and very floppy looking, but this was different. Dr. Young handed the baby to the NICU respiratory team right away and they began frantically working on him. It took William 8 minutes to breathe on his own. He wasn’t breathing at all for the first four minutes after being born and then they managed to pump some oxygen into him. That first baby breath and cry is so iconic and expected after giving birth, but we didn’t get that. The room felt tense and the only thing I could focus on was my little baby’s unmoving body. Those minutes felt like an eternity.

He had to be hooked up to a
CPAP for that first day after
he was born. 

Finally, there was a little cry and the NICU team let me hold William for a second and give him a quick kiss before whisking him off to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. They informed us that only mom or dad could go with the baby, and since my epidural hadn’t worn off yet, Christopher had to leave me to be with the baby. I don’t know how normal baby births go, but this was not at all what I had expected or anticipated. My mom stayed with me so that helped, but I still felt very lost and worried. Everything was “back to business” after that as the nurses were getting me prepped to move to my recover room, but I was still very anxious. Anyone who knows me knows I hate to not know what’s going on, so this was torture. Chris had to watch as the Neonatologists performed surgery on our newborn, placing umbilical lines and monitors all over his tiny little body. He eventually was able to Facetime me and fill me in on everything that had happened after he had left with the baby.

I'm gonna have to leave it "To Be Continued..." so I don't create the World's Longest Blog Post, but Part Two (or William's NICU Stay) is in the works!