The Lifferth Family

Looking back on the events that unfolded a year ago today, I realized I never did a post that was just for my sweet little Aiden. I announced him

on facebook, and kept everyone posted that way, but I feel bad that I didn't do a feature post for him on the family blog. So now, on his first birthday, I am making up for it with posting his birth story.

Warning, this is a long one. Don't feel like you have to read it. I'm mostly posting this so that I can remember, and maybe Aiden can read it some day and know about his surprising entrance into the world. But if you do want to read it, I am more than happy to share his story with you. I think every mom wants to tell people the birth story of their baby!

Gabe and I waited a few years until I was healthy enough to begin trying for another baby, and then when we felt I was ready, we ended up trying for 7 months before we finally found out we were pregnant with him. I have MS and so during those 7 months of trying, I had to be off of my medication. So the longer it took, the more chance I might start to go downhill. Gabe and I finally decided to ask our parents to help us by keeping us in their prayers. I found out I was pregnant a few days later.

The pregnancy went well, though it was uncomfortable and tiring (as most pregnancies are) and I don't know exactly when it began, but I gradually started getting the feeling that he would come early. I kept telling myself it was silly, and just me worrying about not having enough time to prepare. As the third trimester began, the feeling kept getting stronger, that I needed to get things ready now, because the baby would be coming early. I kept shrugging off the feeling...

Then one day, when I was 35 weeks along, I was sitting on the couch watching Gilmore girls around 11 am or so (my wonderful mother in law had been taking Jordan for I think like a couple days a week so I could rest), and I got up to make some toast and I felt some liquid trickle down my leg. It freaked me out a little. I called Gabe, and then called the doctor and went in for an examination. He said he couldn't determine whether it was amniotic fluid or not, so he sent me home. Well I think it was maybe a half hour later that my water broke... there was no mistaking it that time, so I called the doctor again and they told me to come back in.

It felt kind of funny to drive myself to the doctor, since I was kind of in labor. I didn't feel like I was, I had no pain. My water had just randomly broke. When I got to the doctor's, I was told that labor would likely be starting in a couple of hours, and the baby would be coming that day. I was pretty freaked out by this point. I didn't feel ready at all.

It was then that my doctor explained to me that there was a chance the baby would need to be transported to a NICU in the Timpanogos hospital, and that I could choose to simply have the baby there, or have the baby in the Payson hospital and see how it goes. If I chose to have him in the Timp hospital, my doctor wouldn't be able to deliver him. It would be a dr. who I wasn't familiar with. I told him I needed time to think about it, and I needed to talk to my husband.

I waited a little while for Gabe to arrive, down on a bench just inside the door. Gabe came and he was so wonderful, he was able to be calm during a pretty scary time. I remember him smiling at me and saying something like, "this is a happy day, our baby is coming today!" I love him. We talked it over and had pretty much decided to have the baby at timp, just to be sure that the baby would be alright. But when we went to tell the doctor, he and his nurse convinced us it would be perfectly safe to have him here in Payson. We asked a lot of questions and received enough assurances that we decided to have him in Payson.

We headed over to the hospital, and I was hooked up to the machines, and asked a lot of questions. During that time, various members of our family began to trickle into the room. It was nice to see all of them, and I appreciated all of their love and support. The doctor had said he wouldn't be coming until around 5pm to perform the c-section (my first baby was a c-section, so I had opted for a second c-section because I had researched it, and I felt it was the safest for me and my baby).

The doctor was a little bit later because another of his patients had needed him, but soon the time came. The delivery was different this time, because I walked into the surgery room, instead of being wheeled in on a bed. I was more nervous this time around though. I knew I wouldn't be able to relax until I heard that little baby cry.

I laid down on the bed and the anesthesiologist explained what would be happening, and he was very good at talking to me and making sure I was doing ok. (I wasn't exactly panicking, but I was very anxious). Once Gabe came into the room I felt a little more at ease. When the surgery began, Gabe was there with me the entire time, reassuring me, and holding my hand. He'd peek over the tent every so often and see what was going on. The doctor and other medical personnel present talked calmly to eachother as they worked, and that reassured me that things were going well. But I still remained tense, just praying that the baby would be ok.

The doctor informed us when the baby was just about to come out, and Gabe got the camera ready. The tiny sound of my little Aiden crying for the first time was so amazing, he was breathing! He was going to be alright! I was finally able to relax a little. They told me to look up to the right, and they lifted him up above the tent for a brief moment so I could seen him, and then rushed him to the table to be examined. Gabe made sure I was alright, and then went to be with him, and when they transported Aiden to the nursery, Gabe followed with the camera. Once the doctor had finished sewing me up, I was brought to the recovery room.

Though I had seen him for a brief moment in the delivery room, I hadn't really been able to get a very good look at him. The first real images I saw of my precious little man, were on our camera. Gabe kept coming back and forth between me and the baby, and he took videos and pictures of him for me to see. Various family members came to see me and told me how cute he was. They were only able to see him through the glass though. Because he was so early, he had to stay in the nursery, and Gabe was the only one allowed in. The first time I really saw him was hours later. And I was not allowed to hold him.

I think it was the second or third time after seeing him when I was finally able to hold my sweet, tiny little guy while they changed his bedding. He felt so small. He was so sweet. I didn't want to let him go, but the nurse told me that being handled too much was hard on his body, so I reluctantly had to lay him back down.

It took a few days for my milk to come in, so for the first while he was being fed formula. But the problem was, he wasn't digesting it. Even when I was able to produce some milk, it just stayed in his stomach. It was for that reason that after about 3 days, he had to be transported by ambulance to the timpanogos hospital's NICU. While he was being moved, Jordan was able to see his baby brother for the first time inside the little transporter cradle. He called him the firetruck baby because he thought the ambulance looked like a firetruck.

I was released from the hospital a day later and then I went to stay at the timp hospital, not as a patient but just as a border. It was at that hospital that I was able to nurse him for the first time. I was allowed to come and nurse him a few times a day, and after a while I was able to come nurse him every other feeding. He had an IV that they kept having to re-do because his tiny veins would collapse. At one point he had two of them sticking out of his head. It looked so awful, but they assured me it was the best place for them, because he was less likely to bump them.

I remember holding him one day when he was not quite two weeks old. I had been worried about him, and if he was happy and comfortable. He'd had to have so many IV's redone, and so many failed attempts by the nurses(including a pic line that is an IV with a longer catheter that is supposed to last longer. They tried that one 4 times!) , that I knew he had to feel miserable. As I held him, he was looking up at me, right at me and he smiled. My tiny one and a half week old baby (who had been 5 weeks premature) was smiling! It was just what I needed to see, and it reassured me that he was ok. He was handling it all very well.

Things were tense and hard while he was in the hospital. I was still recovering from my operation, and I was separated from my other little boy, Jordan, who was about 3 1/2 at the time. He was staying with his grandma and grandpa Lifferth mostly, but also my parents and my sister and husband. Gabe stayed with me a few nights as well when he could. It was a stressful time for all of us. At one point I ended up having a break down in front of Aiden's dr, and she suggested I go home and get some rest.

Once I went home, I felt so torn between wanting to be there for Aiden, and being there for Jordan. I had to drive back and forth to the hospital to be there for certain feedings and visit with my little baby. I worried that Aiden would not know I was his mommy. That he might think I am just another nurse there. The nurses actually saw more of him than I did. It just made me sick that I could not be with him more, and I thought about him constantly.

We recveied a lot of help from our wonderful family all throughout the ordeal. We are so grateful for everyone who watched Jordan for us, cleaned our house, brought us frozen dinners and hot meals! We have the best family and friends anyone could ask for!

When Aiden was almost three weeks old, we were FINALLY able to take him home from the hospital. He went home on Oxigen and also had an apnea monitor. They were a pain to lug around with him, but we were so happy to bring him home! Eventually he was fully "wireless" and he was just as healthy and sweet as can be. He still is.

I love his adorable, big blue eyes, his sweet smile, his chubby cheeks and stubby little hands. I love his bald head with fuzzy wisps of hair, and his velvety soft, baby mullet. He is an explorer and loves to get into things. He started crawling when he was 11 months old, and almost immediately started pulling himself up to things. He pulls up to full standing now, and is so proud of himself for doing so. He grunts a lot, and growls, and his favorite syllable seems to be "Ga". He has the most adorable giggle, and he will sometimes just start laughing out of nowhere.

I can't say enough about how much I love my sweet little baby! I can't believe he is one year old already!

Happy Birthday Aiden! Your family loves you!