Mister Man

WARNING, VERY LONG!

Obsessed. That is a good word to describe how I feel about our new little man. Milo Preston Smith was born on September 27th around noon. Weighing in at 7 14. It was of course love at first sight and such a relief when he arrived so healthy and no complications to him. The recovery was surprisingly easier than what I expected. I think I thought so because ENYTHING in the world would be easy after the last month of pregnancy! I thought I should write down his birth story before I forget because it is already starting to fade. I though his 3 month birthday would be just the right time to do so.


I have never been an anxious person. That all changed when I found out I was pregnant. We were SO excited!!!!! I couldn’t wait to start showing and feel the baby move. Everything was so new every ach and pain in the beginning I was afraid was a bad sign. Thank heaven for 3 sisters and my mom who have many children to walk me through it. At my first ultrasound by doc told me I have a low lying placenta. She scheduled a few more ultra sounds so we could watch it to make sure I don’t have placenta previa. Half way through my pregnancy we moved from Seattle to Tucson and I had to change docs. My new fabulous Doctor Jenny Hutchison took another look at the placenta and told me the good news that I no longer have a low lying placenta but it does look like I have a little something called vasa previa. She told me whatever I do to not google it until we know for sure I have it. I looked it up... She was right I should have never done that. She sent me to a high risk OB. After weeks of anxiety thinking the baby and I were going to die a sad death, I got the results back from the high risk OB and found out I don’t have that either. Now you might be thinking great this has nothing to do with the birth story of Milo because I was all clear and neither one of those situations came to pass. The thing is I was a nervous wreck. For months I didn’t know what was going to happen. Thank heavens I didn’t have either one of those conditions and all is well... But this started all the anxiety.

Now for the story...

Milo's due date was October 5th. Mid-September I went up to Mesa for one of my best friends sealing in the Mesa Temple. I was a little worried to make the trip because I was SO BIG and my Braxton hicks contractions were getting a little harder but it was an event I did not want to miss. On my way home the contractions started to get more and more painful. That night my back on my left side started to kill. I didn’t sleep a wink...(that I was already use to) I felt something was wrong. Of course I called all my sisters and asked if they had such extreme back pain when they were prego and they assured me it was normal. My contractions we getting more and more frequent and for the next week my random back pain (on just one side) was coming off and on in awful waves. I was in so much pain the bath was not working to ease my pain. I called another one of my best friends Cami who had just recently had a baby and told her I am not feeling half as many kicks from the baby and about the pain and also about having contractions so close together but not feeling any pressure or progress. She said if it were her she would go right into the hospital to make sure everything was ok. I decided to try another night to see how it goes and if I still have a bad feeling to go in the next day. As it turns out that night my sister Sarah got bit by a rattle snake and I went to the hospital to see her and after decided to just walk on down to the triage and let them know what was going on. So I did. (she is ok by the way) They hooked me up to the monitor and his heart beat was just fine. That was a relief. Then when they were monitoring my contractions the nurse looked at me and said "are you feeling these contractions?" "YES!!!" They were every three minutes!!! I was still not dilated more than a 2 so they sent me home.

The next week I hardly felt the baby move. I had a very sick feeling something was wrong. In fact I knew something was wrong. I know it sounds crazy and I am glad that I had told Preston and my sister Sarah this. I had a very strong feeling the cord was around his neck. I had earlier heard a story of a girl I went to school with having a still born because the cord was wrapped around his neck. I had a sick feeling this was the case with him. I just knew something was wrong. That Sunday I skipped church because I felt like poop and my back hurt like NOTHING I had felt before!!! I decided this pain was not normal and even though everyone said "you will know when you are in labor" I was one who only had back pain and contractions and no pressure. I had decided this because no way is this the "normal" pregnancy back pain everyone was saying it was. So I decided to walk around the mall to get the party started... bad idea. That walk only made the pain worse and no action. I decided I was going to go back to the hospital if it didn’t get better. So the next morning that’s what I did. Preston being the sympathetic husband and the doctor that he is told me that "maybe the pain is because you are laying down so much, sometimes when I sleep in and am laying down a lot my back starts to hurt a lot too" Wrong-o buddy I was passing a kidney stone!!! I got admitted to the hospital. I was throwing up and I couldn’t pee and was on a large amount of morphine. I think that night was the worst night of my existence. The stone was forcing the contractions to come hard and every 3 mins. By the morning the stone hadn’t passed yet but because of the trauma my body was experiencing and could be effecting the baby, the Doctor wanted to take him then. The next thing I know I was calling my mom and telling her I was about to taken in for a C-section right away.

And just like that Milo was born. Best moment of my life! I was right he did have the cord around his neck and also a knot in his cord. Now I know that many babies are born with the cord around the neck and survive, but a lot of them don’t.

I know the kidney stone was a blessing. It sounds crazy but if I would not have been in that pain I would not have known to go to the hospital and get a C-section and get him out early. I know it was the Lord looking out for my sweet little boy and for my family.

The End