A Baby Story

We checked into the hospital at 5pm on Tuesday, January 20th. They immediately hooked me up to the monitors, took my BP (still high), and checked my cervix. I was 1cm 90% effaced. They inserted the P-Gel and we waited one hour, then got up and walked for an hour. By 6pm I started having contractions. Came back at 7pm and they inserted more P-Gel which made the little girl jump around (cold gel being shot at your head would make you jump too!). I took off walking and was having more and more contractions. At 9pm, they hit me with one last shot of P-Gel. We walked around the room, but at this point I wasn't really in the mood for walking. The contractions were making me stop and think. We got on the birthing ball at about 10pm and I was geared up to watch Charmed on TV since I had missed the new episode on Sunday (they rerun them on Tuesday nights!). By 10:30 the contractions were starting to really hurt. They declared me in "true" labor because I couldn't concentrate on my favorite TV show. Soon after that, I got into a really hot shower. Oh sweet relief. My mom and Erich were yelling for me to get out because the shower was flooding the room! ha! I got out around 11pm or 11:15. They checked me and I was 2-3cm, completely effaced. Yay! I gladly took the sleeper they offered me and my mom said goodnight. She headed to my house to spend the night and take care of the dogs. She said she didn't sleep a wink though. About 45 minutes after the sleeper, I wasn't asleep, nor did I feel sleepy and I didn't think it was going to work. I had Erich help me off of the bed and on to the birthing ball so I could at least be more comfy. As soon as my hips relaxed a bit on the birthing ball, the sleeper seemed to kick in full gear and I almost fell off! Erich helped me back into the bed and we went to sleep. I don't feel like I really slept though, just in and out of consciousness. I was still contracting, though they seemed to space out a bit.

Wednesday morning they came at 7am and traded nurses. She started my IV in anticipation of my OB to get there. When my OB arrived, she greeted me and gave the go ahead to start Pitocin. She told me I had her blessing for whenever I wanted an epidural, though she knew I didn't want one. By 8:30 the Pitocin was going and I was contracting a lot. Since I was on pitocin, they had to monitor me at all times so no walking and no shower. :( I did stay on the birthing ball for most of the morning and caught "Primetime in the Daytime" on TNT (an episode of Charmed and two ERs). I wasn't really able to fully concentrate though. My mom had made Beef Noodles and brought some to Erich (and left some in the car for me when I could eat again). I was SO hungry and couldn't have anything, it was torture. And my ctx were really picking up intensity. At 11am they switched nurses again. Elaine was the replacement and also the lady I had seen the previous Sunday for a NST. (This is the exact same nurse who I told Erich I hoped would not be my labor nurse.) I was disappointed for her to be there, but oh well. I asked her to check me, she checked and I was 4cm, completely effaced and 0 station. As she checked my water broke. I felt the gush of warm fluid and told them "my water broke" and both her and my mother said "oh, you probably just lost control of your bladder." She tested the fluid and sure enough my water did break. Erich had been out of the room when she was checking me, making some phone calls. When my water broke, I started to cry. I'm not really sure. Part of me was scared for her since she was no longer swimming in her warm home, part of me was scared that this really was happening. And another part was just completely overwhelmed. When Erich came back in, he didn't know why I was crying. They got me up onto the birthing ball and that is when the real "fun" started. Since they started the pitocin, they had been increasing it every 20 minutes. By the time I got on the birthing ball, the ctx were hitting hard with really no relief. They were having trouble with the external monitors and couldn't see the pattern of the ctx. They also had a hard time keeping track of her heartbeat since she was so low in my pelvis. At one point they suggested I get on all fours on the bed and see if I had some relief that way. Erich was getting sick to his stomach watching me because he said he had no control, and couldn't help me. I asked for some IV meds but they prefer to give Nubain, which I'm allergic too. So we had to wait for my OB to get there and suggest something (she was in surgery). By the time she got there it was 2:30 or 3pm. I couldn't sit still, they were getting basically no monitoring, and she didn't want to give something other than Nubain. They couldn't get me to lay still to check to see where I was and they all pushed for the epidural. I didn't want it, but didn't see an end. They were also having trouble monitoring the baby and that worried me. I okayed the epidural and they went looking for the nurse anesthetist. Erich was great, while they were paging, he asked me over and over again if this is what I wanted. He assured me that he wouldn't be disappointed at all if I took the epidural and wouldn't think any less of me.

He left the room for the epidural to be placed and my mom stayed with me. (Erich doesn't like to watch stuff like that.) It was awful. I had to sit still which took great strength. I was crying I hurt I wanted her out and my mom was yelling at me to sit still and listen. But I couldn't. They finally had me lay down on the bed and curl up in a ball. Elaine (who ended up being WONDERFUL) spoke sharply to my mom and said something along the lines of "You aren't helping her. Just hold her hand and be quiet." Way to go Elaine. Elaine then spoke softly to me in my face trying to get me to visualize it. Placing the epidural probably wouldn't have been so hard had I not been in full blown out of control labor. But I was. We finally got the epidural in. I wanted to make sure that I felt NOTHING since I hadn't wanted the stupid thing in the first place. My OB came in and she placed an internal monitor (not the one that screws into the top of the head) and checked me. I was still the same, 4cm, completely effaced, 0 station. She said she'd be back in an hour. At this point I looked at Elaine and she was pushing IV fluid in really fast. I know that this isn't a good thing and asked her what my pressure was. 100/60. She said it was okay, I just needed more fluid. She hung another bag and continued pushing it in. The next pressure was 95/58. She said she was going to go page the nurse anesthetist and she'd be right back. When she came back they moved me onto my left side and she continued pushing the fluid in. My pressure took again. I asked her what it was and she told me not to worry. She was going to go personally find the CRNA and bring her in. I asked my family to look at the monitor, my pressure was 80/48. My first catostrophic thought was, I'm going to die because of this damn epidural and I didn't even want it. The CRNA got there and she gave me medicine to help my blood pressure. They left me to get some rest. At 5pm, Elaine checked me again and I was still the same. They tried turning the pitocin down to see if that would help and said they'd check again at 6pm. If I was the same, we'd have to discuss things again. At 6pm, I was still the same and there was edema on the babys head from where she was pushing into my pelvis. They decided that the best thing was a C-section. Erich was at dinner with his parents and Elaine told someone to run and get him. The called for an anesthesiologist but found out she was stuck doing an appy. They said they would give me until she was done to make some progress, and if not I'd go for the section. Elaine went ahead and prepped me for the surgery, anchored and catheter and so on. She said sometimes as soon as they get you ready, something happens and your body just kicks in. At 7:30 I had made no progress and anesthesia was ready so they transferred me onto another bed. They had been giving me more lidocaine through the epidural and I was almost numb to the nipple line. They transferred me onto the bed and wheeled me into the OR. I passed all of my family on the way out of my room.

It was really weird to be in the OR on the table. I'm so used to being on the other side. It was really hot in there ready at almost 80 degrees because the thermostat was broken. The prepped my belly and draped me. My OB came in and I remember who touching my belly saying, "the u/s said this baby was only 7lbs, but she feels A LOT bigger!" Oh, when she came in she said, "there is one really nervous dad out there!" I think Erich was more terrified then myself. He didn't know what to expect and he passes out at the sight of bloody stuff. When they brought him in he sat next to me and I smiled at him, told him I wasn't scared and he said, " I'm breathing, I'm breathing, I'm breathing..." all while taking big deep breathes. The OB said she had just pinched and twisted with a clamp and hadn't said a thing so we were ready to go. The first part of the section wasn't bad. It felt like someone was trying to tickle me but couldn't. I could tell which layer they were on by the talk going on in the OR. When they got to her, they did the whole pressure that felt like an elephant is sitting on your chest. I could hear the tech ask, " is the baby just really big?" and the OB say, " no, this baby is WEDGED." After what seemed like an eternity, they got her head out of my pelvis and she started to cry. I could hear them say, "She is cute!" and I just started to cry. They pulled the rest of her out of me and the OB said, "wow she is TINY!" :) I could hear Erich yelling out, " oh my God, Oh my God, she's mine! She's ours! oh my God!" (probalby the most excited I've ever seen Erich by the way.) I just couldn't stop crying. The last half of the section was the worst. Erich was at the warmer taking pictures. They said that some people start to feel nauseous when they massage the fundus to get it to clamp down. And I did feel nauseous. I asked over and over, "please give me something for the nausea, please please please." Then I started to dry heave. This was the worst dry heaving experience ever because I'm laying flat on my back, dry heaving, while someones hands were inside of me pushing the opposite direction of my diaphragm. Yuck. She gave me something and the relief was awesome. But then they started to irrigate and it it sorta hurt. Kinda like sharp gas pains. Anesthesia gave me duramorph through my epidural. (Morphine through the epidural) and the relief was very instant. I suddenly felt extremely tired, as the whole day caught up to me. Erich got scared because I literally fell into a sleep within 5 seconds of the duramorph. Duramorph is great because it lasts 24hrs. :) They brought the baby to me to see and then Erich went with them to the nursery. Magdalena Eusevia was born at 8:14pm. She weighed 6lbs, 10 oz, and was 19" long.