Taylor had been admitted to the hospital one week before Sullivan’s due date.
Doctors did a regular check-up and found Taylor’s blood pressure to be extremely high, and told her that she would need to deliver her baby a little sooner than expected date. So doctors gave her very small doses of Pitocin, a hormone which is used to cause or strengthen labor contractions to induce childbirth.
“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 stayed in the hospital four days and was only dilated four centimeters by the evening.
“It was definitely an emotional process,” Taylor tells PEOPLE. “It was so long and so hard.”
When the process of delivery began on Thursday night, Taylor learned she’d have to give birth via C-section.
“It was really hard for them to get him out. He was really stuck in there,” she says of 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.”
Finally, the time came and Sullivan arrived at 11:24 p.m. The little boy came with stretched arms and gave a wide smile as doctors lifted him from his mother’s womb.
“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!”
After staying in the hospital for a few days, Taylor took Sullivan home. Now, she says the baby fits right in with the Taylor crew.
“He is the most chill baby. He is really sweet and very calm. He hardly ever cries. He just loves to snuggle and is just very sweet,” she says. “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 pregnancy journey in a vlog on YouTube titled Making Baby Taylor.
“People are mostly just in awe over the photographs,” she said.point 236 |
“That’s so unheard of because a lot of hospitals are worried about getting sued, so it’s not common.point 89 | Moms, especially C-section moms, get all the feels from my image.point 144 | It’s a moment that was captured that shocks people into remembering, or wanting to remember, those events they once had.point 247 |
” And Shockley and Taylor have stayed in close touch since birth.point 56 | point 56 | 1
“Birth is such a vulnerable time and is just so profoundly personal and life-changing, so any outpouring of love and support is so important and very appreciated,” Taylor said.
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