Special Delivery!!

Taycee Lynn Clayton was born on November 22^nd at 1:45 am. She was 4 weeks and 5 days early. On Friday ( The 21^st) I woke up cramping and bleeding a little bit, I decided to stay in bed and work from home. The cramping didn't lighten up much and by lunch time I had lost quite a bit of bloody mucus but hadn't felt any real contractions. Around 3:30 I went to prop myself up further in the bed and felt a slight gush of water. It was like déjà vu of Kadens birth. I immediately knew my water had broke and I waddled my way into our bathroom where I cleaned up as much as possible and put a few last things in the hospital bag. ( I felt surprisingly calm considering I was about to deliver 5 weeks early) Chris came home for lunch and helped me get everything into the car and off to the hospital we went. The first phone call I made was to my mom… this is where the reality of the situation hit me and I started panicking. I am so grateful that I have a calm husband who tried to reassure me and has held my hand through this whole ordeal. When we got to the hospital we had to wait about 10 minutes to check in ( very frustrating) and in that time we gathered that there were MANY women delivering and they were running out of rooms. Luckily there was a room for us and they took me back to get settled in. A BIG HUGE thank you to our good friend Josh who left work to meet us at the hospital and with Chris gave me a wonderful blessing of peace and comfort. Once I got all changed into my gown I laid down on the bed and played the waiting game. The nurse came in and said they were trying to get ahold of my doctor to find out if she wanted to try and stop my labor or go ahead with the delivery. Come to find out my dr is out of the country so about 5 pm the Dr on call decided to go ahead and that's when the fun started. I got hooked up to 3 different IV drips and shortly after my contractions started to get painful at 8 pm I was 4cm and got my epidural…. Side note: Epidurals are the greatest things ever invented! … at midnight I was 8 cm and at 1 I was fully effaced and dialated, because Kaden only took 3 pushes they decided to wait til the doctor was there before I started pushing… that turned out to be a very good idea. Once the doctor got there and got all ready we waited til the next contraction I pushed once and she was out. I have never been so relieved to here a little tiny cry. She was perfectly pink and seemed to be breathing fine. The wave of relief and love overwhelmed me and I couldn't help but cry and send my prayers of Thankfulness to my Father in Heaven. She was born at 2:45 and weighed 5 lbs 11oz ( pretty good for being so early) and was 20 inches long!! Oh and another thing I was so grateful for… NO TEARS OR RIPS OR STICHES! That's right folks compared to the 2 hours of stitching required after Kaden that in and of itself was a huge blessing.

Taycee continued to do fine til about 3 o'clock when she started grunting a lot and they discovered she was having a hard time with her oxygen levels. They took her to the nursery hooked her up to oxygen and monitored her, they came in at 7 and told us they were taking her to the NICU because she was still struggling. However the pediatrician wasn't here yet so they were waiting for her. About 30 minutes ago we went in to the nursery and they told us she had been off Oxygen for 15 minutes and is doing so well. Again a wave of relief and gratitude overwhelmed me.

So that's where we are now. She is still in the nursery and I am in bed with my laptop eating cookie dough ice cream. Thank you all for you love and support, visitors are welcome we will be here til Monday morning. Our only request is that kids don't come and you give us a call first our room number is 801-507-7221. We are so very grateful to our Heavenly Father for this new special blessing in our lives. – Pictures will come later when we get home and settled in.