Introducing Makayla May Davis

This post has been a long time coming. Having a newborn is definitely a full-time job and I have barely had two seconds to sit down and jot anything down. But since Makayla is now two weeks old I thought it was time to buckle down and post about her birth and first two weeks of life before I forget the little important details (I must warn you though, this post is going to be loooooooong!). But first things first...meet our sweet little angel baby girl: 

(photograph by Marlee Davis Photography--more pictures to come)

Makayla May Davis

November 12, 2012 

11:23 PM

5 lb 7 oz, 18 inches long

Beyond Perfect!

To bring a little life into the world is utterly amazing.. Just think about it...not necessarily the mechanics of it all (lol)...but the pure miracle of how two microscopic sex cells join, multiply and grow for nine months with the end result being a beautiful little baby. A baby with ten fingers and ten toes, perfect eyes and a button nose (yes, I rhyme!). The complexity of the entire process makes me wonder how things don't go wrong more often. After three lost pregnancies, I feel I have a deep appreciation for pregnancy and birth. And I just wanted to share a little (or a lot) about our experiences these past few weeks.

Makayla's birth story:

The night before our scheduled induction, Branden and I went on an over-night date for our "last night" as family of two. It was kind of a last-minute, spur-of-the-moment decision. I guess we just didn't want to spend our last night at his parent's house with his mom...lol (no offense Laura!)! So we drove to Salt Lake and checked into a hotel nearby the hospital. We went to dinner at Chili's and then went and bought a LARGE piece of cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory to take back to our room. It was a very interesting night, full of excitement and anticipation for the coming day. Surprisingly enough, we both got a fairly good night's sleep. 

We were told to be at the hospital by 7:00 so we were up and getting ready bright and early. I was allowed a "light breakfast," which I took full advantage of. When we got to the hospital, the admission process took a little longer than I had expected. It wasn't until 8:30 that I was completely admitted (paperwork completed, in our birthing suite, gown on, IV started, baby monitoring started, and the extensive history and physical completed). 

Getting to the hospital! We were both so nervous!

It was a beautiful day to have a baby!

We were in birthing suite 2...it was nice and roomy!

All hooked up and about to get started!

Doctor Yamashiro came in at 9 and checked my cervix. I was only dilated to a 1 and 60% effaced, big bummer! He didn't waste any time and broke my water to get my labor started. He also started me on a Pitocin drip to start contractions.

By 10:30 I was having regular contractions, about 3-4 minutes apart, but they weren't painful by any means--just a tightening feeling. Two hours later, after the nurse had increased my Pitocin around 3 or 4 times, I still wasn't having any pain. Every time our nurse, named Laura, came in she'd tell me that I shouldn't be smiling with the amount of pitocin I was receiving. Speaking of Laura, she was a wonderful nurse! She left us alone to do our thing, but was quick to respond if we needed anything or if the baby was showing any type of distress. We liked her very much! :) 

By 2:30, we had maxed out the amount of Pitocin allowed with external fetal monitoring, and I still wasn't feeling much more than menstrual cramp pain (and I was still only dilated to a 1 and 80% effaced.) So they called Dr. Y who ordered the placement of an internal contraction monitor (they basically screw a monitor into the wall of the uterus) so that they could keep increasing the Pitocin. The nurse put it in at about 4:00 and BOY did it hurt like hell! They had to manually stretch my cervix to a 2 in order to even place the dang thing! Pretty painful contractions began shortly after...to the point that I could no longer talk through a contraction, let alone smile through one! After two and a half hours of the intense pain, I decided to ask for an epidural. It didn't look like we'd be having the baby until the next day with how slow I was progressing and I was already getting pretty tired. When I asked the nurse she told me I'd have to wait an hour for the epidural because there were two women ahead of me who were farther along with their labors who were asking for epidurals. I thought I was going to die waiting that long!! haha! 

But, luckily the anesthesiologist was fast and he got to me within 15 minutes. Right before he placed the epidural, I started shivering like a mad-woman! I was SO cold and I could barely stay still. (I was like this for over an hour after the epidural was placed...turns out I had a fever of 101.) When he placed the epidural, Branden stood by my side and held my hand the entire time, which surprised me considering he is afraid of needles. He was such a great support all day, catering to my every need  (except for when he went and got lunch at subway and came back to the room and ate it in front me....NOT nice!) ;)  

It was a long day

Things started to pick up quite a bit after the epidural kicked in (which is backwards). I was dilated to a 3 and 100% effaced at about 7:00 PM. At 8:00 PM, our new nurse, Leanne (Laura got off shift), checked me and I was dilated to a 5. At 9:00, Makayla's heart rate started decreasing significantly with each contraction. The nurse came in and checked me again and I was dilated to a whopping 8!! She started an amnio infusion to help with the decreasing heart rate (yet another tube to be hooked to!--I had 5 things hooked to me....my IV, my epidural, my urinary catheter, my internal monitor, and then the amnioinfusion). By 10:15 I was fully dilated and ready to start pushing. 

I pushed for about 30 minutes, with Branden at one side and my nurse at the other. They each coached me on my pushing, encouraging me to keep going and telling me how good I was doing. My nurse then told me to stop pushing because the baby was crowning!

In between pushes..

She went and called Dr. Yamashiro who was in within 15 minutes. I then pushed for another 20 minutes and at 11:23 PM, our precious little Makayla was born! :) They placed her right on my chest and dried her off there! Branden told me before hand that he did not want to cut the umbilical cord, so I did the honors! lol!

Weighing in at a whopping 5 lb 7 oz

"I'm so freezy!"

All gooped up and content!

Tiny pigs

Meeting Daddy!

Meeting mom for the first time! She kept sticking her tongue out at me!

She couldn't be more perfect!! But our first moments with our daughter were cut short because she was having some respiratory distress. She was breathing really fast and was having some mild retractions. So they decided to take her to the nursery to monitor her for the night. :( Branden went with her while the nurses finished everything up with me. I was then moved from the labor and delivery unit to the postpartum unit. I felt so empty getting to the room without my baby, there was no way I was going to get any sleep. The nurse let me go to the nursery and see her, but it was a brief visit and I couldn't hold her. Around 1 AM, the nursery nurse came to my room and told me that Makayla's blood sugar was dropping, but that they couldn't give her any food because she was still breathing too fast (which would put her at risk of aspirating the food.) She asked if she could give Makayla a bath with hopes that it would bring her blood sugar up. I said yes and Branden and I went to watch....she hated it so much! The only part she tolerated was when they washed her hair!

Makayla's first bath.

I was able to hold her for a minute after her bath...I really needed this

I went back to the nursery around 3 AM and Makayla's blood sugar was still low. A respiratory therapist came in and was able to suction her airway and her respiratory rate came down significantly...enough that they were able to give her a little formula to get her blood sugar up. They also started a little IV in her hand to draw some labs to see if she had an infection or something, everything came back normal (thank goodness)! Around 5 AM, Makayla was breathing normally and her blood sugars were stable, but her oxygen saturations kept dropping into the 70s (normal is anything above 90%). They let me go in and do some skin to skin with her, and her oxygen saturations normalized! :) The pediatrician came in at 8 and termed Makayla's condition "transient tachypnea of the newborn." Which just means that the amniotic fluid that was in her lungs when she was inside of me was never expelled completely at birth like it should have been. But it was all resolved and he just wanted her to be monitored in the nursery until noon to make sure she was still stable after two feedings. 

We were able to take her back to our room at noon. The rest of our stay was pretty uneventful! Here are some pictures from November 13th: 

Finally back in our room together!

This is the only picture I have of all 3 of us in the hospital :(

Meeting the grandma's and other family!

Branden changing a diaper for the first time

That night I noticed Makayla was looking a little yellow. I told the nurse who then checked her bilirubin level, which was in the 90th percentile. The next morning the doctor came in to discharge us. He said that Makayla's bilirubin was 9.5 that morning (normal is anything less than 1) so he wanted us to follow up with him in his office two days later. So instead of going home as planned, we stayed at Branden's parent's house for those 2 days.

Leaving the hospital

Those two days were really hard on me. I had planned on having a week alone as a little family before even having visitors. Instead I had to try and bond with my baby while sharing her with everyone else...it was hard. In addition, I was having a REALLY difficult time with breastfeeding, so I was emotional anyways.

Meeting Georgie, Uncle Mike, and Grampy

On Friday we went and got Makayla's bilirubin checked again and it was up to 20 (when it gets in the high 20's it can cause brain damage...eek!). The pediatrician gave us the option to either go to Primary Children's Hospital for the night and have Makayla put under the bililights there, or to take some lights home with us. He said he didn't recommend the home lights unless I was confident with her feedings, which I wasn't (my milk still hadn't come in), so we decided to take the Primary Children's route. I was very emotional...yet again...seeing her under those lights and not being able to hold her other than for feedings. There were a couple of times that she would just cry so hard and there was nothing we could do except hold her little hand. Heartbreaking. But, we were there for less than 24 hours and when we left, her bilirubin was down to 14. 

She HATED having her eyes covered. 

After leaving the hospital, we decided to go home to Richfield for the night to get a few things and then drive back to Heber the next day...Makayla had to get her bilirubin rechecked and Branden had a meeting in Salt Lake on Monday. The one night to ourselves was nice, but very short, then it was back to staying in Heber. Makayla's bilirubin ended up being 13 so we got the go-ahead to finally go home for good! 

However, on our way home, we stopped to get dinner in Payson. I got Makayla out of her car seat to hurry and feed her before we hit the road again. She ate for a little bit and then went completely limp. I would lift her arm and drop it and it would just flop down...no stiffening or anything like she normally does.  And she wouldn't respond to anything that we did to wake her up. I tried changing her diaper, which normally she FREAKS out about, but there was no reaction what-so-ever. She was still breathing fine, but was unresponsive. So like any mother would, I started to freak out. I called my pediatrician and told him what was going on. He told me to take her to the nearest emergency room to get her checked out. So that's what we did. When we walked into the ER, she started coming around (of course). But we decided to still get her evaluated. The pediatrician at the hospital assessed her and couldn't find any apparent problem, but he wanted us to be admitted to the hospital for monitoring. So we spent yet another night in a hospital. The whole stay seemed pointless. They couldn't find anything wrong with her, and to this day it's still a mystery. We are thinking it was either the way her car seat was set up (the straps may have been too low, squishing her down) or maybe her jaundice caused it. Either way we'll never know for sure. 

After being discharged on Tuesday, we went back to Heber because Thanksgiving was only two days away and we had to take Makayla to a follow-up appointment that friday (and we were afraid to drive 2 1/2 hours home!). The doctor's appointment on friday went well, Makayla's bilirubin was down to 11 so we headed home for the third time. And we actually made it this time!

It's been a wonderful week at home, getting to know our little Makayla and figuring out a routine that works for us. She is such a great baby...she loves to snuggle and she could probably sleep throughout the entire night if I didn't wake her up to feed her! I already can't imagine my life without her! We are so blessed! 

And now we get to start packing our house up to move back to Heber!! Branden got a job with highway patrol and was assigned Summit County! So we get to move back home! So happy to be closer to our families, but I will miss all the friends I made in Richfield. Wish me luck in moving with a newborn! ;)

P.S....sorry about the novel...I warned you!