I decided that I should write down Caden's story. Not only for myself, but in hopes that it might help others to understand him better and maybe help people who are going through the same thing.
In April of 2005, Erick and I decided that we wanted to add to our family. Erick was working in New Mexico and the girls and I were living in Utah. In preparation for the pregnancy, I quit smoking and went to my doctor and switched anti-depressants, to one that was safe for pregnancy (I started taking Prozac.) We had to wait to try because Erick's parent's were taking all of us on a cruise in Feb 2006 and you couldn't be more than 26 weeks along. We started trying to conceive in September 2005 and after 8 negative pregnancy tests, we were sure that it was not our month. But after crying over a song on the radio one Sunday, I went and bought test number 9 and it was positive! We were having a baby!
My pregnancy was fairly normal. I had morning sickness and cravings and was hormonal and grumpy. We had a gender ultrasound done at 16 weeks while Erick was in town and found out that we were having a boy! I was excited, but nervous because I wasn't sure that I would know how to take care of a boy after having two girls. I got over my nervousness pretty quickly and we started buying everything blue and talking about baby names. I started feeling baby boy kick at about 14 weeks and it never stopped. He was SO active. I know lots of mom's say that, but his movement was literally non-stop. I had no idea that a little person could move so much and for so long and sleep so little. I don't think anyone really believed how much he moved and how little he slept until he was born. When I was about 16 weeks, I turned on the blender and his whole body jumped and I remember thinking, well we know he can hear, not realizing that he was hypersensitive to sound, even in the womb.
At my routine 20 week ultrasound, they saw some concerns with his stomach and so I had to have a couple of follow-up ultrasounds to make sure that everything was okay. They didn't see any fluid in his stomach and I had excess fluid, so they were concerned that his esophagus might not be connected to his stomach, but after several scans, they decided that all was well.
35 weeks
Fast forward to 38 weeks and I developed PUPPS rash (pregnancy induced rash that can cause liver problems.) The rash got worse and worse, so they induced me at 39 weeks and 3 days. June 13, 2006, we arrived at the hospital at 6am to get the show on the road. They got me set up on the pitocin and then later came in to try and put an epidural in. It took them 28 tries to get it in. It was painful and miserable and the next day, my back pain from all the needle pokes was actually worse than my recovery from childbirth. During one of the tries, the medicine was put into a vein in my spine and went into my bloodstream, so I was really out of it for the rest of my labor and delivery. My midwife came in at some point and broke my water. After she broke it, she thought that he had a prolapsed cord, but discovered that he just had his hand up by his head....silly boy.
After hours of labor and a short amount of pushing, Caden Brock Sullivan was born at 5:37 pm and weighed 8lbs 2oz and was 21 inches. He had the cord wrapped tightly around his neck at birth, but seemed okay. He was born with blonde hair with just a hint of red to it and blue eyes. He nursed right away and was a sweet baby. After his birth, we were all taken to the recovery room where Caden would still not stop moving, even after just being birthed. It was almost like he couldn't get comfortable. He wiggled so much that he rolled over when he was less then a day old. It was crazy. I remember my mom coming to visit us at the hospital and commenting that it wasn't even fun to hold him like it is to hold other newborns because he would not stop moving. He just wiggled and squirmed constantly. Little did I know that his constant movement was the first of many signs of Sensory Processing Disorder that I would miss. After two days in the hospital, we went home to start our new life as a family of five.
