Brayden Herrick Barton

We would like all of you to meet our precious baby boy, Brayden! :) He's a week old today and we love him so much. He was born on January 21st (2 days after he was supposed to arrive) at 10:38pm. Below is the story of his birth.

As most of you know once you get into your 9th month of pregnancy, you go to your OB every week until you have your baby. I had been going to my OB every week and every week my doctor would tell me that I was making progress. After seeing my doctor for a couple of weeks I noticed I was making progress but very slowly. I went from not being dilated and being 50% effaced to the next week being dilated to a 1 and still 50% effaced to the next week being dilated to a 2 and dilated to a 70%. I was dilated to a 2 and 70% effaced the day before my due date. Because of this one of my OB's decided to strip my membranes to see if it would help induce labor. That evening and the day of my due date I walked a lot hoping it would help me go into labor and when it didn't work I was starting to get discouraged and thought, "Man, this baby is never going to come." haha Sunday (the 20th) came and still nothing and then I went to sleep. I woke up at 3:30am when my water broke. Callen and I rushed to the hospital and got there about 15 mins later. The nurse hooked me up to an IV and told me I was dilated to a 3 and 80% effaced and the next few hrs we just waited to see if my contractions would progress by themselves. 6am came and I still wasn't making much progress so the nurse put me on pitocin, which lets just say is some heavy duty stuff. haha After going through 4 contractions with being on pitocin I had to have an epidural because it was so painful. After being put on pitocin i made progress but very slowly. I was stuck dilated at a 4 and 5 FOREVER. By the time one of my OB's got back to the hospital at 6pm I was dilated to an 8 and 100% effaced. My doctor was worried because usually women progress in dilation every hr unlike what I was doing. He told me that if i wasn't dilated to a 9 by 7pm that I would possibly have to have a c-section. After he said that, Callen and I freaked out a little bit because that's the last thing both of us wanted. When the nurse checked me an hr later I was dilated to a 9 and then a half an hr after that I was dilated to a 10. That's when I started pushing. I pushed for an hr and a half when the doctor came in and said that the baby's head was stuck because of my pelvic bone. You could barely see his head, but me pushing wasn't doing anything since my pelvic bone was too small. The doctor then tried to use forceps to pull the baby out as I was pushing, but after just one push the doctor could tell the baby wasn't going to budge. He then told me that I needed a c-section. As soon as he said that I start crying and a bunch of doctors and nurses came into my room to get me ready for surgery. I was put on higher doses of the epidural which caused me to shake really bad and also caused me to feel really cold and nauceous. We got into the OR and i remember thinking this is taking forever to get my baby out. After almost 40 mins of being in the OR, Brayden arrived. I was so out of it that it's hard to remember all the details but I remember the doctor showing me and Callen the baby and a smile came on my face and I just felt relieved that he was finally here. Callen went with the nurse to get the baby cleaned up and had measurements taken. For all of you that know Callen knows that he rarely cries, but when we were in the OR right before the baby arrived he was very emotional. The whole day was a very emotional and tiring experience. It was the happiest day of our lives but also the hardest. 19 hrs of labor and having to have a c-section in the end was really hard. We are just glad that Brayden is here and healthy. He ended up weighing 8 pds 14 ounces and was 20 1/2 inches long. He has already brought so much joy into our lives. He's the cutest thing and we can't wait for you all to meet him :)