The details are already fading from my mind. Little Man's birth was so momentous, how can I be letting details fade?
... But Michelle wanted details... and I need to remember... so here's a long account of Little Man's arrival.
Sunday night I started having some pretty bad cramps.. I didn't really identify them as contractions until later on in the evening. (silly first time mom) We took the night off from small group because we were both just feeling tired from our work weeks, and not really looking forward to the week to come... and I made husband take me out to ice cream with the last of a gift card my sister gave me for my birthday. I managed to get a few hours sleep that night, but by about two in the morning I began to think that maybe I was actually having contractions. At 5 am, I called my mom, thankful that she is currently six hours ahead of me, and could be available to calm me down. She started advocating different ways to help progress the contractions, and I still kept thinking that I had Braxton-Hicks contractions and maybe if I drank enough water and took off of work that they would calm down because I didn't want to have a 36wk baby!
By Monday night, the pains were still about the same, and I was pretty much going out of my mind with the uncertainty. The OB's medical assistant had told me earlier that if contractions were five minutes apart and lasting one minute, I should go to the hospital. Well, at about 9pm we were headed to the hospital where they put me in triage, put a BP cuff on my arm set for every five minutes, and then left me to wait. Ugh. I started thinking that maybe I had made the wrong decision and I should have just waited this out at home. After about an hour, they determined that perhaps my contractions were regular, but I was not progressing into active labor... but the blood pressure readings they were getting were concerning. I tried to argue that the BP was taking every time I was having a contraction... but the OB on call was not taking that argument. She decided to admit me for "observation"- doing a 24 hr urine collection and watching my BP. I disagreed with her that I was at risk for preeclampsia, but I just wanted the pains to stop, so I thought I'd comply.
All Monday night, even though I tried to sleep... and I was in one of the nicest hospital rooms I've ever seen... I could only get some relief if I was on all fours. Really random detail... they weren't really changing in pace, frequency or strength, but I was getting ragged by the early morning. When day shift came in, I found out that I was going to have another ultrasound, which surprised me...
Long story short... after a few more hours of waiting... my day shift nurse came in and told me that my doctor had decided to induce. She wasn't sure how many details she could share, but she was sending me to L & D and thought that I needed to know at least that much.
Then the whirlwind started. I was wheeled into L & D at around 12pm. Got introduced to a wonderful nurse who would take care of me and chit-chat with me and make me laugh and just distract me from my ongoing contractions while we waited for my OB to tell me why I was getting induced, and waited for anesthesia to come put in my IV, and then waited again for anesthesia for an epidural, and then started the waiting game for Little Man. She was fantastic professionally and personally. I wished we could be friends.
(side note... that wait for anesthesia to put in an IV... almost two weeks later I still have the bruises from the 7 attempts made by various L & D nurses to put in an IV! It took an anesthesiologist, a doppler, and two tries to get one IV in!! The nurses nicknamed me "crap for veins." I wear that badge with pride :P )
Why were they inducing me? Well, apparently that ultrasound showed that I had an abnormally high amount of amniotic fluid surrounding Little Man that was not caught in previous ultrasounds.... and also, it looked like blood flow through my placenta was less than optimal (another reason why Little Man is so little). Since these factors were less than positive, they were not going to try to stop the contractions... and instead encourage them.
By the time we finally had an IV, but before they started the pitocin to induce me, they checked my cervix and I had progressed to 3cm on my own! So, really, Little Man was not induced but they were going to try to encourage him to come by starting some more pitocin. As the afternoon wore on though, they realized that every time they bumped up the drip... Little Man's heart rate would plummet. So when my OB rounded and told me that afternoon that I would most likely be delivering late that night or sometime Wednesday... he really thought that I would be in labor a lot longer than it turned out. Little Man was coming whether the world was ready or not!
Shift change happened, and I was apprehensive about my new night shift nurse... she seemed young and inexperienced. I was that nurse that judges fellow nurses :/ I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt, but was SO thankful when the on-call OB for that evening came in. She was a firecracker!!! She was country, and very 'Kentucky', but she took charge of the room like a drill sergeant and clearly meant business. I was so thankful, since my night nurse looked like she wasn't quite prepared for my son to come into the world. Bless her heart, I would have hated to be this MD's nurse (so demanding and perfectionist)... but BOY was I glad to be her patient! The doctor quickly assessed the situation, called for a delivery cart, told my husband in no uncertain terms that he was going to be involved in holding my leg no matter what kind of deal we had made before the hospital (poor queasy guy!), and got the party started. This was about 7:30pm. Welcome to your shift newish nurse! Poor thing. I did feel for her... kinda.
By the time they set everything up and got things ready, I was definitely ready to push. My epidural was also starting to wear off, so I could tell when a contraction was happening and wanted to push. I was ready for this ordeal to be done. (Side note: thank God for modern medicine and epidurals. I know everyone at seminary is all about the "all natural" and "we were made for giving birth" and all that other stuff... but once I finally got that epidural I could FINALLY finally finally have the brain space to appreciate that I. was. having. my. baby. You know? Because from early Monday morning till Tuesday afternoon 98% of my brain was devoted to "don't freak out. don't freak out. breathe. breathe."And so wasn't able to fully process the situation, until the pain was muted.)
Mid pushing the OB on call was telling stories about how long first time mothers usually have to push... and I was going, "there's no freakin way I'm pushing that long" and I doubled down my efforts... and then... woosh... in a gush of fluid, out Little Man flew. As Shing tells it from an outside perspective, the OB was turned around starting to fiddle with the suction when suddenly she had to turn back to me and catch Little Man football style. Needless to say, his descent was not controlled... and though he was only 5lbs and 2oz at birth... I had almost 4th degree tearing. Yeah. Ouch is right.
OB on-call was so pissed... and not only that, but she realized that my epidural had worn off and she couldn't even touch me to staunch the bleeding. She yelled for an anesthesiologist, and I remember mayhem as everyone (including the charge nurse) trying to appease her as both anesthesiologists were doing epidurals at the time. Oh boy, was she upset.
Even though I was in pain, my legs were awkwardly in stirrups and everyone coming in and out of the room had a good look at my bleeding underside... all I could focus on was the NICU team looking over my Little Man. Thankfully his Apgar score was a 9- he had a good cry, and he checked out a-okay. He was swaddled and shoved into his father's arms (who was standing almost numbly, traumatized by his wife's pain and bloody mess) and the NICU team cleared out.
He was 5lbs 2oz. 19 inches long. Born at 8:20pm on 10/13.
I had really wanted to hold Little Man skin to skin right after birth... but because of all the fixing she had to do, the OB nixed that idea. Very disappointing for me, but I was so thankful for her expertise as she whip stitched layer after layer of skin together calling out for another clamp, another thread pack, another needle.
So my husband held Little Man, wide eyed and so alert, as he took in the outside world for the first time. He was precious. And my heart swelled to see how gingerly, yet tenderly my husband held his little bundle.
Shortly after I got stitched up, my blood pressure fell... most likely due to the extra meds that kicked in with the epidural when anesthesia had to rush to my bedside on the command of the on-call OB. They had to stabilize me with extra fluid, and I think some epinephrine of some kind... So we ended up staying in L&D with one-to-one care until almost shift change the next morning when they transferred me to the mother-baby unit.
I'm so thankful that's over (and that I'm not pregnant anymore! It was getting so super, super uncomfortable in my own skin). But I'm so happy with the tiny bundle God gifted us with!!
A distant friend of mine, whose FB feed I highly enjoy and who I wish I had the chance to become real friends with; but can't due to distance and difference in stages of life has started a "keeping it real Wednesdays." She lives in Cambridge, and it may seem like she has a picturesque, wonderful time with her three children picking blackberries in the park, reading Narnia series, getting groceries delivered to her flat... but she posts the hard stuff on Wednesdays. Not to complain... but to keep it real. Like, last Wednesday she took a picture of the hallway in their teensy flat... with stuff everywhere. Life is not always picture perfect, though FB makes it seem that way.
