Caleb Roy Wilcoxson arrived June 21st at 6:19 am. He was 7 pounds 5 oz and 21 inches long!

Here is the story of his long awaited arrival (sorry it's so long). For the last few weeks I had been struggling with high blood pressure. Or actually what we thought was the last few weeks but actually was probably something that was present all of my pregnancy but overlooked. The high blood pressure was causing lots of other possible problems but many of them were unknown as to how serious they were or if they would complicate the delivery. Three weeks ago the Doctor put me on bed rest in hopes to control some of the blood pressure issues. The goal was to keep Caleb in and the blood pressure down until June 24th and then we would deliver at almost 38 1/2 weeks.
Monday afternoon I started having blurry vision, numbness in the face and hand, and slurred speech. I contacted my Doctor and she told me to come in right away. She put us in the hospital and watched and monitored the baby and I for several hours hoping to figure out what exactly was the problem. They couldn't pinpoint what the issue was but the Doctor and I could both tell that I was getting really sick and things were not getting better. The baby needed to come out because that is the only remedy for high blood pressure during pregnancy. After a few more minutes the Doctor decided to check my cervix and discovered I was already 5 centimeters dilated. She decided it would be best if she declared me in labor and broke my water. A few minutes later my water was broken and I was in full blown labor.
After dilating a few more centimeters I asked for an epidural. The Dr. came in to give me one and after about 20 minutes we discovered it wasn't working. I called him back in and he tried it a 2nd time. Still no success. A few minutes later he put in a 3rd epidural and this one temporarily and mostly worked. By this point though I was ready to go and the baby was ready to come! I couldn't believe how fast it was all going.
As I was getting ready to push this baby out the nurse came in and told me my blood pressure had dropped way to low and we would need to wait for it to get back up into a safe range. I was given a few medications and within the next hour things were back to normal and we could get this baby out. By this time the epidural was no longer working but I didn't care because I could see the finish line. I started to push and over an hour later the baby had still not moved. He was stuck and wouldn't budge. I was exhausted so the team of nurses went to get the Doctor. The Doctor went to get the forceps to try and see if she could pull the baby out with them while I pushed. They all seemed assured this would do the trick. Well not only did the baby not move at all it was the most painful experience I have EVER been through. If you don't know what forceps are they are huge metal things they push up into the birth canal to try and grab and drag the baby out. They are AWFUL. After that didn't work the Doctor told me that the baby was stuck and there was no way to get him out. She seemed a little worried but I didn't have any idea how worried she really was until all was said and done. She rushed me to an OR to do a C-section. I got into the room and they realized the epidural wasn't working at all and there was a pain that they think was being caused by the separating of my placenta which is no good. They had to get the baby out fast so they quickly put me completely under, put the breathing tube down my throat and cut me open. When the Doctor was doing this she could see a few things. One was that there was no way Caleb would have ever made it out. Because of the high blood pressure and how sick I was continuously getting everything was swelling on the inside and the outlet he needed to go through was way to swollen for him to ever fit. The other major problem was that the cord was stuck in the birth canal wrapped over Caleb's head. The cord was being pinched which was causing him to lose oxygen and other valuable nutrients. Each time I would push the cord would get more pinched and it eventually started to fall around his neck. By me pushing him trying to get him out I was only making things worse. They had to do the C section so quickly because Caleb's heart rate was dropping dramatically. Luckily though they cut me open and pulled him out and we are both just fine. After talking to the Doctor today it was very obvious that this baby needed to come out Monday and my body couldn't afford to wait until Friday as quickly as it was falling apart on the inside.
I have most certainly learned a lot from this experience. One of the biggest things is that I was a lot sicker from the high blood pressure than we originally thought and although the problem was not manifesting itself largely, with the exception of swelling, on the outside of my body the insides and this sweet baby were most certainly suffering. There will most certainly have to be a few changes and few things that will need to be done, and specialist to see before the next pregnancy but we are so grateful things turned out so well considering all the things that could have gone wrong. We had such an amazing Doctor who REALLY took good care of us and watched over us very intently to make sure we were okay. We also are so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who watched over us and protected us through not only these last few days but these last 9 months. There were so many blessings that we received along this process that really showed that our Heavenly Father is really watching out for us.

We couldn't be happier to have this sweet little boy in our home. He is truly a blessing from our Heavenly Father.