Kai's Birth

Buckle up! In this post I'll share Kai's birth story and the 4 days in the hospital.

New Year's Day - the last pictures I took of my belly, unaware that I was going to have my baby that night. My C-section was planned for January 10, and while my contractions had gotten a bit more intense the past few days, I kept saying, "I feel like I'm going to have the baby any day, but I probably won't." Deep down though, I knew I was going to have the baby early- I had prepared all the clothes, car seat, etc and felt relieved to make it to 38 weeks this day.

My mom asked me to measure my belly around, so I took this picture- abut 40.5 inches.

Laying on the couch watching a movie with the family that evening, I could not get comfortable. The baby was kicking and moving like crazy. I even had Audrey come over to feel the gymnastics the baby was doing.

We had ordered some loaves of bread from our neighbor as a fundraiser, and decided to share some with student friends on campus. I text him right at 9pm that we were on our way and he said he’d meet us in the parking lot of his apartment. Brent had just put Audrey to sleep, Ava was hanging out at home, and Coen came with Brent and me.

After we had been chatting with our friend for maybe 5-7 minutes, I felt a gush and continuous trickle and thought my water must have broken, out of the blue. I walked around to sit in our car and told Brent, “just one more minute, then we need to go.” Brent explained to our friend that I get contractions a lot, and can’t stand very long. They said goodbye, and as soon as Brent and Coen got in the car I said to Brent, “My water just broke, and I’m not kidding. Drive home fast!” 

As we drove the 45 seconds home, I could see that it was actually blood coming out. I was pretty confused about what was happening, because I thought I must be going into labor, but where was all this blood coming from, and was that going to affect the baby? We got home and I ran into Ava's bathroom while Brent called the hospital, who told him to hang up and call 911. I was having a really tight, long contraction and couldn’t feel the baby moving as a result. I prayed out loud to Heavenly Father to please watch over my baby.

I laid in Ava's shower, with her bathroom looking like a crime scene, and talked to the 911 operator while Brent ran around and added the last few things to my hospital bag and grabbed a few things for himself. 

The paramedics arrived after probably 5 minutes, and began asking me questions as they assessed me in the shower. Questions like, “how many weeks are you” “when did you start bleeding” and “are you feeling the urge to push.” I remember asking a paramedic if I could lay down in the shower, because I was starting to feel like I was going to pass out. After a couple more minutes the ambulance arrived (the first ones to get there were the firefighters). They loaded me on a sort of canvas with handles, draped a white cloth over my waist and bare legs, and carried me out the front door to the ambulance, where all of our concerned neighbors were outside watching.  I remember seeing Mariah and Katie standing there together waving, and Mariah said “good luck!” 

Once I was in the ambulance, the paramedics discussed which hospital to take me to. While they were discussing and making phone calls, Brent brought out my purse and talked to me for a second, telling me that he would follow in our car. As we were talking, my contraction finally released, and I felt the baby move. I was so relieved and happy. I told Brent and the paramedic, “I just felt the baby!”

The ambulance drive took an hour, and the paramedic started IVs in both my hands, monitored my vitals, timed my contractions, and made small talk with me. My bleeding stopped not too long into the drive. The ambulance drive was from about 9:35 to 10:30 pm. I noticed a clock in the ambulance, and at about 10:10 I asked the paramedic how long until we get to the hospital? I was doing math in my head, trying to figure out if we were going to have a New Years baby, or if it would be after midnight. In the middle of our drive, the paramedic told me that they were going to change hospitals and not take me to Castle, which is where I had been planning and where my doctor’s team was. He said since I had stabilized more we were going to go to the further away Kapi'Olani, which is the high risk women’s hospital. It was better equipped to handle any sort of complications, and also had a NICU should we need it. He called Brent (and I was so glad he answered!) and told Brent to re-direct and meet us at Kapi'Olani, which is in downtown Honolulu. 

As soon as we arrived at the hospital, we went in through the ER and they had nurses and a doctor waiting for me. The doctor checked me to make sure that the baby wasn’t coming out, and I was so surprised when she said I was dilated to a 4! It made me feel brave and not crazy for enduring these contractions the last couple of weeks, and the last hour.

 Back at home, Brent hurried and got a few things packed for himself and settled Coen (he was crying because of what he had encountered and seen). Our neighbor Katie, who used to be a labor and delivery nurse, told Brent to get driving, but Brent said he needed to clean up the blood in the car and bathroom first. She wiped out the car, and then told him to go, and she’d clean up the bathroom. So while Brent drove, Katie cleaned the bathroom and washed my bloodied shorts and garments. Our other neighbor Mariah stayed with Ava and Coen until midnight to make sure they weren’t scared, and her husband Jake did our dinner dishes that were still left out.

Brent arrived at the hospital about 20 minutes after me, so maybe close to 11pm, and I was in the process of having bloodwork drawn and being monitored. The monitor on the baby’s heart made me feel a lot better. The doctors said we would wait about an hour to start the C-section because they wanted to get the bloodwork back to make sure they had the best match for a blood transfusion.

I was feeling tired, hungry, and pretty anxious. I hadn’t eaten since dinner at 6pm, which was good for the surgery, but I was getting nauseous from being hungry. I was also feeling anxious from the crazy turn of events the last couple of hours, and I was worried about a resident being on call and doing my C-section instead of my own doctor. They told me in this hospital they don’t do skin to skin with the baby after the C-section, and everything just felt like, “this isn’t what I had planned!” There was a moment when my nurse stepped out of the room and I asked Brent to give me a blessing. He blessed me to be calm. 

As this was all happening though, I knew I had been prepared for this moment.  I had a beautiful spiritual experience a few days before the birth that helped me know I was going to be OK.

In the operating room, while I was getting my spinal, I was extremely anxious and nauseous. Thank goodness the nurse was so sweet, holding me while I got my spinal, and telling me it was okay if I needed to throw up. “I got you,” she told me. I felt claustrophobic and pinned down when I lost the feeling from my waist down.

Here's Brent waiting while I was getting my epidural. It took maybe 20 minutes. These moments of anticipation are intense!

After I was numb and they had disinfected me, it was 12:40am. The doctor said “We are going to wait three minutes for this to dry, which is going to feel like the longest three minutes of your life, and then we will bring in your husband and the baby will be born.”  He was right- it was the longest three minutes!  

When Brent came in, he turned my music on his phone (Rachel Portman music), and he sat next to my head. I felt calmer, but still not how calm I wanted to be to enjoy the birth like I had been with my previous two. I asked Brent to touch my forehead, and we listened to the beautiful music. After about only 5 minutes, the doctor said, “I see lots of blonde hair!” They pushed hard on my stomach for about 20 seconds, and the anesthesiologist told me to make sure to not hold my breath for that part. I took deep breaths, and then we heard the glorious sound of the baby cries.  

The baby sneezed about 10 seconds after being born- it was the cutest little noise. They took him to a warming station on the side of the room to wipe him down and Brent followed with the baby. They held the baby up so I could see him, and I said “Oh my gosh, he’s so cute!” He just had the most perfect beautiful little face. 

Cutting the cord:

A video:

Bringing the baby for me to see for the first time. After she told me to give him a little kiss, she took him to the nursery to be weighed, cleaned up, and taken care of since he was grunting and not breathing right just yet.

Brent went with the baby to the nursery while they stitched me up. I was so sad that they didn't leave the baby on my chest with me for this part like they did in the other hospitals. But at least they gave me some medicine through my IV to make me sleep a very light sleep. I could still hear them talking, but the time passed quickly as I was sort of out of it.

Baby weighed 7 lb 3 oz and was 20.5 inches long.

Videos Brent took while the baby was about an hour old.

At 2:25am they brought the baby into the recovery room and I got to hold him for the first time. He was almost 2 hours old. Here I am smiling at him as they're bringing him to me.

After a little while they wheeled me to my room where I'd stay for the next few days. It was a tiny room! The hormones and recovering from the surgery made me feel SO hot. The air conditioning was set so cold but I was dying of heat. And poor Brent was huddled in the corner freezing the whole time! We finally were able to sleep for a few minutes (like 20 minutes) in the morning after being up all night.

Back at home, our back neighbors the Wolfersbergers, had our kids over for breakfast. It was still Christmas break so the kids didn't have school for another week. I sent Rebecca a picture of the baby and they got to see what their little brother looked like!

Then our kids walked down to the Tuutau's and knocked on their door and asked to play. After a few minutes, they said to Brandy, "We're all alone." She asked where I was and they told her at the hospital. Brandy said, "What?!?" So she took care of them for the rest of the day- feeding them lunch, and even took them to the beach. We have such wonderful neighbors and friends!

A video of the baby from 10:30am. His cute little sounds while sleeping!  You can see I'm looking super pale- I had lost quite a bit of blood and slept only a few minutes since two nights before. But I was riding on those endorphins and so happy to have my baby here!

You can see I'm getting the blood transfusion here - it literally brought me back to life. I only got one unit and probably should have gotten two, because I still felt extremely weak and had ringing in my ears the whole time I was in the hospital. I described it as feeling "not there."

Getting to know our baby. So fun to see his features after wondering what he'd look like the past 9 months! We decided on his name his first afternoon of being with us. Brent liked the name Kainoa which is Hawaiian for strength of the sea and I wanted the name Lucas, meaning bringer of light, so we had to decide which name was the first name and which was the middle. I liked Brent's name more than he liked my name, so we went in that order! We decided we'd call him Kai for short.  

Late that afternoon we had a babysitter come over to take care of our kids and then Brent drove home that evening, when the baby was almost 1 day old. This meant that I was now alone with the baby in the hospital, which I was really nervous for since I had just had surgery and needed help sitting up and getting the baby out of the bassinet, etc. I was just getting to the point where I could walk on my own to the bathroom.

I'm honestly not sure how I did it, but I was able to lift the baby from a sitting position on the bed and do everything I needed to do while Brent was gone. I had a great night nurse who offered to take the baby to the nursery for a couple hours so I could sleep. She helped swaddle the baby and change his diapers for me. She asked what the baby's name was and I told her Kai. She said "hello Kai!" and the baby turned his head and looked at her like, "you called?" I took it as a sign that we named him the right name!

Here's a video from 10pm on Kai's birthday. Just me and my new buddy that night.

 The second day (Friday) in the hospital was spent having our vital signs checked by nurses every couple hours, feeding the baby every hour it seemed, cuddling, and getting to know each other. Kai also got circumcised :(  I had crazy shoulder/neck pain this day- either from an air bubble from the surgery or tensing up during the C-section.

That evening I FaceTimed the kids and they were able to see Kai for the first time on FaceTime. Here's Ava's reaction:

Friday night was rough for me. I was nervous about doing another night without Brent, and I think the reality of my traumatic delivery hit me. 

Day 3 at the hospital was Saturday. Day and night all blended together, as I only slept 30 minutes here and there. A picture and video from that morning:

Shortly after I took these pictures I got a really bad headache in the front of my forehead. Up until this point I had only been taking tylenol and ibuprofen for my incision, but I asked the nurse for the stronger pain medication for my headache. Long story short, after speaking with the anesthesiologist, we think I got a spinal headache from the epidural. The way to help the pain is to lay flat on your back, and Coke also helps. I had this when I had Ava, and the headache pain is really awful. 

The day was spent laying flat on my back with the lights dimmed in my room, and sitting up just to feed the baby.

 Brent had been planning on coming back Sunday morning when it was time to pick me up to come home. But that afternoon I text Brent that I needed him to come back to the hospital- I couldn't do another night on my own like this. So he got the kids an early dinner and drove the hour to the hospital to be with me. I was so excited for him to get to the hospital and bring me relief. Everything seemed brighter and happier with him there.

My headache seemed to ease that night, but came back the next morning. 

Baby Kai early on his first Sunday morning on earth :)

Oh, I didn't mention that Brent got a bad cough and wasn't feeling well this whole time! Before he came back to the hospital he took a Covid test and it luckily was negative. I was worried our tiny baby was going to get sick from him, but luckily everyone else stayed healthy.

Baby Kai- straight from heaven, wondering about these people he was sent to :)

Before we were going home on Sunday we asked the nurse if she could give the baby a bath (his first one). Sadly we couldn't watch because the sink was in the nursery, but she brought back our baby with his hair slicked to the side like an old man. We nearly died. 

Check him out!

We got the baby dressed to go home in the same outfit Coen wore home from the hospital. It was so adorable to see him dressed for the first time! 

It took quite a while getting out of the hospital because we were waiting forever for them to discharge me, and then we waited like another 45 minutes for them to bring me a Coke to help my headache that had come back. We should have just had Brent walk down to the cafeteria and buy one and save so much time!

Look at this tiny little guy we got to take home! 

So much of the birth was not what I had planned (not the day, not my hospital, not my doctor).  Brent and I say even though we don't know all the reasons, we know that this was God's plan and we are so grateful that Kai and I were protected. We are sooooo grateful for his safe arrival and are completely, totally, in love with our baby Kai.