The Rest of the Story....

I have had several people ask me to tell the story of the scare that Brynlie gave us when she was born for those first few minutes. I have debated how to go about doing this and to what detail I should give. After talking about this with Chelsea I finally decided that I would go ahead and just post the journal entry that I wrote the day after she was born. So I apologize for any of the personal feelings and stuff, but hopefully this will give everyone a better sense of the experience. One more thing, this entry is about 3.5 pages in Word so it is rather lengthy.

For an occasion such as this a journal entry is almost mandatory. Chelsea gave birth to our third child yesterday morning, Brynlie Monique Snell. She was born at 5:32 am; she weighed 7lbs 5oz, and was 19 inches long. She has a head full of very dark hair and she is absolutely beautiful. She reminds me quite a bit of our first daughter, Brooklyn, when she was born. And, just as was the case with Brooklyn when she was born, Brynlie had to have her own little drama to begin her life. Very much the same as Brooklyn as well, hers was one of great blessings from our Father in Heaven as to her swift recovery. I am so thankful for a loving Heavenly Father who is in charge of everything, and knows exactly what is happening to my family and me. I know He is watching over us.

I’ll start from the beginning I guess, and as I go through just notice the amount of simple things that together made the whole event one big miracle. Chelsea started having contractions Wednesday evening around 6pm and they just continued to get worse until we ended up going to the hospital around 11:45 pm that night. They admitted Chelsea and checked her and she was dilated to a 4. So they did all the paper work and other stuff as the contractions continued to get more and more painful and closer and closer together. I’m sure it was very difficult for Chelsea to have to endure that pain, but through it all she never once made a peep. I am so thankful for Chelsea and how she handles pain. It really is difficult for me to watch her be in so much pain as she was, but I am glad that she handles it so well.

After what seemed like an eternity the Anesthesiologist came in and gave her an epidural, thank heavens for modern medicine. I never have understood why some girls insist on not getting epidurals; it makes no sense to me. So after that happened both Chelsea and I just relaxed and tried to get some sleep, but were pretty much unsuccessful as we were continuously interrupted by someone coming in the room and either checking on Chelsea or stocking some sort of instruments or whatever. Needless to say, we didn’t get much sleep.

Chelsea’s doctor, Dr. Cherney-Leecock, also came into the hospital about 1:30 and told Chelsea that she had half expected her to come in tonight since earlier in the day at Chelsea’s appointment with her she had stripped her membranes. I thought it was pretty neat that the doctor actually showed up at the hospital to hang out long before the delivery was actually in progress (one small event), as every other OBGYN that we have had hasn’t come in until Chelsea was actually pushing the baby out. Dr. Cherney just slept in one of the on-call rooms.

Chelsea continued to labor through the night and around 4:00am the nurse came in to check Chelsea and said she was at a 9 but her water had not broke yet, so she tried to have Chelsea push along with some of her contractions to see if she could break her water to perhaps speed things up a little. Well, upon pushing several times and watching the baby’s heart rate drop to the mid 20’s from her normal 140’s, and not being successful in breaking her water, the nurse decided to forgo that option (one small event that the water did not break). The RN said she would contact Dr. Cherney and see what she wanted done so she did so and came back and said to just continue having Chelsea labor and see what happens. About 5:20am the doctor came into the room and began telling us how she had had this nightmare and couldn’t sleep for like the last 45 minutes so she decided she would just come in and break Chelsea’s water and see if we couldn’t get anything to happen.

In her nightmare she told of how she was checking Chelsea and that there was a problem known as cord prolapse. Which means that the umbilical cord is hanging down in front of the baby’s head and it is an emergency problem because that means when the baby comes down the birth canal the cord gets pinched and the blood supply gets cut off to the baby, and therefore so does her oxygen supply. So in her dream she quickly wheeled Chelsea to the OR and was yelling as she was running, “Get a room ready, get a room ready. We have a prolapsed cord!” She said that as she was yelling she was so confused because everyone was looking at her with kinds of bewildered looks on their faces and no one was doing anything. She was so frustrated and couldn’t understand with such an emergency why everyone was just standing around. It was at that point that she woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep (this whole nightmare was one small moment). She related this whole story before she even put her gloves on to check Chelsea and to break her water.

So after the telling of the nightmare she got her gloves on and broke Chelsea’s water at 5:26am. As she was checking around she suddenly got a very serious look on her face, and then expressed, “Oh my gosh, we have a prolapsed cord! I don’t believe it, her cord is in front of her head.” She then attempted to move the cord up around the baby and tried doing this for about 30 seconds to a minute, and after being unsuccessful she told Chelsea that she was going to have to take her to the OR and do a C-section right now. She yelled at the nurses to get the OR ready because they had to go right now. It was at that moment that a little panic set in and I wasn’t really sure what was going on. But all of a sudden the room was filled with nurses moving around gathering things and getting ready to go. Dr. Cherney, still in disbelief that this was actually happening, and offering a few explicatives as well, took off her sweatshirt and decided that she was going to have Chelsea push to get this baby out rather than going to the OR (one small moment). So rather than getting the bed ready and putting up the stirrups and everything, and rather than the doctor getting all gowned up they just started having Chelsea push. This time, unlike the previous births of our kids, they weren’t having her push with her contractions, rather it was just “push Chelsea, push”. Dr. Cherney stuck the vacuum up there and attached it to the baby’s head and between her pulling and Chelsea’s pushing little Brynlie was delivered at 5:32am. It was a total of 6 minutes from the time they broke her water to the time she was out, and only 3 minutes from the time they started having Chelsea push until she was out (one small moment). I have never seen a baby come out so fast; both Chelsea and Dr. Cherney did such an amazing job at getting her out.

Even though she came out so fast, poor little Brynlie appeared pretty lifeless. She wasn’t moving or making any noise. As she came out Dr. Cherney swung around and placed her on the warming table where the NICU nurses, already there and waiting, began putting the bag on her and giving her oxygen and trying to get her to take her own breathe. For about a minute I don’t remember hearing any cry or whimper from Brynlie as they worked on her. Then all of a sudden a little whimper came out and there was a sense of relief on everyone’s faces. They continued to work on her and she bounced back so quickly, from lifeless and purple, to pink and totally looking around engaging your eye. It was truly incredible. Her APGAR scores were 3 and then 9, which shows her incredible bounce back. They wheeled her off to the NICU where they continued to monitor her for some time and the nurses told us that since she was without that blood supply for those few minutes they are always worried about her digestive organs because her body naturally shunts blood away from them in order to provide the vital organs, heart and brain, with the needed blood. One good sign from the nurse was that she said that it sounds like her bowel sounds were good though, so this was promising in that regard. They kept her in the NICU for about 5 hours until they brought her up to our room.

She was able to stay with us for most of the day and Chelsea was even able to begin nursing her. Everything about her seems perfectly normal now and you would never know that her poor little body went without a blood supply for a few minutes. She is absolutely beautiful, but I guess our girls are setting a trend of bringing a little bit of drama with them as they enter this crazy world.

Throughout this whole situation it is so easy to see the hand of the Lord and to know that He was absolutely 100% mindful of our personal situation. Just a few things to consider that could have led to a very different outcome.

What if Dr. Cherney wouldn’t have been sleeping there in the hospital but rather come from her home when she was called by the nurses that Chelsea was ready to start pushing? Who knows if that extra time would have caused serious damage to Brynlie.

What if Dr. Cherney wouldn’t have had that dream? I’m sure she still would have noticed the prolapsed cord upon checking Chelsea, but it probably wouldn’t have been at the forefront of her mind.

What if the doctor wouldn’t have had the part of the dream where no one was helping her in the OR? I know the answer to this one because today when she checked on how Chelsea was doing she said that if it weren’t for that part of the dream she would have taken her to the OR rather than trying to have her push which would have been a big mistake because there is no way that she could have gotten her out in the 3-6 minutes that they did with just having Chelsea push.

What if Chelsea’s water would have broke on her own rather than having the doctor right there when it happened? Well today the doctor told us that if this would have happened the outcome could have been a lot different as that would have meant that so much more time would have gone by until the baby came out. This is because a nurse would have had to of checked Chelsea, then they would have had to notice the distress signs from the decreased heart rate of the baby and then call Dr. Cherney. Then hopefully the nurse would have noticed the prolapsed cord, but in our case I’m not so sure of this because our RN had only been done with school for 7 months and she admitted that she had only heard of a prolapsed cord but never seen one before. Then after she hopefully noticed it she would have called Dr. Cherney, who would have then got Chelsea to the OR. But if the RN didn’t notice the condition then the doctor would have come down to deliver the baby and then noticed, after so much time, that the cord was prolapsed. And who knows the outcome after that much time of not having the baby with a full blood supply.

I hope you can see, and greatly appreciate as I do, that the Lord was with us and the doctor every single step of the way. He didn’t leave anything to chance, and I am so thankful for Him. I know that he loves us, and that he knows each and every one of us individually.

Just one more thing real quickly. A couple of weeks ago Chelsea had asked me to give her a Priesthood blessing for the arrival of our little girl. I don’t remember much about what I said, but I distinctly remember saying that she would be comforted as she knew that our Father in Heaven would guide the doctors in their necessary labors. I’m sure of the fact that our Heavenly Father did send direct inspiration to Chelsea’s doctor, who is not a member of our faith, to prepare her on how to best handle the problem that she faced through her dream she had. And I think it is self evident from the fact that she made the decision to have Chelsea push the baby out rather than do a C-section, and that she was able to deliver this baby in only 3 minutes, that our Father was guiding her. I’m thankful for a loving wife who puts so much faith in the Priesthood that she is willing to ask directly for blessings. And I am thankful that the Lord has entrusted me with His power to bless my family through the Priesthood. This gospel is amazing, and I am so thankful to be a member of it. I know it is true, and it is nice to see the Lord’s hand in my life as a testimony builder to me that He loves me, and that this is His gospel.

And now you know....the rest of the story (I hope that line isn't copyrighted)!