Guess who arrived?! And a little over a month early!
Paxton Grant Bennett made his way into the world on Friday, October 9, 2009, at 8:14 pm. He weighed in at a whopping 5 lbs 3 oz and measured 17 inches long.
I'd been having what I thought were Braxton Hicks contractions for a couple of weeks and had some regular contractions (about 10 minutes apart) one day the week before he came. I also quit feeling Mr. Paxton move quite as much as his normal, active self usually kicked and tumbled. I figured he'd just run out of room.
On Tuesday, October 6, I felt super cruddy that evening and had really begun to have a lot of swelling in my ankles, hands and face. I was incredibly uncomfortable that evening, to the point I just began crying. Grant asked me if I thought I was in labor and I told him of course not since I was only 35 weeks pregnant. The next morning I felt like I had the flu. I hurt all over and felt nauseated and was having sharp pains in my lower abdomen. I called the doc after some nudging from my secretary (Thanks Barbara!!!) and they asked me to come on in and get checked. When I got there, I was having contractions every 1-2 minutes and was dilated, effaced and in active labor. My blood pressure was very high and they were concerned that I had some preeclampsia. They gave me a shot to stop my contractions, which worked great for approximately 3 minutes when they started right back up. The doctor decided to keep me over night for observation of my blood pressure. This meant I got to pee in a bucket for 24 hours so they could test my urine. Nice.
On into the night, each time I'd get up to go to the potty, Paxton's heart rate would drop. This continued a few more times until I was put on complete bed rest at about 3 am Thursday morning. It began that he was trapped in the birth canal and even while lying completely still his little heart rate would drop. Things just kept getting worse and worse, so Friday night at 8:14 pm, I had a ceasarian and Paxton came to us tiny, but very healthy. His lungs and all his other parts were working great, so he didn't have to spend any time in the NICU. Thank God!!
We are so thankful that Paxton arrived here healthy and lively, sweet and precious and that God heard our prayers to keep him safe and sound. And we couldn't be more in love with our sweet little bundle of joy.
