This baby boy completes our family! Here is his birth story:
False labor lasted every night for a week and a half. Like clockwork at midnight my contractions would start and would come every 10 minutes. Sometimes they would last an hour, sometimes 3, but on the 30th I woke up and was still having them. I knew this would be his birthday! Our family decided to go to breakfast and run errands in the morning. We went to Dunkin Donuts and sat at a round table that was the perfect size for all 6 of us. It was our last meal together as a family of 6. The kids had hash browns and shared a box of munchkins and I just remember thinking how happy I was with our sweet little family. After breakfast we went to Walmart where we bought a hamper and Isla got more knit looms and yarn to knit baby Link more hats. The kids also found and fell in love with tiny fishing rods that they put on their Easter wish list. Then we made our way to Buy Buy Baby to get Palmer a new car seat. We finally got home around noon. John said he would make lunch so I went into the backyard to play with everyone. I pitched Palmer some balls to hit and pushed all the boys on the swings too! At 1:00 I went to the bathroom and let’s just say I had a sign that labor was imminent. I wasn’t having any regular contractions so I was hesitant to call the Dr. at first. After the 2 littles, Palmer and Hart, were put down for naps, I made a last minute grocery list of things we needed. John went to Publix while I rested on the couch and Isla and Leo played in the backyard. I started having contractions 11 minutes apart so I decided I should call the Dr. Doctor Adams was on call and said, “You are 39 weeks pregnant with your 5th child…yeah, you should come on in!” I remember looking in the backyard through the door at Isla and shaking my head yes at her. She ran up and said, “you’re having him today?” I told her I was going to the hospital and she looked at Leo and they both screamed with excitement. John got home and unloaded the groceries then loaded our bags into his car. I called my mom and told her it was the real thing and to get here fast! Since she’s 40 minutes away, I panicked and called my neighbor, Lyndsay, to come over to watch the kids until my mom arrived. I just did not want to be that girl in the news that delivered her 5th child on the side of A1A. On our way to the hospital everything was strangely calm. I’ve never gone into labor this way…with all my others I was having extremely painful contractions that were close together before I made my way to the hospital. With this one I was even wondering if they were going to stop once I got to the hospital. However, once we pulled into the parking lot at 3:30 they were every 6 minutes apart and once I was gowned up and was in the triage room, they were every 4 minutes apart. But I felt pretty much zero pain. That’s why I kept second guessing whether or not I was really in labor. Our nurse was Renee, who we had before, and she immediately recognized us. She’s a funny, laid back girl who really made this labor memorable. When she checked me the first time it was 3:30 pm and I was 3-4 cm dilated, so she just let us lay there and let the monitors tell the story…which after an hour clearly showed I was in labor, contracting every 4 minutes. After a bunch of paperwork, we made our way down the hall to Room 9 where we would welcome our 5th and final baby! Once we were set up in our room it was time for me to get the I.V. This was the most pain I felt through the whole labor. Anytime I have to get blood drawn or I.V.s administered it’s awful because I have such small veins. Renee stuck me once in the left arm and nothing, then once in the top of my left hand (that one was excruciating) and still nothing. Finally, she moved to my right arm and struck gold. Both arms were throbbing but I was glad to have that out of the way! I was GBS positive, so I received my first bag of antibiotics while I got my fluid too. I’m allergic to mycins and even had my allergy bracelet on when all of a sudden Renee looked at me and said, “Oh My God! You’re allergic to what again?” When I told her mycins, she frantically checked the bags and saw it was penicillin. Then we laughed about it because she knew the pharmacy saw my allergy and wouldn’t have given me the wrong meds but she had a moment of panic. I told her it’s not life threatening and that my lips only swell up and she was like, “you don’t want to welcome your baby with big ‘ol lips.” Ha! After all my fluids and about an hour and a half of listening to our little boy’s heartbeat and monitoring contractions, which were still not painful, Renee checked me and I was 6-7 cm dilated. At 6:00 pm I received the epidural! I didn’t even feel like I needed it, but I’m so glad I got it because of what was about to happen…At 7:00 pm Dr. Adams checked me and I hadn’t dilated any further but my water broke during the check. An hour later, at 8:00, is when our sweet boy’s heart beat stared decelerating with every contraction. The nurse said this could happen when you dilate further and he’s moving down the birth canal. She checked me and I was 8 cm. But with every contraction here on out, his heart beat kept decelerating. The good thing was once the contraction stopped it went back up to a normal rate. So they made the conclusion that it was from cord compression. They moved fast from here, about the time that John came back from getting a snack from the vending machine, wondering what in the world was going on. They put an oxygen mask on me and were going to put a catheter in my uterus to fill it back up with water to “float the cord.” However, when she checked me before inserting the catheter I was at 9 cm so she decided to let me just start pushing to get the baby out. They knew since he was our 5th baby that he would come out fast. Later our nurse told us if it was our first I probably would have had an emergency C-Section because they would not have wanted me to push for an hour for fear of what would have happened to baby. From the moment she told me to start pushing I had 3 contractions and with each we completely lost his heart rate. I’ve never been so scared and sad. With tears running down my cheeks I pushed with all the strength I had. I wanted my boy out safe and sound in my arms! So finally after pushing through those 3 sets of contractions he came into the world with the umbilical cord around his neck! Dr. Adams quickly looped it off his neck and he let out a tiny cry which I was so grateful for! I’ve always feared the cord being around my babies’ necks at birth and when I saw it around Link’s neck I was so incredibly scared but that cry was the greatest sound in the world! They placed him on my belly and started suctioning out his nose and mouth and rubbed his back until he started crying some more which reassured everyone he was okay. I then told my baby boy I loved him for the first time, kissed his slippery head, held his little hand, and breathed in those precious seconds knowing it was the last time I would experience this amazing moment in life. Our family was complete! Link Brannon Halman was born Sunday, March 30th, 2014 at 8:23pm. He weighed 7 lbs. 9 oz. and was 19 3/4 inches long.
I can finally say I feel completely whole. We have been so blessed to have 5 healthy children and I thank God for these 5 precious gifts he’s given me and John. My life is filled with more joy, love, and happiness then I ever thought possible and I can’t wait for all the memories our family of 7 will make over the years! This “Final Birth Story” was bittersweet to write but I’m ready! Ready to move on from birthing babies to raising babies and watching these angels grow up. Our 5th baby “Links” us all together and nothing will EVER break us apart!
We are The Halman Family:
John, Carrie, Isla, Leo, Palmer, Hart, and Link
“Just another ordinary miracle today” ~Sarah McLachlan
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