On December 27th we were sitting at home and I was getting super uncomfortable at 8pm I started getting regular contractions about 5 minutes apart. I laid in bed after Kherington fell asleep and tried to go to sleep but by 11pm I was still awake and the contractions were getting stronger and closer together. I called my doctor and she told me to drink some water, lay on my side and relax and then call her back in an hour if I was still having the contractions. Judd fell asleep and I tried so hard to but I just couldn't. I kept second guessing myself if I was really in labor or not and my fear was that I would wake up Judd and Kherington and drive to the hospital just to be sent home. Our stand by babysitter for K was out of town and we were too chicken to bother anybody else in our ward so late at night. By 12:15 I decided to call my doctor again and she told me that I better get to the hospital. We got there by 1am. The nurse set me up in a room and Judd tried to make a little bed on the floor for Kherington but she was wide awake! After being checked the nurse informed me that I was dilated at a 1 and said they would monitor me for awhile before calling in my doctor.
I laid in bed for 3 hours still having regular strong contractions and they were getting stronger and stronger. The nurse checked me every hour or so and said that I wasn't progressing. At that moment I really didn't think that we would be having the baby. My doctor came in at 5 and checked me and said that I was at a 4/5 so I was definitely in labor and they started getting the surgery team together.
Judd was planning on staying with Kherington while I was in surgery. They wheeled me out and got me ready for a spinal tap and C-section. I closed my eyes and just wished Judd was with me. While I was in surgery another nurse came to Judd and said that there was a Influenza Alert at the hospital and no one under 18 years old could visit the hospital. Judd had to go to the waiting room and started calling and texting ward members to see who could watch Kherington.
Everything went well with the surgery and Harbor Anne Hepworth was born Dec. 28th and 5:58AM She weighed 7 lbs. 2 oz. and was 20 inches long.
After the doctor brought her to me I watched as they cleaned her up. Suddenly the doctor and nurse working on H started moving a lot faster and reaching for different tools and started doing CPR on H. I said I a little prayer right then pleading with Heavenly Father that she would be okay and that I was not strong enough to lose a baby. The anesthesiologist saw my tears and tried to reassure me that everything would be okay. They took H away without letting me see her again. For an hour I had to be monitored in a room and I was so out of it I couldn't keep my eyes open long enough to really know what was going on.
Around 7:30 I was brought to a room and Judd came in right after I got there. I had no idea what he had just gone through, running around town and getting K set up with someone for the day. The doctor came in to explain Harbor's situation. They believed that because she was 3 weeks early and was a C-section baby there was too much fluid in her lungs and she stopped breathing. After they got her to start breathing again they noticed she wasn't getting enough oxygen so they stuck her under an oxygen hood and an IV. They told me that they had a really hard time finding a vein that worked for the IV and after trying in both hands, her foot and her forehead they put an IV in her umbilical cord.
That afternoon I started getting feeling in my legs so I got in a wheel chair and Judd and I went to go visit our little angel! It was horrible not being able to hold her.
I love little baby toes!!!
The next day she was taken off oxygen and after I was allowed to hold her my breathing slowed to a normal rate!
I feel like I was so blessed in being able to recover from my c-section very quickly! It may have seemed so easy because I had a HORRIBLE experience recovering after Kherington so now anything compared to that seems like a piece of cake. But the nurses kept commenting on how crazy it was that I was walking and getting out of bed by myself so early and I really did feel like Heavenly Father was blessing me with strength that I needed. Every night that I was in the hospital Judd had to go pick up Kherington from the babysitters and sleep at home with her, so I needed to be able to get up, pick up Harbor and feed her on my own. I was worried about it the first night but everything went really well and by the last night I was able to push her little crib down the hall to the nursery after every feeding to get her back under the bili lights.
After the doctors cleared me and Harbor 5 days later we were so excited to get our little family home!!
