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!