Connor's Birth Story

In December 2003, my husband and I decided to start trying for a baby and we were pregnant in January. We were surprised that it happened so quickly and were so excited that we couldn't wait to start telling people. The pregnancy went very well–I had no morning sickness, and other than being tired, everything was good.

On September 15, two days before my due date, I went in for a doctor's appointment. They did an ultrasound and determined that my amniotic fluid was on the low side. To prevent any problems, they decided to induce that night.

After leaving the doctor's office, my husband and I started making phone calls to let everyone know I was being induced (which was a mistake as we should have waited until after the baby was born). We were scheduled to get to the hospital at 7:30 that evening, so we met friends for dinner first, then headed to the hospital. At 8:00 they started the induction, and used some pill to break down my membranes. This triggered contractions which didn't hurt at first–it felt like the baby was just pushing. So we had a couple of people in the room with us and we talked and played games.

At 1:00 a.m. I tried to get some sleep but around 3:30 a.m. the contractions got painful. I begged for an epidural throughout the night. The nurse started Pitocin at 10:00 a.m. which made the contractions worse. I was exhausted and couldn't sleep. The nurses kept giving me Stadol which made me so tired I would fall asleep in between contractions! My husband tried to make jokes to make me feel better, but he was just making it worse. Family and friends kept calling the labor room looking for updates, so I eventually just turned off the phone.

At about 3:30 in the afternoon, after 12 hours of pleading, I finally got the epidural. I thought I was finally going to get some sleep and my husband went to the waiting room with his family so I could rest. At this point, the nurses started coming in non-stop. They broke my water and after a while they hooked up the internal monitors to get a better reading on the baby's heart rate.

After the monitors were hooked up, they saw the baby's heart rate drop every time I had a contraction so they decided an emergency C-section was the way to go. I was so scared because my husband wasn't with me at this point but as they prepped me, he came in. The C-section was a breeze, but I was so scared that something was wrong. As it turned out, the umbilical cord was wrapped around my son's neck.

Connor Michael Brown was born at 6:54 p.m. on September 15, 2004. He weighed 7 pounds, 13 ounces and was 19 inches long. I couldn't hold him right away because they had to sew me back up and then I had to wait for some of the numbness in my arms to go away from the anesthesia.

I can't imagine not having Connor in my life!