Rutter Family: Karlie's Birth Story

Our Birth Story:
Karlie Nicole Rutter

(March 9, 1999 - 2 Days Old)

By April Rutter (June 1999)

Our daughter, Karlie, has been such a blessing for both of us. Although parenthood can be very tough sometimes, particularly when Karlie seems to cry for no reason that we can pinpoint, we wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. We now understand why our friends love to talk about their children – we find ourselves going on and on about her. We also understand why others have their children’s pictures in every conceivable place, for we do this now, too. We have become quite the photographers, taking pictures of her for just about any reason we can find. We also understand why people try so very hard to have children, even when it seems impossible or extremely expensive. And so because we love to talk about Karlie and are still elated by our birthing experience, we thought we would share our story with you.

Although Karlie was not exactly a planned blessing for us, we were excited about her from the very beginning, even when we only suspected we might be pregnant. We certainly knew we wanted to have children together and had planned on trying in 1999, so we were happy that our plans were bumped up a bit. Everything happens for a reason. We are especially thankful that we are able to have children, since there are so many people who can’t or who become completely consumed with trying to make a baby.

Our due date was March 24, 1999. About eight weeks into the pregnancy, we had a small scare. I started spotting and went to the Emergency Room in a panic. The doctor did some blood tests and ordered an ultrasound. During the ultrasound, we discovered that at eight weeks, Karlie was a small human being. We didn’t realize babies developed so quickly. I guess we expected more of a blob, rather than a head, body and even a beating heart. Although we are both against abortion, seeing what a little person she was made us realize how murderous it is to abort babies, no matter how early in the pregnancy it may seem. Once my tests came back, we were told that everything was fine. My body thinking it was time to have my period probably caused the spotting. We were so relieved, and now more excited because the ultrasound made it seem real to both of us.

7 Months Pregnant Since Karlie was our first child, we didn’t want to know her sex until she was born. We wanted to hear "It’s a boy" or "It’s a girl" that first time when we could actually see her and hold her. Pregnancy was an enjoyable experience for me. I never had to contend with morning sickness, fatigue, or the other symptoms that you often hear about when you’re pregnant. (And let me tell you…when you’re pregnant you hear about things you never have before, things you would rather not know about or worry about!) Luckily, I followed in mom’s footsteps with my pregnancy – my stomach did not grow very big and I had a short delivery. I thankfully never reached that uncomfortable point in my last month that everyone warned me about – where you’re so big, it’s hard to get around. I couldn’t have picked a better time of year to be pregnant – since Karlie was born in March, it never got too hot! My pregnancy was so special – just feeling her move was enough to call all my friends or try to figure out a way to remember it forever. Also, I noticed that everyone was so happy around me. No matter where I was, people smiled at me. I can’t tell you how many strangers I talked to in the market! I was asked so many questions about our baby and pregnancy, which is all I could think about anyway, so I found it fun.

In mid-February, about four weeks before our due date, I was admitted to the hospital for a kidney infection. While I was there, they monitored Karlie 24-hours a day using a fetal monitor, which measured her heart rate and any contractions I was having. This monitoring was simply routine. I figured I would be in the hospital a day or so – long enough for the nurses to pump me with antibiotics and send me on my way. During the first night, the monitor detected a drop in Karlie’s heart rate. The doctors weren’t quite sure what it meant, if anything at all. They decided to keep me in the hospital a couple extra days to see if it happened again and determine if there was a pattern. The fluctuation occurred a couple more times while I was there, but it happened at different times of the day, for different lengths of time, and it didn’t occur every day. So, the doctors were stumped. Finally, we were told that she was either playing with the umbilical cord – squeezing it, which reduces the flow of blood to her heart and causes the fluctuation – or she had a serious problem and was in distress. The question we raised was how could they be sure the same thing wasn’t happening to the millions of women out there who weren’t being monitored? Of course, the doctors could only respond that they didn’t know, but could only assume this wasn’t healthy. We were given three options: (1) induce and deliver Karlie a month early, which meant health risks for her such as underdeveloped intestines and lungs, (2) stay in the hospital until I went into labor naturally (which could have been several weeks – a mental risk for me!), or (3) go home, but return everyday for monitoring. As we weighed our options, we were certainly in a state of panic thinking that we could have a baby in the next day or so. We simply weren’t ready. But we finally chose the last option because it seemed the safest for both Karlie and myself (since I couldn’t handle staying in the hospital another day, particularly when I wasn’t confident there was something wrong!). We really felt God was telling us which option to take, so there was no question about what was right for Karlie.

Luckily our hospital, Whittier Hospital Medical Center, was only five minutes away from our house, so going to the hospital every day for testing wasn’t an ordeal. I officially started maternity leave while I was in the hospital for the infection, so now it was a matter of simply waiting and going to the hospital each day. According to our due date, we had about another month to go. The monitoring at the hospital took anywhere from 20 minutes to three hours, depending on Karlie’s activity and her heart rate. We already had her bedroom decorated and ready, so I spent my days going to the baby store to buy necessities, working on my cross-stitch project for her room, meeting John for lunch, and going to the hospital. The time sped by quickly, so I never had time to get bored. We attended an infant care class and started Lamaze. I had several ultrasounds, six or seven over the course of my pregnancy, so it was exciting seeing her grow inside me. Each time we went for an ultrasound, we reminded the technician not to tell us the sex. We had two names picked out: "Karlie Nicole" for a girl, and "Brandon Taylor" for a boy.

On Saturday, March 6^th, 1999, John and I started a wallpapering project in the living room. Once we got the wall prepped, we had to kill some time before we could actually apply the paper, so we ran some errands. We had lunch at the Taco Shack, a little hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant near the hospital, then we headed to the hospital for my daily monitoring. While we were there, Karlie’s heart rate dropped very low. We were both watching the monitor when it happened, so we began talking to my stomach, hoping she would hear us, trying to encourage her heart rate back up. After what seemed an eternity, but was actually only about three minutes, it popped back up to normal. Our doctor informed us that it was time to deliver our baby, either that night or the following morning. Regardless, I wasn’t leaving the hospital. The concerns we had a couple weeks before about delivering early were no longer worrisome since Karlie would only be about two and a half weeks early. She was now fully developed, just gaining weight. We opted to get things rolling right away, since we knew neither one of us would get any sleep that night. John ran home and picked up my overnight bag and our camera, and by the time he got back, the doctors were ready to induce me. Induction involves having small amounts of Pitocin given to you intravenously, which causes contractions. The hope was that the Pitocin would get the contractions started, and then my body would take over and continue naturally to delivery. They warned us that it could be a few days before I actually delivered, so we prepared ourselves for the worst. We called our friends and family, but most were out of town! Our timing was anything but perfect!

We got things started about 10:00 p.m. and a couple hours later I began to feel minor contractions. As another couple hours passed by, it was obvious my body wasn’t going to take over like the doctors had hoped. The nurse gave me a shot of medication which helped me sleep for a few hours, and by 5:30 a.m. we were ready to get started again. My cervix was soft, effaced and dilated to about four centimeters, so we were hoping it wouldn’t be too much longer. Boy, were we right! Once the Pitocin was started, the contractions came faster and more severe this time around, and an hour later I was having hard contractions back to back. I felt tremendous pressure near my pelvis, like severe menstrual cramps. This was not the way I imagined contractions feeling. The midwife broke my water, and all of a sudden I was ready to push. Since I had been dilated to four centimeters just a few minutes before, the nurse assumed it was too early for that and offered me drugs to help the pain. She decided to check my progress, and discovered I was dilated to nine centimeters, which meant it was too late to give me anything. Our baby was ready to be born – in fact, John could see her head.

I remember the fear I felt when I realized I was doing this on my own, without anything to dim the pain. I even began to hyperventilate from the panic I felt. The worst part for me was the unknown – how much pain was I going to be in and how would I survive if the pain got worse? I didn’t realize that I was already at the worst point. I remember John looking into my eyes and telling me to focus on him. It calmed me down and I began to push. After three tries, Karlie’s head came out. With the fourth push, at 6:53 a.m. on Sunday, March 7^th, 1999, she was out completely – a little over an hour after we had restarted the induction process. We remember the midwife saying, "It’s a girl. " The way John looked at me and then repeated those three words to me is something I will always remember. We had both hoped for a girl, but knew we would be happy no matter what we had. Thanks to a little urging from the nurse, John cut the umbilical cord. Karlie weighed 5 pounds 12 ounces, and measured 18 ½ inches in length. After they cleaned her up, they handed her to me and I remember looking at her in awe. One of the hardest things when you’re pregnant is dealing with your own curiosity – what will your baby will look like? Now I knew and she was beautiful. The doctor later informed us that her heart rate fluctuation was probably caused by the umbilical cord wrapped around her foot – each time she pressed her foot against my uterus, it caused the heart rate to decrease. Although we went through some stressful times worrying about her health, we were very glad that the doctors were so cautious. Besides, I found it comforting to hear her heart beat every day when I went to the hospital for monitoring, since she didn’t have as much room to move around those last couple weeks.

The nurses took Karlie to the nursery briefly to increase her body temperature under the heat lamps, since she was so small. An hour or so later, she was returned to our room. We made some phone calls, and John headed home to shower and take a nap. I remember thinking I would do the same, but I ended up holding Karlie all day long, just staring at her. She looks more like her father than me. I did have to have an episiotomy, so I was pretty sore, but not nearly as sore as I expected. If I hadn’t been cut, I’m sure I would have felt almost back to my normal self, which totally amazed me. John came back to the hospital a few hours later and then we both stared at her the rest of the evening. I was moved into a private post-partum room, so John stayed with me at the hospital that night which was so comforting. The next morning, as we packed up to go home, we realized that the outfit we brought with us for Karlie was much too big for her to wear. John ran to the store and bought her a cute cotton dress, but it too was too big – she needed "preemie" clothes which the store didn’t have. We put her in the dress anyway, and took her home. John had decorated the house inside and out with pink streamers and "It’s a girl" signs. We were still floating and filled with so much energy, we didn’t feel like sitting still. We decided to finish the wallpaper project we had started the day we were admitted to the hospital, while Karlie slept most of the day. We felt so content and happy.

After spending six weeks at home with Karlie, I returned full-time to my job at Chevron. Karlie is cared for by a woman who runs a daycare out of her home. The daycare is about two blocks from our house, so Karlie is only two miles from my work, and four miles from John’s work. Being so close and knowing that she is in good hands has made my return to work a little easier. I do envy those moms who can stay home with their children and see every little thing they do. But we pray that Karlie will continue to receive excellent care and that the experience of being around another person will broaden her perspective on life.

As I said in the beginning, everything happens for a reason. We can’t imagine a world without Karlie. If our lives hadn’t taken the turn they did, we would not be blessed with her today. Not only has she brought us closer to each of our families, but she has given us a new outlook on life, one we could never take for granted.

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Last Update: February 19, 2001