Meet Chandler

• Baby Saves

• 10.29.18

I went to work on a Friday morning in early September (five days before my scheduled c-section). I taught my first class and noticed that I wasn’t feeling the baby move very much. I assumed it was because I was getting so far along and being a small woman, there was not a lot of room for the baby to move anymore. I called my husband and asked him what he thought I should do. I kept thinking it was going to be no big deal, and I didn’t want to waste a doctor’s visit to be told it was nothing, but my husband encouraged me to go. I went to the doctor and they said things seemed fine, but we should do a non-stress test just to check.

While we were doing the test, I began having contractions and the doctor realized the baby’s heart rate was plummeting with every contraction I had. She was concerned and said that could be a sign that if I did go into natural labor, the baby wouldn’t be able to survive the stress of it. They sent me to the hospital for more tests, and on the way, I called my husband and other family members to pick up our other children from; I kept telling everyone I was sure I would be sent home soon.

When we got to the hospital they did their own non-stress test, but I wasn’t having any more contractions, so there was little to see. They decided to do a sort of test through ultrasound (I’m not sure what it is called, but I had to get a certain number of “points” to be cleared). In the ultrasound, we saw our baby practicing breathing, and we also saw the cord wrapped around her neck. At the very end, the tech was trying to get the baby to move, but it took a very long time. I got all the necessary points in the ultrasound, but since it took so long and the cord
was around the baby’s neck (and because my c-section was only five days away), they decided to do an emergency C-section.

About an hour or so later our baby girl, Chandler Eden, was born with her umbilical cord wrapped four times tightly around her neck. She had also ingested some meconium in utero because she was in distress. The doctors suctioned out her stomach, and apart from the meconium, our baby was very healthy. Our doctor was very shaken and told us repeatedly that she was happy I was paying attention because had we waited five days, our baby would not have been alive.