After four long days of labor, an infant in Bremerton, Washington was born on Thursday, March 8 with his arms outstretched.
Angel Taylor, 33, gave birth to her new son, Sullivan, by an unexpected C-section, according to a report by PEOPLE. The young mom wasn’t due until mid-March, but her doctors registered a dangerously high blood pressure reading during a check-up, and decided to induce an early labor.
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“We went home and totally ran around like chickens with our heads cut off — we thought we had another week!” Taylor told the outlet. “I didn’t have the car seat in the car, I hadn’t finished packing.”
Taylor was brought to the hospital on Monday, March 5. At the time, she had no dilation, and her doctors administered small doses of pitocin, which is a hormone used to cause labor contractions and ultimately induce childbirth. The 33-year-old had given birth by C-section in the past, so doctors were worried that she could suffer uterine rupture if they tried to induce labor too quickly.
“[The doctor] knew it was going to be a slow-going process and he didn’t want to be too aggressive with the induction. He wanted us to be safe. He didn’t want me to rupture and he didn’t want the baby to be stressed out. He purposely wanted it to be a slow process,” Taylor said.
By the evening of Thursday, March 8, after days in the hospital, Taylor was only dilated four centimeters. Delivery finally began that night, and Taylor was told that she’d have to give birth through another C-section.
“It was definitely an emotional process,” Taylor told reporters. “It was so long and so hard.”
“It was really hard for them to get him out. He was really stuck in there,” she continued, referring to baby Sullivan. “It turns out I had a lot of scar tissue in my lower uterus and it was very tight and it wasn’t opening up so he was kind of stuck in that.”
Sullivan finally arrived at 11:24 p.m. He stretched his arms wide as doctors lifted him safely from his mother‘s womb, and he even appears to smile in the photographs published by PEOPLE.
“I thought it was just so funny because he would be like that in my belly, he was always stretching. We’d tell him, ‘You’d have so much more room to stretch if you just came out!’ And when he came out, that’s exactly what he did. It was a big relief. We were worried how he would do … He was in really good shape!” she said.
Taylor and her son were kept in the hospital for a few days before being discharged. She told reporters that Sullivan fit in immediately with her growing family.
“He is the chillest baby. He is really sweet and very calm. He hardly ever cries. He just loves to snuggle and is just very sweet,” she said. “My older kids love him and are just always wanting to hold him. He’s just fitting right into our family — like he’s always belonged.”
Taylor has shared her journey in a series of vlogs on YouTube, which have nearly caught up to the birth of baby Sullivan.
