Mykah Charles Cooper

Mykah Charles Cooper August 29, 2012 6 lbs 12 oz 19 inches Mykah is here! On Tuesday, Nick, Kayden and I went over to Nick's parents house for dinner and to just hang out. We stayed for a while, but I started feeling sick and really wanted to go home. It was around 8:00 at night once we got home and Nick went ahead and gave Kayden a bath while I laid down for a little bit. I was still feeling sick and felt like I may be having contractions. Once Nick was finished giving Kayden a bath he brought him into our bedroom and I told Nick that maybe he should call his mom and see if he could just go a head and stay there tonight because I was feeling so sick. We went back and forth on whether he needed to go or not but after talking to my sister-in-law we decided that we probably should. I was still feeling very sick and Paige thought that it may be the early signs of labor so we felt like being better safe than sorry! Once Nick got back from dropping Kayden off, we decided to go on and just get checked out at the hospital. We arrived at the hospital around 10:00 and they started monitoring me to see if I was going to be staying or not. When I was at the dr on Monday, I was 3-4 cm dilated already. They checked me and I was 4 cm and was having consistent contractions so they decided to keep me after talking to my doctor. Around 1:00 they went a head and gave me an epidural. I definitely felt more pain with Mykah than I ever did with Kayden, and I was further along with Kayden before I got an epidural. I should have known at this point, that this delivery was going to be NOTHING like Kayden's. Around 2:00 my water broke on it's own. They had waited a little while to do my catheter and I thought I just peed on myself but when the nurse came in to do the catheter she was like nope, that was your water breaking! So, my water broke on it's own, unlike with Kayden where they had to break it at 9.5 cm. Around 4:00 they came and checked me again. Still 4-5 cm. I was bummed. With Kayden, every time they checked me I had made progress. But they said that it was ok. Around 6:00 I was still 4-5 and my doctor decided she wanted to start some pitocin just to go ahead and try to get my contractions more consistent and get him pushed down there. They kept me on pitocin for about an hour to two hours, but Mykah's heart rate was just not having it. It kept dipping any time I had a contraction and finally, after checking me again and being 5 cm, the dr called and told them to stop the pitocin because of his heart rate dips. She started thinking that he was face up and said that that is usually what happens whenever it takes a long time to progress but she still fully believed I would have a vaginal delivery, it would just take a little longer than it did with Kayden. She put in an IUPC (something like that) which measures how hard your contraction are and they were showing up pretty hard. Come 11:00 they checked me again. Still 5 cm. The nurse updated this on the computer (which my dr was monitoring at her office) and instantly called my room to talk to me. I knew this probably wasn't going to be good. She told me that with measuring the contractions and how hard, consistent, and the frequency of them, I should have really made some progress by now. I should not have stayed at basically 5 cm for 10 hours without the progress. She said I had two options 1) try pitocin again and see what happens, but if his heart rate starts dipping again then I'd have to go off of it or 2) c-section. Yes, devastation and hormones set in. I calmly talked to her because my mom and sister in law were in the room and were watching my face. I told her that I trusted her judgment and she kept saying it was my choice, but I could tell that she would rather me go ahead and do the c-section based on what happened with the pitocin the first time. She told me to talk to Nick about it, but that it sounded like I was leaning toward the c-section and she would prep the nurses. Nick had just gone down to the cafeteria with my dad so my mom text him and told him that he needed to come to the room. He walked in and I started BAWLING. I could barely even get out what I needed to say. He kept telling me it would be ok and that we just needed to do the c-section. He would be here safe and sound and I wouldn't have to endure pushing after being in labor for 12 hours. He could already tell how tired I was with how emotional I was and I do not think I could have endured much more. I was only in the hospital for 12 hours with Kayden and was really only in labor with him for 6 hours before he was here. The nurse came in and told us that there was a twin c-section and a scheduled c-section a head of us so that it may be a couple hours before we had our c-section, which I was ok with. However, my dr was not. She basically told them we were pushing the scheduled one because I had already been in labor for 12 hours and she was ready to get the baby out and make sure everything was ok. We knew he was fine, and that it wasn't an emergency situation, but she just could not figure out why I was not progressing and why he was having such a hard time coming vaginally. So she told us we were having a c-section at 11:00, 12:!0 I was back in the operating room. I was freaking out about the c-section because I have NEVER had surgery before in my life. I have never had a broken bone, wisdom teeth surgery, nothing. The biggest thing that has ever happened is that I had stitches on my finger when I got it smashed in a door when I was around 7. I was terrified of the recovery time, terrified of the pain, and terrified that I would feel what was going on. Everyone kept reassuring me that it would be fine. I slowly calmed down even though I was disappointed that I was having a c-section, after having a successful vaginal delivery the first time. My epidural had already worn off and I was able to feel my legs so they do a spinal on me. I went completely numb, even to the point of feeling like I couldn't breath. I got VERY sleepy and felt like I took a nap while they were doing everything to get Mykah out, but Nick said I never closed my eyes. I could have sworn that I had though. I remember seeing Mykah right after they got him out, and then seeing and kissing him when Nick took him to the nursery. But other than that, I don't really remember much. They rolled me into recovery and not too long after that they brought Mykah in for me to see him and try to nurse him. I just felt really tired and weak but I was glad I finally got to see him. Thankfully, I wasn't in much pain throughout that day, but that changed about 24 hours after the c-section. I will have to say, recovering from a c-section is a lot harder than recovering from a vaginal delivery. I would definitely take the pushing and labor, over the recovery process of a c-section! But my baby is here safe and sound and we are now able to enjoy him! Kayden meeting his baby brother

Kayden loves his baby brother and has over all been very good with him when he comes to the hospital to visit. He loves holding him and is constantly saying "hold it". He kisses him and points to his ears, eyes, mouth, and nose. He is not a fan of him crying though, especially if he is holding him and he starts crying. That kinda freaks him out.

On saturday, when we were suppose to go home, we were told that Mykah's jaundice levels were too high for us to take him home. We were ordered to stay another day and Mykah had to be under lights for 12 hours. We were only allowed to hold him for 20 minutes in which we feed him and then he had to go back under the lights. It was a LONNNNNNNNGGGGGGGG 12 hours. We are waiting for them to come take the lights off now (it's been a little over 12 hours) and then we have to wait 6 hours for them to come and draw his blood again. They will see if his jaundice levels go down and then will decide whether we will be discharged or not. We are praying the levels have gone down!!