SPECIAL delivery.

It was a BEAUTIFUL fall morning in Western North Carolina... My bags were packed and ready to go.... and still in "NESTING" mode-- I was up doing laundry at 5am before we left for the hospital! I made sure every crack in our house was ready for our little boy’s big debut.

Everyone thought that Kamden would come early... or at least on his own. Even the doctors doubted we would make it to our due date, which was September 2nd. But, being stubborn like his momma... we made it to the scheduled induction to begin at 7am on Friday, September 4, 2009 at Memorial Mission Hospital in Asheville, NC.

Everything started off wonderful. Keith took me in; we stopped for breakfast on the way (even though I wasn't allowed to eat ANYTHING!) Try being 40 weeks pregnant & starving! haha. The labor & delivery staff got me all set up... put my IV in, set me and the baby up on the monitor and all the millions of things you have to do to prepare for labor.

Shortly after 8am, the CRNA came to put the epidural in. Out of everything this was the moment I feared the most! But, I literally did not feel a thing... just a little pressure! My belly button piercing was more pain than that 10 inch needle in my spine! She was excellent! They didn't put the "good stuff" in me yet... they told me when the pitocin started making the contractions hurt to let them know. Not too long after around 9am or so, the contractions started kicking in... Now that was a feeling I would never like to feel again. I don't know how women ever have babies natural or do not want to take the drugs because that is the worst pain EVER! I only experienced 20 minutes or so before I was saved with the "good stuff"-- but I seriously could not imagine 20 hours or more of that pain. So praise the women (like my own Mother) who had to experience TRUE labor.

We were doing good all morning... just waiting it out. I was dilated to 4cm naturally when I came in that morning-- and by 2pm, I was only to 6cm with contractions coming 2-5 minutes apart. Normally when you get induced you're typically suppose to dilate 1cm per hour... at this rate we would've been here all day & night! Finally... the baby started to go into stress. Every time I would have a contraction the baby's heart rate would drop drastically... and it kept getting worse & worse with each one. Finally, I went from relaxing and awaiting the little guy's arrival... to panic mode, when the doctor came in to tell me that if we didn't get the baby out within 30 minutes, we would risk brain damage for him or worse.

Of course, they told me in the most calm, least dramatic way possible, but I immediately saw the urgency on their faces and began to break down! I just remember looking over at my Dad who was in the room and seeing tears in his eyes as well. My oldest nephew Blake looked over at me and said "please don't cry, you're going to make me cry!" I knew then, my worst fear had come into reality... an emergency cesarean section was the route we were going to have to take.

Everyone was complimenting my blue toenail polish that I had done especially for Kamden’s big birthday! I kept teasing Keith and told him if I die today, to please change my toenail polish back to red—or else I would come back and haunt him for burying me with blue toenails. Haha. It was the one and ONLY day my toes will ever be blue!

As soon as we decided they started prepping the O.R. and me for surgery. From the time they told me the news, to the time they had me on the table for surgery, seemed like 10 minutes. Then, they started giving me the anesthesia tests... they took a pair of needle like tweezers and kept moving them up my body to see if I could feel them or if I was numb yet. If I so much as felt anything at all, I kept telling them, "oh yeah, I can feel that." haha-- by the time they started to cut me open I was numb from the neck down... it actually got scary at one point cause it felt like my heart was going to beat out of my chest and it was getting hard for me to breathe and my vision was kind of blurry. So then they had to give me more drugs to counteract those side effects. I was all doped up and out of my mind before it was all said and done.

A few minutes after the c-section they pulled our little baby out and I heard him cry for the first time. He had a sweet little cry—and he actually didn’t cry for very long, only a few seconds. His cry sounded like mine when I was a baby (from what people have told me). All I remember saying was how beautiful he was, and that he had sooo much hair just like his Momma! It was the happiest moment of my life!

As they were sewing me back up—I remember looking over at Keith and seeing the most amazing smile and look in his eyes that I had ever seen on his face before. He was so proud… and so was I. He brought our little Kamden over to me for the first time and I kissed his little forehead… he was perfect in every way. I talked to him for the first time and kept thanking God over and over for getting us through all of this, and blessing us with a healthy baby. This was the BEST day of our life and worth everything we went through to get him here.

Kamden Parke Biggs was born Friday, September 4, 2009 at 4:09pm… weighing in at 7lbs. 7oz. and 19.5 inches long.