As I sit down to write this, Kassel is exactly three weeks old. Before time gets away from me, I want to write down all that I can remember about Kassel’s birth. I know he will want to know all of these details at some point in his life (most likely when he meets ~the one~ who will ask him all about what time he was born and how much he weighed and what it’s like to be a Pisces), and this moment is one that altered my life for the better, and I want to remember it forever.

 My last day of work was Friday, February 26th, and I was exactly 38 weeks pregnant. By that point, I felt huge and my belly was measuring pretty big; my doctor decided to order two extra ultrasounds. At the first additional ultrasound, when I was 36 weeks, the ultrasound technician noticed an abundance of amniotic fluid. My doctor wasn’t overly concerned, but did want to monitor me and scheduled another one in the weeks to come. But by 36 weeks, Kassel looked to be measuring around 7 pounds…which meant he could gain at least another 2 pounds before his birth. I was mentally preparing for a 9-10 pound baby!

At the 38 week ultrasound, the fluid level was back to normal. But because growth estimates are so hard to measure, we didn’t get an updated “hey, your baby weighs approximately this much!” But by this point, I was SO uncomfortable. My feet were swollen, my back started to hurt, I lost my breath every time I went up the stairs (or to the fridge, really). It was at this point that my doctor asked if I wanted to schedule an induction and had a long conversation with me about the risks and reasoning behind inductions, and we decided to do go ahead with it.

I know there are a lot of feelings about inducing labor when not medically necessary for mom or baby, but this was the best choice for us. A little background information – Colin and I had been living long distance for two years, and with his unpredictable work schedule, it made the most sense for us to have a “deadline” so that we could feel prepared, and so that he wouldn’t have to scramble out of work and drive two hours if my water unexpectedly broke. When we moved to Indiana two years ago, the long distance plan was meant to be temporary. But once the pandemic hit last spring, neither of us felt comfortable leaving our jobs, which were both secure and provided us with reliable income. So we decided to tough it out for one more year. Just two days after we moved me into a new apartment in Carmel, we found out I was pregnant. Then in January, we both felt called to look for a home in the Fort Wayne/Auburn area. We started looking at houses and found one that we fell in love with almost immediately. We put in an offer and the house was ours!

 So we scheduled the induction for March 10th, two days before Kassel’s due date. But in the meantime, I had two whole weeks to pretty much sit around and wait. While this would be an absolute gift to most expectant mothers, it was a time of stress and anxiety for me. I was still in Indianapolis in my apartment, and couldn’t be in our new home that we just bought. I wanted to set up the nursery, nest, and make our house a home. I am so blessed that my parents and my sister spent countless hours helping us pack up the apartment and move things to the new house, but I so badly just wanted to be there and get Kassel’s room ready. Because we couldn’t move in full time before the baby arrived, we also decided that whenever we came home from the hospital, we would stay with my parents for the first few weeks. Colin had already been living with my parents since his job was here in Auburn, so this made the most sense for us (and LORD has it been our absolute saving grace as first time parents. I will never be able to repay my mom and dad for their never-ending support, love, and advice to us new parents.)

After two weeks of a lot of Netflix and packing final items in the apartment, March 10th came! Colin drove down in the morning and we soaked up our last few hours just the two of us. We took some final pictures with my big belly and double checked our hospital bags. 6PM came, and we decided to head out for some dinner before arriving at the hospital at 7 PM. We opted for meatball subs from Subway (my favorite!), but I was too nervous to eat even half of my sandwich (I absolutely regret not forcing myself to eat it – it would be well over 24 hours before I was allowed to eat anything again). We took a final selfie in the car and went inside the hospital!

We headed up to the maternity center and were checked into our room right away. It was so nice! It was spacious and there was a couch that folded down into a twin bed/sleeper for Colin, a flat screen TV, a walk in shower, and plenty of room for all of our stuff. At about 8 PM, After the check in process, our first nurse inserted the Cervidil next to my cervix to help get it ready for labor. I tried to get some sleep, knowing how long the next day/possibly days would be, but woke up around 1:30 with pretty strong pain/contractions. I was given some pain meds through my IV and slept on and off for the next few hours. I tried holding off as long as I could before requesting an epidural, knowing that once I got the epidural I would be stuck in bed for the duration of my stay. But, the pain was too much for me to handle, and around 4 AM I asked for the anesthesiologist.

My first go at the epidural was an absolute nightmare. The anesthesiologist that came to my room was supposed to be one of the best, but our experience was the complete opposite. His bedside manner was absolutely awful. He didn’t walk us through any part of what he was doing, and he was having great difficulty getting the needle inserted properly. By this point I was only about 2 cm dilated, but his attempts at the epidural were without a doubt the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my entire life. Colin was in tears feeling so helpless seeing me in that much pain. We had to ask him to stop trying because I felt like he was legitimately stabbing me in the spine.

 A few hours later we decided to try the epidural again, but we wanted to wait until the shift change to get a new anesthesiologist. When the new anesthesiologist came in, we both found her to be terribly rude. The first anesthesiologist told her that I was “non-compliant” when he tried to insert the needle the first time, and hearing this filled me with so much anger. How could I possibly be non-compliant? I was hunched over in a ball on the bed as directed so he could insert the needle! I was so angry. But, I bit my tongue (very unlike me! Lol) and told her to try again. She sent Colin out of the room and walked me through everything as she did it. Within minutes, the epidural was working and I was pain free at last!

Both Colin and I were able to get some sleep between 8 AM and noon, seeing as we had gotten little to no sleep overnight. Around noon, the nurses started me on Pitocin. My doctor came in and broke my water around 2:30 PM. My cervix still hadn’t progressed much, so at this point it was just a waiting game. Around 5:45 PM, I had only dilated to 3 cm. The lead nurse put in an internal contraction catheter to better monitor contractions, but we took it out after about an hour because it made me so uncomfortable. 

Finally around 8:30 PM, I was about 7cm dilated. Progress! I felt like we were finally getting closer. Around 10:30PM my doctor came in. It was time to do some practice pushes to see how the baby would respond, as he still hadn’t really descended into the birth canal where he needed to be. So I did a few practice pushes, but his heart rate dropped significantly each time. Because of this, my doctor felt best about “going in to get him” via C-section. She was worried about the potential risk of a vaginal delivery causing too much stress on the baby, and then I would really need an emergency C-section. 

In all of my preparing for this baby (reading books, following along on my apps), I skipped right over the c-section information. I thought, surely I won’t need to know any of this! I’m not planning to have a c-section. So when the doctor asked if I had any questions, I had about 9 million! As she went to prep for my surgery, our nurse calmly walked us through everything and what to expect. 

Around 11 PM, the nurses brought in some scrubs for Colin so he could join us in the operating room, and around 11:10 PM they took me to the OR to begin the c-section. I’m not sure if I was overly nervous or just really cold, but I couldn’t stop physically shaking. My teeth were literally chattering. Once I was in the operating room, the entire medical staff walked me through everything to help me calm down. The anesthesiologist was back (the one who successfully did my epidural!) and made sure I was completely numb, because I was really freaked out about that and also being awake during the whole process. Once they were all set up and ready to go, they brought Colin into the room at 11:33PM. He sat beside me and held my hand and stroked my hair to help keep me calm. The next five minutes were a blur. I remember a nurse asking Colin if he wanted to see the next part where they pulled Kassel out of my belly, which he did get to see! Seconds later I heard our baby boy cry loudly to let the world know he was here. 11:38 PM! World, meet Kassel Devere Smith!

The nurses and doctors were all so shocked at how alert he was from the get go. “You gave birth to a toddler!” one of them exclaimed. A full head of hair and loud, strong lungs. 8 pounds, 9 ounces, 20 inches of absolute perfect. Our baby boy was here.

Colin was able to go see Kassel right away, but I was not out of the woods yet. My stomach still needed to be closed up. I think a combination of going on 36 hours of no food (just snow cones and water), the medicine, and the smell of the operating room made me incredibly nauseated. I began throwing up pretty intensely for about 10 minutes. I could hear the doctor become worried about needing to close me up, and fighting back the nausea was one of the hardest things I had to do. I was given some nausea medicine that knocked me out enough for her to close, and then finally I was wheeled into the recovery room.

 Around 1:00AM, I was finally able to hold our boy for the first time. Feeling his warm, soft skin on my chest is one of the most pure feelings that I have known in my life. I don’t know how long Kassel and I laid there together, but getting to hold him and see Colin hold him filled me with such an intense love that I didn’t even know I was capable of.