Leighton Michele. A Birth Story

It was an early start to the morning on Wednesday August 28th 2019. I woke up at 7 to get myself ready for the day and Lennox ready and off to daycare. After dropping Len off and filling up with gas I headed on my way to my mom and my usual meet up point half way between us both to pick her up and head to the city for a day of shopping, followed by my 36 week check up with my ob.

Winners was our first stop, as usual, then off to Lady of the Lake for a light lunch. After lunch we went to the mall for some shopping and a Davids Tea. While walking the mall I started feeling very uncomfortable. I figured I just had to use the washroom (💩) but no such luck. As we walked I noticed the pains getting stronger. My mom insisted we head to the emergency. Knowing we would sit there for hours just to see someone I decided to wait two more till my appointment. I wasn't in crazy pain or anything just very uncomfortable. We sat and had our davids tea while we waited.

Once I got to my apointment and got into my doctors office. He asked me how I was feeling, so I told him about being uncomfortable and having the odd pain. Without a word he picked up his phone and called the labour and delivery ward and said he was sending a patient to be monitored. I feel like I should also point out that I can not have a baby vaginally as with Lennox I was in labor (with no pain meds 😞) for 14 hours and while she was trying to make her escape she tore my uterus, causing an emergency c-section and a three inch scar that could rupture if I had a baby naturally.

While being monitored I didn't seem to feel too bad, once again just uncomfortable. The nurse looked at me and said I was in active labor and couldn't believe I wasn't in more pain (I have always had a high pain tolerance). A few minutes later my ob came in and said we were going for a c-section right away and to start preparing me. Freaking out I got my mom to call Mitch who was an hour and a half away at work. Worried I would be in the room by myself I got my mom to gown up just incase he didn't make it.

They rolled me down and got me prepped with the spinal. As I lay on the table unable to feel anything, the sweetest nurse whispers to the one next to me that she is going to try and stall the doctor as long as possible till my husband arrives, she gave me a quick wink. That wink was all I needed to settle my nerves. Just as they were about to make the cut I hear mitts voice and the door opens. I love my mom but obviously she is not my husband or the father of my babies. I felt content and ready to meet our baby.

Your about to feel pressure, is all I heard before a nurse literally body slams my ribs and I lose my breath. I felt like I had been hit by a bus. Then I hear, look at all the hair, and then nothing. I hear nothing. Not a cry, just suctioning and I look over trying to get any peek I can at the tiny little baby being tossed around, as they try and get a breath. My ob is talking to me but I have no clue what he said, I just kept waiting for that cry. Suddenly I see a face I recognize (the same paediatrician who treats Lennox) bring a blue faced baby toward me saying give her a kiss mom we need to go now. I kiss my blue teeny baby on the cheek and tell her I love her as she is rushed up to the NICU with my husband in tow.

Now in the recovery room, the nurse is telling me to rest but alls I want is to know how my baby is. Finally they call up to the maternity ward. They come to me and say you have a baby girl, she is 5 pounds and 13 ounces. She is in the nicu (neonatal intensive care unit) as her lungs are not fully developed (the right one not inflated at all). They ask me if I would like to go see her and I of course say yes. They will me up the elevator into the nicu and I see my husband standing beside an incubator with are sweet little Leighton resting in it. I can't help it but cry. She looks like she has been through war with a bruised face from being tugged on so hard to get her out from under my ribs too looking so small in this big space looking bed. I don't want to leave her but they tell me I need to go rest. How am I supposed to rest when alls I want to do is hold my baby. As soon as I get back to our room I start to pump. Its the only thing that I feel like I can do for my baby. I get a drop and syringe it up. The nicu nurses freeze it for later and Leighton is not on food yet. For the first week she got fed through an I.V. of I have no clue what it is to be honest, just looks like water to me.

I didn't sleep at all that night and first thing in the morning I went down to the nicu to see my baby. When I get there they give us the run down. Leighton is hooked up to an apnea machine to help her breathe and to strengthen her lungs. She has an I.V. and is in the incubator to help regulate her body temperature.

I was 36 weeks and five days when she was born but her paediatrician suspects the dating was wrong and she is 34 to 35 weeks.

Despite all that she went through and the machines she was hooked up to, she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Blonde hair and blue eyes, 20" long just like her big sister. At that moment we did not know when we would be able to hold her let alone when she would be able to come home.

The nicu journey was the hardest time in my life, and I will write about that in my next blog post.

Thanks for reading about Leightons birth story.

Love Tasha ❤️