| DAYS BEFORE |
April 4th of 2024 at noon.
This was the day I officially went on call for the Postalwait family. I had texted Kara and Will to let them know that I was on call and to update me on any changes, if anything major happened I let them know to call me. Not even a minute later Will had texted back saying that Kara was in early labor! I was over the moon that everything was happening early but of course knew things could settle down. Later that day, after she went to the hospital to be checked, they sent her home and everyone was able to relax and wait for her induction date.
Kara's maternity session was on march 24th
April 8th of 2024
At 4:30pm, I received a text from Will stating that Kara was going to be induced tonight at 8pm. Kara's previous history with her first two boys let me know that she progressed fairly quickly once everything was ready to go. I made the decision to head to New Braunfels and arrive at 8pm that way once everything was underway I was already there.
I hung out in my car until about 10:30pm when Kara and Will gave me the okay to head up. Once I arrived I began taking all of the early detail shots and talking with Kara and Will about their boys at home and how they were feeling about Baby Jetson arriving in the near future. Excitement was absolutely everywhere!
Funny, little things to remember
Kara had recently gotten up and tried to walk around but baby Jetson didn't like to stay near the monitor very well. While she was up she had taken her blood pressure cuff off, when she got back in the bed we hadn't realized she never put it back on and it had attempted to read her blood pressure, and if you didn't know, if it isn't on your arm it looks like a small pillow. It moved her IV pole, kind of making everyone in the room jump at first, then hysterically laughing about the whole thing.
The Details
The early moments and talks
Things were slowly moving, the nurse kept coming in about every 30 minutes to up Kara's Pitocin and check on her and baby Jetson. Her nurse, Dakota, was absolutely great, we all began talking about food at one point. One of Kara's cravings were Mama Margie's bean and cheese tacos.
It's always nice to be able to talk and pass the time, the crazy things that get talked about during labor make the time spent worth every moment, like how Will ended up telling a story about his mom sleep talking to him when he was younger after he almost got kidnapped walking home one night and all his mother asked was if he packed his ramen noodles. Giving everyone in the room a good laugh and lightening the mood.
calling for the epidural - 12:53am
Kara wanted to labor as long as possible before getting the epidural. She had hoped to be able to walk around but since little Jetson had decided that he wouldn't stay on the monitors she ended up having to hang out in bed. She ended up opting for her epidural ahead of time before her back pain got worse.
During this time, I had to step out and wait for them to tell me everything was good to go. Most anesthesiologist only want one extra person in the room during this procedure.
1:10AM
Everyone was attempting to sleep when Jetson kept deciding he didn't like to be monitored and start showing a little distress.
Kara is hypoglycemic, but not diabetic, meaning if her sugars get low she doesn't feel the best and if she isn't feeling great then we know baby isn't feeling great. However in a hospital setting they normally do not allow anything other than liquid and ice chips. When Kara's levels dropped it cause Jetson to start showing signs of distress and Kara started having a headache. The nurses all came in to try to move Kara around in order to maybe help Jetson out, because sometimes changing sides can help. When this wasn't working they decided to opt to break Kara's waters and put in an internal fetal monitor which is far superior at reading baby's heart rate. Nurses also checked Kara's blood sugar levels which were low and offered her juice, in hopes they could bring them up, they also gave her an IV drip of basically sugar water to help. Once everything was in place the nurses opted to put Kara into a flying cowgirl position, which is a spinning baby's position to help baby move down the birth canal and opens up the mother's pelvis. We hoped that this would help get things moving now that her waters had been broken.
The next few hours
Kara's sugar levels kept dropping on and off for the next few hours and everyone was able to get some sleep. Around 4:15am her OB arrived, checked Kara, and talked Kara through the next steps and where we might possibly be headed if they couldn't control the sugar and Jetson's heart rate which was still a bit unsteady. Her doctor let her know that a Caesarean was definitely a possibility but they'd make sure to try to avoid it if they could.
At around 7am, they did another check to see how she was progressing, there hadn't been any change since when her doctor was in the last time. This is also when nurse change happens so her nurse came in to introduce herself and talk about what had been going on over the night.
Due to her waters being broke for a little while, Jetson's heart rate still being a bit unstable, and her having low fluid they opted to give baby a saline transfusion, known as a amnioinfusion, at 8:30am and shut off Kara's Pitocin to give some time to relax her body, talk to the OB, and decide on the next course of action.
The next steps
Almost two hours after the amnioinfusion, the OB came back in and did a final check, Kara still hadn't progressed and due to Jetson's heart rate, decided it would be best if they moved forward with a caesarean. This created a sense of disappointment in the room. No one wants to hear that things aren't going to go the way that you planned, and that's totally normal.
The nurse then began getting Kara and Will prepped for the caesarean. I wouldn't be allowed back due to the one support person rule, I did try to allow the birth team to let Will take my camera back however it wasn't allowed and that's normal in some cases. I decided to help Will set up his phone to take pictures of the caesarean if he wanted that way they could send them to me to have edited for their gallery.
They went back to the OR at 10:50am.
The images below were taken by Will with his iPhone in the OR.
Jetson Kade Postalwait arrived on April 9, 2024 at 11:50am
A blessing in DISGUISE
I was able to rejoin them at 2pm to meet little Jetson and find out how everything went. Will began to explain that the caesarean saved Jetson's life. Little Jetson had his cord wrapped around his neck and around his arms and shoulders, so if he had descended down the birth canal likely he would have arrived sleeping. A literal blessing in disguise, and thank goodness for having doctors and nurses who truly care about the health of their patients.
Will also told me that Jetson's cord had what's called a true knot. A true knot is rare during delivery, while knots can happen, most unite themselves, these happen when baby moves around in utero. About 1 in every 100 pregnancies have some form of knots in the umbilical cord but not all are true knots. True knots occur in less than 1% of pregnancies! Rare little detail this family will remember for a lifetime!
Will did capture an image of the knot, however due to the graphic nature of the image, I'm choosing to omit the image from the post.
Fresh 48 of Jetson
I remained with Kara, Will and Jetson for 2 hours after I was able to join them and captured some of the very first pictures of little Jetson.
We have his newborn session scheduled in May and I can't wait to see them again soon!
Congratulations Kara and Will on the birth of your healthy baby boy!
