Easton's Story

Warning: this could be a long one.

So I decided that I needed to chronicle Easton's birth story for posterity since it is one of the hardest things that Nate and I have had to go through thus far. So here it goes...

My due date was May 15th and I went into my 40wk appointment thinking that I would probably need to be induced because I wasn't having any contractions (or at least not any big or consistent ones).  My midwife checked me and lo and behold, I was dilated to a 6 already and would need to go into the hospital the next morning to have our little guy.  I was pretty grateful for this because it gave me the chance to actually schedule someone to watch Lilly and Carter instead of just guessing when I was in labor.  It made everything much easier.

Anywho, we got to the hospital and checked in and whatnot around 7:30am on the 16th.  Everything was going well but much slower than expected considering how quickly both the other 2 were born.  So around about 3:30 it was time to start pushing and Easton was born at 4:13pm on May 16th.  We were all very excited and I was glad it was all over (it was my most difficult labor out of the three, but I will spare you the gory details).

So, we thought everything was great until about 9pm when the other kids came to see their new baby brother.  I was getting ready to feed Easton when he started choking.  Not just like normal, something went down wrong choking.  This was baby turning blue, eyes rolling into the back of his head choking.  Nate immediately called the nurse, and she comes running in, grabs Easton and runs for the NICU.  Nate said it is a picture that he will never get out of his head.

The nurse came back after about the longest 5 minutes of my life and said that Easton was okay but he would be staying in the NICU.  We were so upset.  I especially felt jaded and a bit angry because this was my full-term little guy and he shouldn't have to be in the NICU.  Well, it turns out that Easton had some fluid/mucus in his lungs that had to be suctioned out and the doctors weren't sure if his lungs had fully inflated upon birth.  He never really cried or screamed after birth.

So I spent the next two days going between my room to the NICU to feed and cry with Easton.  Luckily, I have an amazing sister who has been through this scenario with her oldest daughter and she offered me lots of comfort and love over the phone.  I so wish I would have had both my sisters there at that time.  At one point, Easton had a tube down his throat, oxygen in his nose, an IV in his tiny hand, and monitors on his chest and feet.  He looked so miserable and there was nothing I could do about it.  I couldn't nurse him until after the tube was removed from his throat and I was barely aloud to hold him.  It was horrible, but as the days wore on, tubes were slowly removed from my baby.

 It seemed like everything in the NICU moved at a snails pace and it was hard to get any straight answers from anyone.  Easton was easily the biggest baby in there.  He was being taken care of by some great nurses and doctors though and although they were so sooo cautious (which I really am grateful for even though some things they did were overkill).  One of the hardest things was leaving him at the hospital after I was discharged.  I saw all these other families taking their little ones home and I wanted nothing more than to be in their shoes.

I spent the next 4 days going back and forth between the hospital and home.  I am so grateful for Nate because he took complete care of the other kiddos (who I had pretty much all but abandoned) so that I could be with and feed Easton.  Our day started at 6am and I would take Lilly to school, go feed Easton at 8am and be at the hospital till about 12:00 when I would go have some lunch and try to give a little bit of normalcy to Carter.  Then back to the hospital from about 1:00pm to 5:00pm, home for dinner, then back to the hospital at about 6:00pm till midnight then home to get a few hrs of sleep.  It was emotionally and physically draining.  If it wasn't for Nate and the wonderful nurses, I think I would have fallen apart. 

After 5 days in the NICU, Easton was finally going to be discharged to come home.  We were all ecstatic.  Unfortunately we didn't get out of the hospital till about 10:30pm but we were so glad to be home.  I don't think I slept at all that night just because of the worry I still had about Easton, but he is perfectly healthy now and although he gave us the scare of our lives, we are so grateful he is part of our family.  Lilly and Carter can't get enough of him and hopefully his entrance into the world won't be indicative of any more trouble in his future.  We love Easton and feel extremely blessed by Heavenly Father, to have him in our family.  We also feel extremely blessed by those in our ward family who helped us out so much during a difficult time.  We had people bring meals and watch the kids (so Nate could visit Easton) and there was also one sister, who is a member of a different ward in our stake, who offered me support through a scripture she had read during her sons stay in the hospital.  I truly felt the love of Heavenly Father during this whole ordeal and although I would never wish the experience upon another person, I am grateful for the things that I learned from it.   We love our Easton and we are so grateful for forever families.