Landon's Arrival

Our son is just over two weeks old and I can hardly believe it! The past two weeks have been a whirlwind adventure and Jennifer and I have never been happier. I haven't been doing as well with documenting everything that has been going on during the pregnancy, but I am going to try and get back on track. Landon's journey started 9 months ago and we finally got to meet him on his exact due date of July 14, 2013. How Landon arrived is a little bit more of an interesting story.

I was at the hospital working a night shift when I had a patient that was running a fever. The patient didn't have an order for Tylenol, so I paged the resident to get the order put into the computer. Just a few minutes after I finished the page the phone rang so I picked it up and introduced myself to the "resident". The "resident" said this is Jennifer and I was like ok, and started to tell about them about my patient with the temperature when the person on the phone cut me off mid-sentence and said "This is Jennifer, your wife!" It took me a second to realize, but then Jennifer started to inform me that she had been having contractions since about 1 o'clock in the morning and she said that they were starting to hurt. It was now 5 o'clock and the contractions were every 2 minutes and more painful than they had been earlier in the week when the doctors in triage at the hospital sent her home. So, my heart began to race and I informed my co-workers about the news and I quickly gave report about my 3 patients to another nurse then headed for the car to go get Jennifer.

There were not many people out at 5 o'clock am on a Sunday morning so I broke a few driving rules on the way home. Upon my arrival I was greeted at the door by my parents. (They had come up a few days before when we thought we were going to be admitted to the hospital and had just been staying until Landon's arrival since they live 3 hours away.) I walked upstairs to find Jennifer standing in the living room and upon seeing her she didn't seem to be in any distress. I jumped in the shower and proceeded to get ready for our trip to the hospital. I shaved and then began brushing my teeth when Jennifer came into the bathroom and asked for me to hurry up. I quickly finished my teeth and then went to give Brinley a little kiss and whispered to her that the next time we saw her she would have a little baby brother. Then I gathered up the last of our things and we headed out to the car.

There were a few more vehicles out on the road so I was more hesitant to break any laws. It always seems to happen that when you are in a rush that you hit almost every stop light and that they take twice as long to turn green again. Well this is exactly how I felt and I know that Jennifer had to be even more frustrated. Now that I was actually around Jennifer during one of her contractions I saw that she was truly in a lot of pain. I kept trying to reassure her and I offered up my hand for her to squeeze. We made it to the hospital and Jennifer said that she wanted to walk in. However, after we began the walk she was still having frequent contractions so we had to stop multiple times in order for the pain to subside.

In our triage room. Jennifer was nice enough to smile for a picture in between contractions.

We arrived to triage around 6 am and filled out the paperwork and I knew from our previous experience that they weren't going to just rush us on back to a room. However, we were really not prepared for what the next 3 hours had in store for us. Around 6:15 we were placed into a small curtained room and they told Jennifer to change into a gown and they would be back to check on us. Nothing seemed to be going like it had been when we arrived just last year with Brinley. Apparently the triage area was full of women that were all in labor and the computer in our space didn't work. They did hook Jennifer up to the monitor to check on baby Landon. During this time that we were waiting Jennifer was in a lot of pain and in between one of her contractions we took a minute to say a prayer to watch over Jennifer and Landon during this delivery. The Anesthesia resident, who was a friend of mine stopped by and said the he would come see us as soon as we got settled into our room. It then turned into shift change and the next shifts nurses and doctors arrived and one of the doctors came to speak to us and asked a few questions and then said they were going to check and see how far Jennifer was dilated. Upon examination she discovered that Jennifer was 7 cm. This really got the ball rolling.
The charge nurse arrived with a wheelchair and promptly took us to our room. It was pretty neat because it was the same exact room that Brinley was born in. Our nurse Sandy asked us all the preliminary questions and helped start and IV and get some fluids in Jennifer (who was dehydrated). At this point I was really hurting for Jennifer because I had never before seen her in this much pain. I was holding her hands and leaning on the bed with my head next to her's trying to keep her calm and helping remind her to breathe when the contractions came. Jennifer even hurt so much that she asked Sandy for some pain medicine and she informed her that it was too late for any pain medicine. I am not sure if I just misunderstood or what, but I took this to mean that Jennifer was not going to get an epidural at all. If contractions were this bad with no pain meds then I could hardly imagine what it would be like during the actual delivery if she didn't get an epidural. Thankfully I just didn't understand and around 8:15 they came and placed an epidural. The epidural was done very quickly and efficiently and Jennifer began to get immediate relief from the medicine. After the epidural took effect I joked that next year when we came in we would know the whole procedure. Nurse Sandy told Jennifer she could slap me if she wanted to, but she didn't.

Now it just looked like a waiting game. We had our first visitors - Jennifer's mother Kara and her husband Chris, although they didn't get to stay long. About 25-30 minutes after the epidural was placed Landon's heart rate began to start dropping off and on. (Jennifer and I didn't get too worried because Brinley had done the same thing) However, Dr. Jackson came in to see us because she wanted to further investigate what she had seen on the monitors outside the room. There was also some difficulty getting a blood pressure on Jennifer during this time and the ones that they did get were recording low. To try and help with the drop in Landon's heart rate they asked Jennifer to get on her elbows and knees. Not such an easy task for a pregnant lady, let alone one who couldn't feel her legs, but we were able to help get her in the position. This apparently didn't fix the problem so Dr. Jackson informed us that in order to get a more accurate idea of what was happening with Landon they would like to break Jennifer's water and place a scalp electrode to be able to better see if his heart rate was really dropping or if it was machine error. About a minute after the electrode was placed they made the decision that Landon was indeed in distress and that we were going to the Operating Room for an emergency C-Section.

This is when about 10 people rushed into the room and everyone started doing their specific task. She got a shot of terbutiline which was to stop contractions from one nurse. Then we flipped Jennifer back over to her back and she was then asked to drink a cup full of medicine to decrease stomach acidity in case she aspirated during surgery. Everything was going super fast and I had no time to process what was really happening. We walked out of our room at 8:50 am and headed towards the OR. They informed me that someone would be there to get me and that I would have to change into some scrubs. So there I was ALONE with no one around and I couldn't even be next to Jennifer to help comfort her in this very scary time. The only thing I knew to do was to say a prayer to help my wife and son during this difficult time. Then I texted our families to let them know of the sudden change in events and I asked friends and family to say a quick prayer via Facebook. What seemed like an eternity (probably real time was less than 2 minutes) I stood there anxiously waiting for someone to come and give me my scrubs. The next thing I saw was a nurse run out of the OR and head into a supply closet. In my head I was even more nervous because I started thinking what could they possibly not have in there that they needed. Instead the lady came out and opened the door and handed me a mask and hat and said to hurry up that Jennifer was going to try and push little Landon out. This made absolutely no sense to me, but I got right up next to Jennifer and started coaching her into every push. Everybody was busy doing things to prep for the C-section and Jennifer was left trying to hold her own legs up so I stepped in and grabbed her left leg to help position her best to help Landon out. On the fourth push little Landon made his arrival at 8:55 am on July 14, 2013.

Our little man in the resuscitation room.

Landon had been in some distress and initially wasn't making any noise after he came out. They cut his umbilical cord and suctioned his nose and mouth out and then whisked him away to a resuscitation room. Just a few seconds later we hear Landon belt out his first cry. I went to check on Landon and to take a picture to come back and show Jennifer just in case he had to be taken somewhere else. This room was filled with many people Jennifer and I knew from work. They were all congratulating me as I got to finally see my son for the first time. I snapped a couple pictures on my phone and made a video and then headed back to show Jennifer. Five minutes after Landon was born he was brought back to Jennifer so that she could meet him. We were both overcome with emotion after all that had transpired in the last 10 minutes and seeing you in her arms was so amazing. At that moment I could not have been any happier because God had blessed me with 2 healthy children and an amazing wife.

My wife is amazing! She pushed Landon out before they could start a c-section! My little man is here!

This is one of my favorite pictures. This was just seconds after they placed Landon in her arms for the first time.

While the doctors were finishing up I started looking around the OR and I realized that I had been in this very room before and had a whole different experience that I will tell you about another day. After getting Jennifer off the OR table and back into her hospital bed we were taken back to our room. Jennifer got to spend an hour of time with Landon for skin to skin time, aka kangaroo care.

    

This picture was taken during kangaroo time. I know this because Landon pooped on mommy and she had to change gowns. You wouldn't know from this picture all the trouble she had gone through just an hour before. 

Then Landon was weighed, measured and given his first shots. Landon Michael Heflin weighed 7 pounds 7 ounces and measured in at 19 inches long. That made him 11 ounces bigger, but 1/2 an inch shorter than Brinley. (At our first doctor's appointment at 4 days old he measured 20 and 1/2 inches, so either he didn't get stretched fully for the initial measurement or the little guy will out grow me by the age of 2!) After shots I got to hold Landon for a little while before the rest of our family started to come back.

Me and my little mini me!

Our first visitors to come back were my parents and Big Sister Brinley. Brinley wasn't really impressed at all with Landon, but she did enjoy some of her mother's fruit plate.

Our first family photo!

It didn't take long for her to warm up to him.

We had many more family come back for a visit and every one was really excited to meet baby Landon. In fact in all of the excitement I forgot to tell my family that Jennifer didn't have the C-section. They were really shocked when I told them the rest of the story. In fact, I was actually getting to hear for the first time what happened during those few minutes while I was waiting outside the OR. It turns out that after they got Jennifer on the OR table one of the other doctors mentioned to Dr. Jackson to do a quick check and it just so happened that Jennifer was fully dilated and that they changed their minds and decided to let her try and push Landon out. This was also where I found out that the vacuum was used to help speed up the process. I guess I had been too focused on Jennifer to even notice. Apparently nurse Sandy also was adamant that I be in the room and that is why the nurse ran out to get me. She kept saying "Jordan will never forgive me if he isn't in here! Somebody go get Jordan!" We can't thank all the doctors and nurses that really made an extremely stressful time run smoothly and effectively like a well oiled machine. 

Jennifer and I couldn't be happier with both Brinley and Landon in our lives. They are truly little blessings and we can't wait to see them grow up, but not too fast! Thanks for reading and God Bless!