Happy Birthday Brandon!

Eight years ago today I became a mother. It was a bittersweet day. My baby was finally here after nine anxiously awaited months! I thought the day would never come. Everything started out normal with my labor. We had him scheduled to be induced a week early. When I went into the hospital I was already in labor. By 10:00 I was already to 6 cm and everything was going smoothly. I was in pain and decided to have an epidural. After I was given the epidural at about 10:30 they decided to put the catheter in and drain my bladder. When they did this the baby, who's head had been resting on my bladder dropped further into the birth canal and as he did the cord got pinched in between his head and the birth canal. His hear rate plummeted from 120 to 60! The nurses frantically tried to get it back up, but nothing worked. For some reason there were no OB's in the the entire hospital at that time. My doctor was at his office. Dr. Melendez, a doctor who just happened to be driving by the hospital right before all this happened decided to stop and drop off some paper work. He normally would not have done this, but he felt prompted that he should. He was at the desk when Brandon got into trouble.

He came into the room with an ultrasound machine and took one look at the baby's heart rate and said, " We need to get him out, NOW!". They put my bed down, threw some scrubs at Pete and off I went to the operating room. They had to do it so quickly that they were not able to get me under the general anesthesia fast enough and I felt them cutting me! I didn't care, I just wanted my baby out!

I was under when they actually pulled him out, so I don't remember any of this. We have it on video tape because they told Pete to video it since I was not awake. They were afraid that he would die and I would have never seen him alive. His apgar score was a 1. He was blue and floppy. They had to put a tube down his throat and finally at around noon he started to cry! This is the first sound I heard as I woke up. I had no idea that my baby had almost died.

He was in the NICU the whole first day since he was having convulsions. They wheeled me into see him, but he was up so high that I could only touch his foot. I couldn't see his face. He spent most of that day screaming and shaking. Pete spent a great deal of that day rocking Brandon. He seemed to calm down when he was in his daddy's arms. Pete and my dad gave him a blessing and he improved from there.

Twenty four hours after giving birth to my baby, I finally held him in my arms! That was a sweet, sweet moment. I know that Brandon was saved because he has a special mission on this earth. He is a precious little boy, who has given me such joy. He has been a light in my life since the moment he entered this world. He is my first born, he made me a mother and he will always have a special place in my heart.

Happy Birthday, Brandon! I love you!

Brandon was born on December 12, 2000 at 10:56 am. He weighed in at 9 lbs. 5 oz. and was 20 inches long.