Cyrus' Birth Story

On June 4th, 2022, our sweet Cyrus Stone turned nine months old! That date marker of him being out in the world for as long as he was inside of me (give or take-- pregnancy math is confusing) has caused me to reflect a bit on the past eighteen months.

For many reasons, I feel very, very lucky to have been able to carry and birth my babies. For years doctors told that I would have trouble conceiving and would most likely need fertility treatments in order to get pregnant due to a diagnosis of polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) in 2012. So, Wade and I had planned to adopt due to that diagnosis and other reasons. When we conceived Cohen in 2018 we were pretty shocked, and then when we decided to try for another and I was pregnant after just one period, we were also quite surprised. Even more surprising is that since having the babies, my diagnosis of PCOS has been confirmed. My ovaries are still affected by overproduction and thus improper release of eggs, and I don't have much of an explanation for our ease in our conception journey other than I think these boys were meant to be here! They are something of a miracle.

That being said, pregnancy was not my favorite thing. Parts of it I loved. Feeling the baby kick and squirm and hiccup inside of me was so surreal and such a dream. I liked all the cute pregnancy clothes, and I enjoyed the closeness and bond I felt with my babies. Thankfully, I also never really experienced nausea or blood pressure issues or gestational diabetes or anything. But other than that... it was rough. I dealt with pretty significant SI joint pain through my third trimester with Cohen and for the entire pregnancy with Cyrus, and the only way I really got through was weekly visits to the chiropractor and monthly massages. I also had migraines and pelvic floor pain throughout. Even nine months after birthing my baby I am still dealing with and trying to heal from the toll of the pregnancy on my body. At least the bump was cute!

Throughout my pregnancy I was told there was a good chance that the baby would be quite large coming out, and there were also concerns about him not flipping the right way, as his head was up as late as about 36 weeks. Thankfully, the chiropractor was able to help with that as well by massaging some tight areas to allow for expansion. The baby was due on Sunday, Sept. 5th, and I had an induction scheduled for Wednesday, September 8th. I had an appointment with my midwives on Friday, September 3rd, and at that appointment my blood pressure was slightly high, so my midwife suggested going back to the hospital later to check again with the possibility of staying to be induced. Generally, we were ready to go; however, my mom was supposed to take Cohen but got a positive COVID test just that morning. Thankfully, Wade's parents were able to come be with Cohen. Wade and I packed our stuff and headed to the hospital for a 1:00 PM blood pressure check in triage. It was still high, so the midwife suggested admission and induction, and we agreed. We got checked into our room by 3:00 PM, and we immediately set it up to feel cozy and inviting.

Took about an hour to get my IV in, COVID test done, and for the midwife to give me the first half of a Misoprostol pill to begin to thin my cervix to induce labor. We ordered pizza, and like Cohen's labor, we watched Baby Mama together as we waited. There wasn't a lot of waiting around, though, because by 6:00 PM I was feeling lots of cramping and the start of contractions. I took the second half of the miso pill at that time, and things were off and running. The next six to seven hours were some of the most intense hours of my entire life. My body knew what to do, was ready to go, and really didn't wait for much else to get the labor started. My contractions were soon minutes apart, I was trying to concentrate on my breathing, and I was checking in with my midwife regularly.

At about 7:00 PM I got in the birthing tub, which was really great and especially helped alleviate back labor, which I had had before. I labored in the bath for about three hours, took a break, then got back in for another hour. At about 11:00 PM the pressure and intensity of the contractions got really strong. Our midwife, Hannah, suggested getting out of the tub again, and this time I got dried off and changed back into my soft robe and got on the bed. At this point I was fully transitioning to the final stages of labor, and things were getting extremely difficult. Each contraction seemed to pull me under with less and less hope of resurfacing. Where the previous contractions had been strong but manageable, these took literally everything from me. I would grip the side of the bed with all my might and just simply whimper, yell, or rasp “ow, ow, ow” as the contraction would crash down. It was at this point that I would have liked an epidural, but it was already too late.

I was doing OK mentally until my midwife checked my cervix again at 11:35 PM and found I was only dilated seven centimeters. I didn’t know how that was possible with the strength of my contractions, but even more so, I was so discouraged that I would have to labor in that state to get three more centimeters dilated. It would take almost the whole break in between contractions to get my breathing under control again before things would ramp up. In my labor with Cohen I had pretty extreme back labor from the start. That meant that when the contraction would end, my back muscles wouldn’t release. They would stay tight and contracted really until the next major contraction. Because of the intensity of back labor, as soon as I was reaching a transition point in Cohen’s birth I needed an epidural. This was also the second night of his labor, and I had had a narcotic the first night in order to try to get some rest. Once the epidural was finally effective for Cohen’s labor (took two tries), things started to slow down, Cohen’s heart rate dropped, and I needed to go off the Pitocin. My water did break with the peanut ball which ultimately got things going, but I labored the last several hours of that labor with an epidural.

I think because I didn’t have back labor this time and because I was in the bath for so much of the labor I didn’t realize how intense things were getting until I had already transitioned. I honestly hadn’t thought much about drugs throughout the labor because things were progressing quickly but manageably, but once I hit that transition without drugs I was greatly regretting not asking for an epidural sooner. Hannah also asked and tried to break my water, but the baby’s head was basically in the way, so there was no water, but she did tear the sack. That, along with the seven centimeters, was very disheartening. Hannah, the nurse, and Wade were very encouraging, present, and supportive, but all of that started to slip away into the pain. Hannah had to hold the heartbeat monitor with almost every contraction this time, and I really appreciated how she never got in my way all while I was moving and writhing on the bed.

Finally, I was on all fours on the bed, and I just had to push. It was the only thing that brought me any kind of relief, even if it also brought pain. Hannah said: "I can see your need to push is uncontrollable, so I’m going to try to hold your cervix open so that it doesn’t swell." I didn’t really know what that meant, except that she was saying it was OK to push, so I did. I pushed once, and she said: "you’re dilated to eight!" I pushed again, and she said: "catch your baby!" I reached under me and pulled up this small, warm body literally directly from within me. It was honestly the most surreal experience. Again, since I’d had the epidural with Cohen, my midwife Denise had caught him and then immediately handed him to me. I had definitely felt a relief of pressure then but nothing like the physical pain relief of this baby being born.

Cyrus was born at 12:28 AM on Saturday, September 4th. I pulled him up and from a kind of sitting position on my knees said: “he’s a boy!” I watched him for a moment, though, and I could see he was gray, quiet, and still. I quickly said: "Why isn’t he breathing? Why isn’t he breathing??" Our midwife responded by asking if Wade wanted to cut the cord, which alerted me that something wasn’t right because it was so quick. He declined, and she said: "Kayla, give us the baby." The nurse then grabbed him from my arms and ran across the room to the warmer. I now know that before that, she had pressed a button alerting the pediatric emergency team to come to the room, and they were there within 32 seconds of the button being pressed. I sat in my bed watching this team of at least three pediatric doctors and multiple nurses surround my tiny, quiet baby as he disappeared from my view and immediately put him on a CPAP for high flow oxygen. Wade held my hand as I shook from the adrenaline and tried to find a comfortable position. After about a minute Hannah said: "Wade, why don’t you go over and try to talk to him?" And then she told me she thought it would be best to push out the placenta so that I’d be more comfortable. I agreed and after a halfhearted push the placenta came out, and I was much more comfortable but beginning to be more and more afraid.

Wade came back over to me briefly before going back over to the baby. He said each doctor was performing different tests like, sucking out his lungs, doing drop tests, checking his heart, etc. After what I now know is about two minutes, one of the doctors pulled a very long chunk of snot from his nose, and he breathed but still made no sound, but I couldn't see anything. Wade gave me a thumbs up, though, and that helped me relax a little bit. Hannah stood next to me the whole time and held my hand or stroked my arm. Finally, after about five minutes, the longest of my life, Cyrus cried. I felt like then I took my first real breath in an hour and a half. I had no idea what the impact of the past five minutes had or would be, but he was crying. He was still there. Shortly after, the team around him started to disperse, and just the three pediatricians were left. One was giving Wade updates as they continued to test Cyrus, which I appreciated. Finally, I’m sure less than ten minutes after he was born but was literally a lifetime, they put him on my chest. He was here. Our Cyrus Stone.

Cyrus weighed only six pounds when he was born; a truly astonishing number given they thought he was large for his gestational age at twenty weeks and the fact that Cohen was 9.5 pounds. He literally felt like a feather in my arms. His body temperature was low, and his blood sugar level was only 12 when it needed to be closer to 50 or 60. Those low numbers meant that we needed to keep him very warm and supplement him immediately with donor breast milk, glucose, and then formula. He was very closely monitored for the first 24 hours, and we worked hard to get some sugars into him. Thankfully, just at the 24 hour mark he cleared his hurdles for body temp and blood sugar and has been in the clear and nursing well ever since. My milk came in quickly (by the second night), and due to only having maybe three one degree tears my physical recovery began much easier and quicker this second time around. Cyrus started to wake and startle and stir after those 24 hours and started eating and even sleeping pretty well. We stayed in the hospital until Sunday afternoon, the 5th (his original due date), and then came home and were greeted by Wade’s parents and a very excited big brother who constantly asked to “have kiss” and kiss Cy’s little head.

In the hospital, we learned from a pediatrician that probably due to both his small size and the fact that he came out stunned (i.e. not breathing) due to quick passage through the birth canal in those two pushes, Cyrus used basically all the heat and energy he had to fight to be alive in those first minutes. That’s why his body temperature and blood sugar were so very low. Even now, nine months and quite a bit of therapy later, this hits me right in the gut. My sweet, tiny, vulnerable, brave baby literally gave all he had in the very first moments of his life to stay here with us. I’m forever grateful that he did.