Brantley Kooper Daniels

Brantley Kooper Daniels

8lbs 1 oz, 20.5 inches long

Birth Story (It's long so if you're in for a read, go ahead)

Friday October 27th, 2017: Today was supposed to be the day! We had planned to get induced and was so excited to meet our little boy! 4:50 AM came and I called first thing hoping for them to say come on over! However, that was not the case. They were way backed up and said they would call in a couple hours. Well, I decided I wanted to get my membranes stripped to see if we could speed the process up, so we were prepared to go in when they called back. So we headed to Logan, right before we got there Dr. Blackett had 2 deliveries and so AnaLora was the one to strip me. She came and checked me and was pretty surprised. She was like you're almost at a 5. We don't get very many who are this far so I want to have someone else come in and check also. So another Pa came in and checked and said "wow you are stretchy" just what I wanted to hear right.. hah not really. But she's like you're at a really good 4.5. So then she stripped my membranes. Everyone said it's really uncomfortable and I guess because I was advanced dilated it was already really stretched out so it didn't really feel like much at all.  

So we left the doctor's office to walk it out. We walked around the whole mall, all over the outside of Cal-Ranch (Curb Walking), then down to Chili's (ordered lunch), then to BWW (more lunch), then back to Cal-Ranch. Then we took the car over to get serviced and while we were waiting we walked around several different car dealerships. So in total probably about 4 miles..  and it was all for NOTHING! No consistent contractions, NOTHING... 

So the doctor called back and it was getting close to 5pm, which was when Dr. Blackett was done for the weekend and Dr. Fowers was on call.  So they told me that I'd have to wait till Monday. At this point it's like taking candy from a kid. It sucks and they hate you.. I was looking forward to meeting our little man all day and when they said I had to wait 3 more days it was pretty disappointing. 

So we headed home...  October 27th was not the day. 

Saturday October 28th, 2017: Woke up, got ready and started doing a few things. Then I sat down and tried talking to baby. I wasn't getting much of a reaction and tried really hard to get him to move. We tried some sugary drinks, candy, jumping jacks, a cold rag and got nothing. So Koop said let's go get checked. We decided not to tell anyone, my mom was with Adi at the store so we snuck over there and got our bag out and headed over. We messaged her and said "We are going for a bumpy ride be back in a little bit." On the way to the hospital I got super worried and started crying and thought of everything possible that could go wrong. ..  On our way over we stopped at the gas station and grabbed a crispito to see if food would make him move.. Of course as we started getting closer he started moving a little bit. I told Kooper "Watch we are going to get there and he is going to go crazy and then I'm just going to look dumb", but he said it's better to be safe than sorry.  So we got to the hospital about 12ish and they checked me in and hooked me up to the monitors. And he was just fine.. They monitored us both for an hour and came back and checked me. Because I wasn't in active labor they said I could go home but she was going to call and tell Dr. Fowers what was going on. I told her if he was okay with me staying I wouldn't mind.  She came back and  Dr. Fowers said I could stay and they would start me.

Yesterday we were so excited and ready and this time we just felt kinda bad, because Dr. Blackett wasn't there and Dr. Fowers had to come in. However, he was my doctor with Adi and if I had to pick someone other than Blackett he would be my choice. We decided to stay and they started me on pitocin. Dr. Fowers came about 3:15 and broke my water (once again such a weird feeling, but not as weird as it was with Adi), he said you feel ready, I wouldn't be surprised if this baby was here before 5, but it could be a couple more hours, we will see. Then Anesthesiologist came about 4 to start my epidural. When he gave it to me I felt it shoot to the left of my back, it was weird. The guy was really nice and joked with all of us. Once he finished, everyone left and all of a sudden the contractions got STRONGER. My pitocin was at an 8 still and I was feeling everything. I was gripping the side of my bed and in seriously so much pain.  Kooper and I joked about how Adi's birth was nothing like the movies. I never screamed, yelled at Kooper or was in much pain at all. And this time I kept saying it's like the movies.. It hurts! Koop just kept saying it was going to be okay, breathe. I tried. It SUCKED.

The nurse came in and said she would wait 10 more minutes for my epidural to kick in, she asked if I wanted her to lower my pitocin. Koop said na let's keep this ball rolling so I said okay. Well she left the room and I got more contractions and every time I would tell Kooper, PUSH THE BUTTON(to give me more epidural.) Finally, she came in and checked me and I was already at a 9. Keep in mind this all happened in a matter of 30 minutes from the time they started my epidural. She went to call Dr. Fowers who luckily was already on his way over. I got another contraction and told Kooper this baby is coming paige her again. She came in and checked and I was at a 10. They told me I had to wait until the Dr. came and not to push. My anesthesiologist came back in and tried talking to me, all I remember was him jokingly saying I'm sorry this isn't working yet I didn't think you would go that fast and giving me a big dose. 5 pm rolls around and Dr. Fowers is here and they got me ready to push. At this point my legs were going numb and I was starting to feel less pain. During one set of contractions I finished and remember saying "This sucks" I ended up pushing for 10 minutes and during the last push I literally felt like he was sitting in my right butt cheek. It felt so weird. Next push and he was out and all that pain was gone.  

They immediately put him on a towel on my belly, cleaned him up, cut his cord and gave him to me to hold. He was so sweet, swollen and chubby. Dr. Fowers guessed 8'2 and was so dang close. The nurse then took him from me and got all his stats. While she had him he peed on her and then when she moved him to weigh him, he peed again all over the curtain. It was pretty funny.

If you look at the curtain closely, you can see where he peed.

Then she gave him to me to do skin to skin. He kept almost like purring, and the nurse said "Let's see if skin to skin helps that go away, he isn't supposed to be doing that, he is trying to hard to breathe. " Well it didn't really help so she said we are going to do a breathing treatment on him for an hour and if that helps we will bring him back to you. So all of a sudden everyone was gone and I was all alone in the room. The nurse brought me some crackers and juice and so I just laid down. My legs were tingly and started shaking and I felt so cold. So the nurse brought me in some warm blankets, and I covered up and took a little nap. A little while later Kooper and Katie came back and we took some pictures and shortly after they brought Brantley back.  We took some more pictures and then headed to the mother baby unit. 

Once we got upstairs I wanted to order some food and we were 10 minutes to late. The kitchen was closed :( Luckily my Mom, Kyle, and Nicole were headed over and stopped and got us food! They took Brantley again to check his levels and 20 minutes later brought him back and said let's try skin to skin again for 15-20 minutes and see if he can control his breathing.  That didn't help and they came back and took him :( they said they would keep him in the NICU all night and monitor him and do some tests. They thought maybe he might have an infection and if that was the case he would need some antibiotics and an IV.  Later that night after I had gone to the bathroom(which didn't hurt! I was so scared because with Adilee it hurt so bad, so that was a relief)  they let me go for a walk so we walked downstairs to check on him. They were trying to start an IV and it was so sad. They had said they were going to do it in his arm but when we went they were trying the veins in his head. They couldn't get one placed and so they had to try over and over again and so we went back upstairs. 

It was weird not having Brantley with us that night, I had to pump in the middle of the night so he could have some food. Once again my milk comes in full shot and I pumped enough for 3 feedings. 

Sunday October 29th, 2017: Our baby boy had a miraculous turn around and was perfectly fine the next morning. The x-rays and labs came back negative and they think he had a small pocket of fluid in his lungs. He came up and spent the whole day with us as if he wasn't in the NICU. The nurses came and checked on us maybe like 3 times is all and that night around 8PM we got to go home! 

We had a fast, quick and good time in the hospital. We were blessed with great nurses, aids, doctors and everyone that helped us welcome our baby boy into this world! We are so grateful for him that he is home and healthy! 

https://vimeo.com/240736891 Here is the link to a better quality video.. 

If you are wondering why Adi is so sad at the end.. Grandma and Nicole dropped her off with Kelly and as much as she loves Kelly it's a hard trade with them both! She was fine after a few minutes!

Also in the video you can hear Brantley trying to breath.

All photos and video are credited to the talented Katie Vandyke.. She was like a shadow and didn't make me feel uncomfortable at all, yet she was able to capture the perfect moments. It made it so much easier on Kooper and I. We didn't have to think about the photos we wanted, we didn't have to worry about missing certain moments, and we just got to be there in the moment, and still get these wonderful memories to look back at. Check out more of her work here...
https://www.facebook.com/katievandykephotography/?ref=hl
https://www.instagram.com/katievandykephoto/