A couple from Grand Haven, Michigan decided to go the natural route to childbirth, relying on a midwife for a home birth. Nicole Ziesemer was determined to go without taking pain medications, but as it turns out, fate had other plans, in more ways than one…
Posted by Matthew Ziesemer on Wednesday, August 6, 2014
Matthew Ziesemer shared his story on Facebook in December 2017, and it has continued to go viral, reaching over 6,000 shares at the time of this writing.
The story is remarkable.
Suffering from the flu, and unable to eat or sleep well for days, Nicole woke up her husband on a Friday late at night to tell him that her water had broken. It was 4 1/2 weeks before the due date of January 30th. She would later learn that she had been starting contractions for 2 days and didn’t realize it until they grew stronger.
Since the baby was coming so early at 36 weeks, the family had no choice but to go the the hospital. The weather had plans of its own too, and Matthew had to snowplow the driveway free of 10 inches of snow due to a blizzard.
Finally, arriving at Gerber hospital in the storm, the couple had some happy luck, as Nicole’s brother Raymond happened to be working at the hospital, filling in for another person. Even better, Raymond’s wife, Emily would be the couple’s nurse throughout what would be a difficult and shocking birth for Nicole.
After struggling for 30 hours in horrible plain, the couple resorted to trying medication.
” […] for the first time ever in my wife I saw the look of giving up in my wife’s eyes and it absolutely killed me,” recalled Matthew.
Nicole received a small dose of Pitocin, which helped with the contractions, but she would still suffer horrible back pain for 4 hours longer. Finally, after beginning to experience panic attacks, the couple went for the epidural.
Although the pain was alleviated, the baby was starting to show signs of stress, and the doctor intervened to help deliver baby Blakeley Faith Ziesemer, at just 4 pounds at 10:06 on Saturday, December 30th.
Finally, the ordeal seemed to be over, and the doctor began to work on the mother’s placenta and to stitch up the mother, but that’s when “all hell broke loose.”
“I think that there’s something else in here,” said Dr. Megan Forshee.
Upon doing a second ultrasound, they discovered a baby boy waiting to join his newborn sister!
The surprise drew attention from just about everyone on the hospital floor, as news traveled around the hospital.
Just when Nicole thought she could rest, and just as her epidural was wearing off, she had to push again. Roughly one hour later, she gave birth to Cade Matthew Ziesemer, who weighed just 5 pounds.
Posted by Matthew Ziesemer on Tuesday, January 2, 2018
Both babies would be ok, although Cade initially had some breathing issues due to his relatively brief trip to the outside world.
“This has been one of the best days of my life and also one of the biggest emotional rollercoasters I have ever been on,” said the happy father.
Finally, friends and family were allowed to enter the room. Because of all the commotion, they thought something must be horribly wrong, but were shocked and delighted to find out the couple had not one, but two babies when Nicole lowered her blanket to reveal number two.
Matthew reflected on the couple’s choice to seek medical attention:
“So even though I’m more of a natural person things happen for reasons and there are definitely times for medical intervention and this was one of those times. God definitely has a greater plan for us and showed us that we don’t control anything in our lives. It is truly up to him and we have to trust that whatever curveball he throws at us is what we need in our lives.”
See video of surprised family and friends below:
So this is an absolutely crazy story!! My beautiful pregnant wife Nicole Ziesemer woke me up Friday early morning at 12:30AM to tell me her water broke. Yes, that was 4.5 weeks early as we were due on January 30th. So we called our midwife because we are planning on doing a Home birth but since the babies were less than 36 weeks we couldn’t do a Home birth. So we decided to go to Gerber hospital in Fremont because they work well with our midwife and think more on the natural side of things. Well I don’t know who remembers Thursday night into Friday but along the lakeshore was a complete blizzard so first I had to snowplow and snowblow the driveway because we got 10 inches of snow and then we drive 2 hours to Fremont in a blizzard! We get to the hospital around 3:30-4 am and get settled into our room. Nicole was really starting to notice her contractions at that time. But once she realized what they were, she realized she had been having them for about 2 days prior. So 7AM comes around and Nicole’s brother Raymond walks in because he is filling in for a 7-7 shift at the hospital so right then we knew we were at the right place. Especially since he never works at Gerber, typically downtown GR. So we were able to see him throughout the day. Then his wife Emily is a nurse at Gerber and she was working the 7-7 night shift and sure enough she was our nurse for the whole night!! When we first got to the hospital Nicole was dilated to a 3. And as time went on contractions continued to get stronger and stronger. Around 2PM Friday Nicole moved to 4cm, then around 3AM Saturday she was at 5 cm and then at 7AM she was a 7. Contractions continued to get stronger. And remember we wanted to do all natural so no pain meds or anything. So, Nicole is experiencing awful pain all the time. We have another check at 11AM and she was still at 7cm and for the first time ever in my wife I saw the look of giving up in my wife’s eyes and it absolutely killed me. After watching her suffer for the last 30 hours pushing and breathing and screaming I knew we had to do something else so I consulted several people and Nicole and we decided to start a small dose of pitocin; well this really got contractions going and got her dilated to a 10. So at 1 PM Saturday she started to push. And she pushed hard and strong for 4 hours and nothing but severe back pain. Pain so severe she was having panic attacks about being in any position except standing. So to deliver this baby we had to do something to get her out of pain so we decided to do an epidural and this helped her pain a ton! So she then pushed for another 2.5 hrs after the epidural and then the baby decided to start showing signs of stress for the first time so at this point Nicole and I are exhausted, ready to do whatever is necessary to get the baby out, so the doctor used a vacuum because of the higher heart rate so at 10:06PM Saturday, December 30th Blakeley Faith Ziesemer (4 lbs 4 ounces) was born!!! Nearly 48 hours after Nicole’s water broke. My wife was an absolute trooper!! I was so proud of her for what she went thru and how she dealt with the pain and everything. The OB stitched up my wife’s small tear and then started to work on the placenta and to EVERYONES surprise in the room she said there is a 2nd baby in there and we all crapped our pants and then all hell broke lose. The entire floor of the hospital was in our room it was packed just making sure everything was going to be ok. It was crazy! So Nicole thinking she was done has to push again and now her epidural had wore off so her back pain was awful but she did it and at 11:05PM December 30th Cade Matthew Ziesemer (5 lbs)was born! My wife is by far the stronger person I know especially after what I saw her go thru these last two days. So even though I’m more of a natural person things happen for reasons and there are definitely times for medical intervention and this was one of those times. God definitely has a greater plan for us and showed us that we don’t control anything in our lives. It is truly up to him and we have to trust that whatever curveball he throws at us is what we need in our lives. I thank the entire staff at Gerber for all they did for us. They were great!! My beautiful wife is recovering great just extremely sore. Blakeley is extremely healthy! Cade has a breathing issue that he is closely being monitored for but it should all be ok. Since he was pushed out so quickly and never had contractions really his lungs and fluid in is lungs didn’t come out as good as his sisters. We would appreciate prayer for everyone but especially Cade and his healing. This has been one of the best days of my life and also one of the biggest emotional rollercoasters I have ever been on. Thank you to all who prayed and checked in on us. It was much needed and appreciated. Our families were absolutely shocked just like us when we told them!!! I just added the video of when we told our parents. Cade is on the cart in the corner of the room and Blakeley is hiding under the blankets on Nicole’s chest. It takes the family a few minutes to realize there is another baby there when Nicole lowers the blanket. For about an hour they seriously thought something bad happened because we had so many other hospital members rushing in to our room when the news dropped there was a second baby in there and now they learned why it took so much longer and why we pretty much had the whole floor of the hospital rushing into the room. Ohh ya I forgot to mention Nicole had the flu 3 days prior so she had not eaten anything or really slept since Sunday 4 days prior to her water breaking.********************UPDATE 1/1/18Cade was taken off his ventilator today and put on a CPAP. This is great news and some major progress to the healing of his lungs and improvement of breathing!! The prayers are working so please keep them coming!! God is absolutely amazing! Blakeley is a little jaundice but doing great other than that and we are hoping she is released tomorrow! Thank you all for your continued support!!!*************UPDATE 1/2/18Cade is doing really well!!! They took his CPAP off today and nothing changed with his breathing or oxygen levels!! So he is completely breathing on his own with no support! The last thing with Cade is to monitor him for 48 hours to make sure he doesn’t have a hard time eating and breathing! The power of prayer has been awesome to see and visualize first hand! We were really hoping to bring Blakeley Home tonight but unfortunately the MDs are still concerned with her very first blood culture being positive. She had a second culture done which has not come back positive yet but the bacteria found in the first culture is not one you mess around with. So they just want to make sure that either it was a false positive or she will fight off the bacteria herself and be on antibiotics for 7 days. So they say the earliest release would be Saturday. All the blood work looks good for her and her white count is down. So that’s a good sign that if there is an infection it is being contained. So please continue to pray for the healing of both our kids. And for my wife as she continues to recover from labor!! Thank you sooo much for all your love and support!!! I can’t keep up with all the comments but we really do appreciate them. More than you know!!!*****************UPDATE 1/5/18Both kids are doing great!! We are hoping that Cade is released tomorrow!!! As long as he takes his bottle the next 24 hrs that will happen!! He is off all breathing supplements and his IV!!!!! Blakeley is doing wonderful as well! 2 more days of antibiotics and she should be home on Sunday!!!
Posted by Matthew Ziesemer on Monday, January 1, 2018
Featured image: Screenshots via Facebook