Meet Alexandra

• Baby Saves

• 01.06.20

The best laid plans….

As first time parents, we had our birth plan all laid out.

We wanted the golden hour, delayed cord clamping, natural birth, straight to the breast.  A c-section was my biggest fear.

Then Thursday, Oct. 3^rd came, and everything changed.  I had been busy at work trying to get everything transitioned in anticipation of my due date, almost three weeks away.

When I was finally able to sit down at my desk, my reminder to count kicks was blinking at me.  I suddenly realized that my little acrobat hadn’t moved all day.  I immediately knew something was wrong and the only question was whether I went to my doctor’s office directly across the street or straight to the hospital.

I called the doctor’s office and headed over.

The first sigh of relief was when I got hooked up for the non-stress test, and they found a heartbeat.  As I was being monitored, there was no change in the heartbeat, which indicated no movement.  I was sent to Mercy’s maternity triage department for more extensive monitoring.

Further observation and an ultrasound showed no movement, despite all the poking and prodding to get her to move.  The baby needed out sooner rather than later.

My husband and I agreed there was no need to try and induce,  we just needed her out and safe, so an emergency c-section was the new birth plan.

At 7:06 p.m., Alexandra was born with a heartbeat and an APGAR of 1.  She was gray, not breathing, and she certainly wasn’t moving.  All I knew from my vantage point on the operating table was that she was born and the room full of people was dead silent.

I anticipated going into it that they would have to work on her a bit, but the silence continued far longer than I would have thought.  I finally asked my husband if she was breathing, and he shook his head no.  One of the nurses went to the hallway and said, “You guys need to get in here,” and a bunch of people came rushing into the room to work on our daughter.

Finally my husband perked up, turned to me and told me she was breathing and had pinked up.  I have never known such relief in my life.

Alexandra required a stay in NICU for a week, and we couldn’t have been in better hands.  There was some type of infection that caused her to get so ill, and I still have to stop and catch my breath when I think about what could have been if we hadn’t been aware of the importance of counting your baby’s movements.

Up until that point, it had been smooth sailing with no issues in the pregnancy.  We had just had an ultrasound on Tuesday to check her size, and everything was fine then.

Thanks to counting kicks, we have our beautiful daughter.

-Sarah, Alexandra’s mom