As most of you know by now, I went into labor last week at 30 1/2 weeks. Because of all of the issues we were facing, the doctor recommended not stopping labor. She felt that this was my body's way of saying it was time...that it just couldn't take any more. So she admitted me on Tuesday. They kept me for a few hours, but after no more dilation, they sent me home. But by 2 am Wednesday morning, I was having regular contractions about 11 minutes apart which then went to 6 minutes about by 2:30. Talk about scary...that was a big jump! So mom took me on to the hospital (Dennis was working in Jackson and hit the road to Hattiesburg.) They got me admitted, and the wait began. By 8 that morning, I had made it to about 4 cm so they said Kelsey (will explain the change in spelling in a minute:) ) would probably be here in 2-4 hours. Yeah right lol You know this baby has been stubborn this whole time...I wonder where that hardheadedness comes from :) The doctor decided to go ahead and give me the epidural at about 8, which is probably one of the best decisions that we made. I was able to relax and just enjoy the whole experience...especially the actual delivery. Kelsey decided to be stubborn and take a while. So that afternoon, the doctor suggested starting some Pitocin to speed things along. I really didn't want to do this because I knew that as soon as the baby was born, it would quite likely mean our sweetheart would no longer be with us. And I didn't want to rush that up at all. Also, I knew that the Pitocin could stress the baby out with harder contractions. But since my water had broke that morning, I knew that the baby could be stressed because of the lack of fluid and a drier birth. So we decided to go ahead and push the Pitocin. By 5:00 I was fully dilated and it was time to push. At 5:25 p.m. on Wednesday, March 14, 2012, Kelsey Nolan Keller...yes HE was a BOY!!! was born. Talk about a shock! All this time, we'd been planning for a girl (KelsIE). The doctor kept saying "he" and "his", so I finally asked..."Are you saying HE like, it's a boy???" And she well I'm pretty sure that's what it looks like to me! Wow...God sure knows how to give somebody some comic relief in a really tense moment :) I panicked for a moment because I had no boy clothes, blankets, etc and I didn't have a boy name picked out. But mom pointed out that Kelsie/ey could be a boy or a girl's name, so we just changed the girly IE to EY. And since we had picked Denise for the middle name, someone suggested using Dennis for the middle name. But Daddy Dennis said he really liked his middle name of Nolan better. So therefore Kelsey Nolan Keller was named. Dennis held Kelsey first while they finished taking care of me, and then I got to hold my precious sweetheart. He was so much bigger than I was expecting! He weighed 3 pounds 7 ounces and was 14 1/4 inches long. He had such a cute chubby face and was perfect!
Our neonatologist checked him out, and gave us the news we were afraid of getting. Kelsey's heartbeat had been fantastic all through labor, but as soon as the cord was cut, his heartbeat dropped into the 20-30 range. We knew we had just a few minutes with him. As much as I didn't want to let him go, I also really wanted to share him with our family and friends. So I passed him on to my mom and let our families hold him. A couple of minutes later, our wonderful nurse sat beside me on the bed and told me that I should get him back because he probably only had a few minutes left. I asked them to hand him back to me, and as I held him, our sweet angel passed from this world to be with Jesus. It was a moment I had been so scared of, but it was so peaceful. They said he experienced no pain, and the 19 minutes he spent with us were the most beautiful 19 minutes of my life. Our precious baby boy spent his whole life knowing nothing but love. I am so thankful that he made it here. That he lived...that he will have a birth certificate...that people were there to see and meet him and validate this tiny little being who played such a huge part in this world.
The next few minutes were spent with joy and sadness as the rest of our family and friends took turns holding Kelsey. Then most of them filtered out as we spent time with a photographer. There is a non-profit organization called Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep that is made up of professional photographers who volunteer their time and services to families going through situations like ours. They take pictures for the families and then provide them with a CD of the pictures, free of charge. Karen Moore, owner of Karen Moore Photography in Magee (http://www.karenmoorephotography.com/), graciously donated her time to spend the day with our family and offer her photography services. This wonderful lady (that I had never even met before Wednesday) canceled the photo session she had scheduled for that day and sat at the hospital all day while I was in labor and then took pictures through the delivery and took many, many pictures of Kelsey and our family after birth. I will be forever grateful to her and Mr. Cliff Burgess (in training with NILMDTS)who took their personal time to provide our family with the precious photos of our special day. I can never thank them enough. She took an entire day out of her busy schedule to spend the day with us. She sent us a few pictures so that we could have a couple at Kelsey's service. Since I'm at mom's using dial-up internet, it won't let me upload the pics right now, but I will get them up asap. I want to share my beautiful baby boy :) If you are friends with me on Facebook, you have probably already seen one of these precious pics.
I would like to close just by saying thank you. So many people have been praying for us throughout the past few months and especially the past week. You will never know how much those prayers have helped us. There have been times when I just didn't have it in me to find the words, but I knew there were friends who were lifting us up. Please continue to pray for us. I won't even pretend to act like we are ok. I know we will be. But right now, the pain is just too great and the emptiness too big. I told a friend a couple days ago that we can't even take things day by day at the moment. Instead it's minute by minute. That's all we can do. I also want to thank everyone for the food, cards, messages, phone calls, etc. The outpouring of love has been overwhelming. You are very much appreciated. Also, even though they may never see this, my doctor, the doctor on call at the hospital, and my nurse were awesome. My OB has been absolutely wonderful. She is an awesome Christian lady who was very up front with us about everything but also very caring and compassionate. Our nurse at FGH was absolutely fantastic. She was so kind and considerate. She took very good care of us and made our experience the best that it could have been. I will forever be grateful to her.
I know I haven't responded to a lot of the texts, calls, etc. that have been sent our way. Please don't feel like I'm ignoring you. There have just been so many that it's hard to get back to everyone. Please know that your kindness has not gone unnoticed. Much love to all of you. Will try to post again soon.
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