In the heart of our family’s journey lies a pivotal moment – the birth of Aaron. Let’s delve into the facts that define this remarkable day.
The Unplanned Turn: Aaron’s birth was anything but ordinary. Initially planned as a scheduled delivery, it took an unexpected turn when it was discovered that his cord had prolapsed into the birth canal. This complication put his life at risk with each contraction.
Family Presence: Despite the unexpected turn, our family rallied around. Siblings, grandparents, and parents were present, ready to support in any way possible. It was a testament to the strength of our family bond.
Cameron’s Composure: In the midst of the crisis, Cameron, Our Dad, displayed remarkable composure. He navigated the hospital’s maze in ill-fitting scrubs, adhering to instructions with precision. It was a display of calm in a storm.
Sara’s Courage: Mom, Sara, faced uncertainty with unwavering courage. She trusted in the medical team and the family’s support network, maintaining faith even in the darkest moments.
A Miraculous Arrival: Aaron’s entrance into the world was far from smooth. He arrived gray and lifeless, prompting immediate intervention. Thanks to the dedication of the medical team, his color returned, and his heartbeat was restored.
NICU Days: Aaron spent several days in the NICU, fighting to thrive. Those days were a test of his resilience, and he emerged victorious. It was a testament to the strength of this tiny newborn.
A Binding Blessing: Aaron’s birth wasn’t just a family milestone; it was a reminder of our family’s unity in the face of adversity. His presence became a symbol of hope, a living embodiment of the power of love and faith within our family.
Grateful Today: Today, as we celebrate Aaron’s birth, we are also celebrating the fortitude of our family. We acknowledge the blessing he brought into our lives and the unbreakable bonds that tie us together.
In conclusion, Aaron’s birth was a tumultuous event that ultimately brought our family closer together. It wasn’t just about sentimentality; it was about facing adversity head-on and emerging stronger as a result.
[00:00:00] Aaron: Aaron’s birth
[00:00:12] Rebekah: when my little brother was born,
[00:00:14] Cameron: Aaron’s birth
[00:00:16] Aaron: when I was directly born.
[00:00:24] Mary: My parents had discussed because it was a scheduled delivery, they were gonna induce my mom.
[00:00:31] They decided to invite me and Elizabeth and Hannah and my grandma to be present, uh,
[00:00:38] for Aaron’s birth.
[00:00:40] Hyatt: I remember I. Didn’t go to the hospital.
[00:00:43] Rachel: Me and Rebecca and Matthew, I think went over to our aunt and uncle’s house.
[00:00:50] Mary: I was kind of nervous, kind of excited.
[00:00:54] Sara: I had been induced because I had preeclampsia.
[00:00:59] Mary: She checked my mama and said, we have a prolapse cord, and she press like this button and a ton of nurses just like came rushing into the room.
[00:01:11] Sara: They discovered that Aaron’s cord had prolapsed into the birth canal, and every time I had a contraction, it would cut off his circulation.
[00:01:21] So then what? So his heart rate was dipping. With every contraction. So all of a sudden a whole bunch of people came in the room, a light was pushed, a button was pushed, and
[00:01:38] Mary: I was like,
[00:01:39] Cameron: just pushed the button. And she. Then, um, started giving instructions as calm and as cool as a cucumber on a hot summer day.
[00:01:50] She was just no, like nothing major was wrong. She turned and well, Holding the baby’s head, looked at the girls and, uh, my mom and said, you y’all need to go out into the family waiting room. Do that now. And they prepped the bed and started wheeling her, wheeling Sarah out with April on the bed with her hand in the birth canal holding the
[00:02:14] baby’s head.
[00:02:15] And I just kind of walked out into the hall watching them wheel my wife away going, well, the, what do I do?
[00:02:23] Mary: Remember, um, they wheeled my mom out of the room and me, my grandma, my sister, Elizabeth and Hannah, we all gathered in a circle and we said a prayer and prayed that everything would be okay.
[00:02:41] Sara: I didn’t know if he was okay.
[00:02:43] I didn’t know if he was gonna be okay. There was a lot of uncertainty, a
[00:02:48] Cameron: lot of unknowns. I go into a changing room where they hand me. Scrubs meant for, um, a person of typical size. I am not a person of typical size, and so I just walked out in my skis and said, I need something larger.
[00:03:05] Sara: Didn’t they give you like two ju juices to
[00:03:08] drink or something?
[00:03:08] Cameron: Yeah, they did. They actually gave me two orange juices and they said, you need to chug these. I was like, okay, if they had handed me alcohol, I would’ve checked that too. I, I would just, I was just following instructions.
[00:03:22] Sara: Then I remember April saying there are no heart tone, and at that point I said, just get the baby out.
[00:03:31] ’cause they were testing to see if I was numb. And they were putting more medicine in the epidural to make sure I was numb and the doctor wasn’t even there yet. I don’t know who started the C-section, but someone started the C-section before the, the doctor arrived. Um, ’cause there were no heart tone, that’s my recollection.
[00:03:53] Cameron: And then they lift Aaron out. And Aaron, you were a really gross color of gray. And I remember your arm just kind of flopping out and, um, I forget what the score was, but I asked what it meant. And essentially you got a really low score on this Apgar thing and basically it meant that they were, you had all the parts where they were supposed to be.
[00:04:24] And that’s it. Nothing, none of ’em working. No. Yeah, no heartbeat, no movement, no color, uh, no breathing, nothing. He,
[00:04:34] Hyatt: there were the complications of him not breathing after he, he was
[00:04:38] Sara: born. That was a scary experience because there was absolutely nothing. That I could do. I just had to trust
[00:04:47] Mary: the verse in Proverbs that says, trust in the Lord with all nine heart and lean not into thy own understanding.
[00:04:54] In all thy ways, acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths. And that scripture came to my mind and I, I didn’t feel like everything was gonna be great and everything would turn out awesome, but I did feel some peace
[00:05:08] Sara: things were gonna be okay because sometimes you just feel like it’s not gonna be okay.
[00:05:13] Mary: When he was born, he didn’t have a heartbeat.
[00:05:17] Rachel: He didn’t have a heartbeat, so they were trying to figure it out.
[00:05:21] Mary: I remember this doctor came out and he’s like, Hey, he just wanted to let y’all know like, mom is doing great. Your mom is doing awesome. And I was like, mom, but like, what about the baby?
[00:05:32] Cameron: So they started breathing for him with this little tiny thing, just uh, and then they were doing compressions.
[00:05:43] And it took forever. And I have it written down somewhere, how long it took before they got his heart to beat and how long it took for his him to breathe, take his first breath. But uh, I remember when they got his heartbeat and they got him to take his first breath looking at me. Sarah and I was just so overcome with like, just relief.
[00:06:14] I couldn’t talk. Kinda like right now it’s hard, but uh, she’s like, is the baby okay? And I’m like, I couldn’t say yes. The baby’s fine. I couldn’t get the words
[00:06:27] Sara: out and I don’t know if he’s crying because he is happy or sad or what I was. Was like, what’s going on? Well,
[00:06:34] Mary: it, but a while later, my dad came
[00:06:36] in and
[00:06:41] I think, I mean, I’m sure I’ve seen him emotional as a child growing up, but I think this is the first time that I
[00:06:48] actually remember my dad being
[00:06:51] so emotionally
[00:06:52] distraught.
[00:06:55] Um,
[00:06:56] and he let us know that mom was okay and that the baby was okay.
[00:07:03] Um, but
[00:07:05] there was a lot of, I think, drama that came from that experience and obviously a lot of relief. Um, because ultimately Aaron was okay.
[00:07:15] Sara: They quickly showed him to me. We took a quick picture, quick picture, and then I didn’t see him again until I woke up, like my legs woke up and I could move my legs, which was like awful.
[00:07:31] It was the. Most horrible feeling in the world to be in this recovery room all by myself, trying to get my legs to wake up so I could go see my baby, because that was the requirement is that I had to have the epidural wear off and I felt terrible. I don’t know, they probably gave me a million drugs and.
[00:07:54] I just felt sick and yucky.
[00:07:56] Mary: I distinctly remember there was one nurse that was like super awesome, taking care of everything.
[00:08:02] Hyatt: April, the nurse. Yeah. Had to sit on the hospital bed with him and mom moving a needle in his head.
[00:08:12] Cameron: Not quite, something like that. April held Aaron’s head in the birth canal. Oh, okay.
[00:08:18] And then once Aaron came out, they needed to give him, Fluids. Once he was breathing and his heart was beating again, they had to put an IV in. Yeah. And they put the IV in his head. Yeah. I remember them trying to get an IV in to your little tiny extremities, and then they finally put one in the top of your head, and I thought that was kind of cool.
[00:08:40] So you had an IV and I thought it was kind of cruel going into your head at the top. It was actually really
[00:08:49] neat
[00:08:49] Rachel: where they showed us a bunch of pictures of him being like, set up with all these wires and general just devices.
[00:08:58] Sara: I felt horrible when my baby was in the N I C U. I just, it, it’s, it’s a feeling that you can’t describe because it’s total
[00:09:07] helplessness.
[00:09:09] Cameron: Aaron went to the NICU for a few days.
[00:09:13] Mary: Something cool about that prayer that we said when we were standing in that circle is, we said it at, I think it was like 6:00 PM Exactly. And
[00:09:24] um, my
[00:09:25] dad sent a text later and said, baby boy, born. At exactly six points. I feel like that may be one of the more significant points in my life where I was like, whoa, life’s not all sunshine and rainbows.
[00:09:42] It’s, you know, bad things do happen sometimes, and in this case, the thing that happened could have been a lot worse and we could have lost, um, you know, Aaron.
[00:09:55] Sara: Aaron got better fast.
[00:09:57] Mary: But I’m so grateful that he’s here and I continue to be grateful every single day for his light in my life and the lives of
[00:10:11] Cameron: afterwards, um, went to, uh, must have been an Easter activity or something. Yeah. Krista and saw Krista. And Krista looked so much like our nurse, April. I couldn’t look at her without getting all choked up ’cause I had so much gratitude in my heart for this nurse who was just so even keeled and took taking care of everybody.
[00:10:38] And so I actually purposely moved so I wouldn’t see her anymore ’cause I kept starting to cry. It was embarrassing. And then she moved right in front of me. I was just like, oh, torture.
[00:10:52] Hyatt: So I remember him being extraordinarily cute, uh, and that was abnormal because Matthew was ugly.
[00:11:04] Sara: I’m lucky I came home with my baby.
[00:11:08] And I have Aaron today and I feel so blessed to have him to be able to raise him and to have him in our family. He is a joy. An absolute joy. And we love him so much and we’re so grateful that things turned out the way they did.
[00:11:26] Rachel: He had a, his chin was, uh, what, what is it? A like a button. And mom would press it a bunch and be like, look at this guys.
[00:11:37] Press it. The prime button. That’s right. The
[00:11:40] Cameron: primer. Oh, I forgot about that. That’s funny.
[00:11:42] Hyatt: The primer bulb. Yeah. His chin went like, A half a centimeter. Yeah. And you could just press in and then it’d pop out. Just like brimming the lawnmower.
[00:11:54] Mary: Everybody loves him, but I do think that he is a special gift in in the lives of many.
[00:12:03] And so I’m very grateful that things turned out the way they did, and I’m grateful for the experience.
[00:12:09] Sara: It was an experience that was really difficult. It was worth it though.
[00:12:15] Cameron: Totally worth it. Totally worth it.