Timothy's birthday Part 1

The day before Timothy was born, I started having some bleeding. I called my doctor's office, and we determined that I had probably over done it. I stayed off my feet the rest of the day, and the issue seemed to resolve itself.

At about 4:45, the morning Timothy was born, I woke up experiencing a lot more bleeding. We weighed our options, and around 6:45 called our friends the Findleys to see if they could watch the kiddos while we went into L&D (labor and delivery), just to get things checked out. I honestly thought they would tell me that it was no big deal, and I would be home resting for the rest of the day. I even actually told Curtis, "The worse case scenario would be that he had to be born."

Even though I was getting to the uncomfy point in my pregnancy, I was quite content to stay pregnant till Feb. 25th, when my c-section was planned. I had been working very hard to organize our home and family, and was about to get started organizing things for Timothy. I was in no way ready for him!

We arrived at L&D around 8:00. They checked me, monitored me for contraction, watched Timothy's heart rate.... everything looked great! Just to be on the safe side, they did a test to see if my water was leaking. I cannot even begin to express our shock when the nurse looked at us and said, "You guys want to have a baby today?" Together, Curtis and I replied, "NO!" She smiled, and told us, "Well, your amniotic fluid is leaking. This baby's coming today!"

Suddenly, Curtis and I were surrounded by a flurry of activity. The doctor was called, anesthesia was called, an IV was started, blood was drawn, phone calls were made, a disposable camera was purchased. We were literally in shock. We were scared because he was over a month early (my due date was March 4th, he was born on Feb. 2nd). All the things that I needed to do kept flying through my head.

In the midst of the craziness, an elder from our church arrived, and took this picture. The last picture that we have of me pregnant.

We arrived at the hospital at 8:00, got the shocking news that our son was on his way at 8:30, I was taken back to the OR just after 9:00 and at 10:07, our beautiful son entered the world.

I'll leave out all the gory details and just say that this was my hardest c-section ever. Not only was there the emotional side of a surprise delivery, one month early, but the c-section itself was hard. But we were relieved to hear the faint cry of Timothy, making it all worth while! Even though he came out crying, he quickly needed assistance breathing. We got a picture of the three of us, and he was whisked away to the NICU.

Not only was there concern over his lung development, but we also discovered upon delivery that Timothy has a cleft lip. At first, there was concern that he had a cleft palette, which would have been much more problematic. But we were thankful to discover this it's only his lip that his effected.

After spending some time in recovery, I was taken to the NICU. We were blessed with an amazing nurse who somehow managed to get my bed into the NICU so that I could really see him and touch him for the first time.

Timothy's birth was definitely memorable. It was stressful, scary, emotional, and one of the best days of my life! We are thankful for the protection that God showed both Timothy and I.

Stay tuned for Part 2, where I go into more details about all the medical issues that Timothy faced in the NICU.