After waiting as long as possible
for Daniel to join us on his own, Brandon and I headed to KU Medical Center for
induction on Monday, October 21. I was 41 weeks and 4 days pregnant.
We had gone
to bed early on Sunday night but, being us, managed to have some drama. Brandon
fell asleep around ten but it took me a little longer. All of a sudden, we were
startled awake when his alarm clock rang at midnight. It took us a minute to
get it off and then, hearts racing, we tried to go back to sleep. When my alarm
rang at 4 am, it felt like I had just barely fallen asleep. I got up and took a
shower and then went in to wake up Brandon – who asked me for 5 more minutes.
For some reason that struck me as such a bizarrely normal thing for him to say
that it made me laugh.
Once we
were up and organized, we fed the dogs and loaded up the car right around 5.
The paperwork from the hospital said I could eat so we ran through McDonalds. I
got a sausage biscuit (bad decision) and Brandon got a breakfast burrito and a
sausage biscuit – with two jellies. We ate as we drove and the main advantage
of leaving so early was the complete lack of traffic on I-70. There wasn’t even
any pink in the sky when we turned in to the parking garage at about 5:15.
I had a
little road rage as we tried to find a parking space as the Toyota in front of
us thought it would be okay to stop in the middle of the ramp. It seemed like
ages before we parked but we finally got settled and headed into the hospital.
It was cold (the high that day only ended up being 58) but we didn’t have far
to go because the parking garage is connected to the hospital with a sky
bridge. I told Brandon that I was scared and a little sad because this was not
how I wanted to be doing this. He grabbed my hand and squeezed it and then,
with a typical half smirk, told me he was excited to meet his baby.
Once we were in the hospital, we
had to go down to the main lobby in order to get to the internal elevators that
took us up to the 5th floor labor and delivery. The unit is a locked
unit so when we got upstairs, we had to check in at the front desk. They checked
me in right away but they had Brandon stand on paw prints on the floor and take
a picture. His picture was then printed on a sticker that he wore on his shirt.
They asked us to sit in a little waiting area but came for me almost
immediately. I went back with the nurse while Brandon had to wait.
In the room, they had me go into
the bathroom and change into a gown. It was a truly lovely shade of green and
tied down the left side. I climbed up into the bed and texted Brandon at 5:35
that I’d just gotten into bed and was waiting for the charge nurse began my
check in. They asked me some questions and then introduced me to Deanna who was
going to be my nurse until the shift change. I felt a little anxious until they
let Brandon back but he was there fairly quickly. There was a nice recliner
next to the bed so he settled into that while they hooked me up to blood
pressure, pulse oxygen monitor, and then two belly straps to check on how
Daniel was doing.
Then began
the drama of starting an IV. For the record, I don’t actually have a fear of
needles – or blood. I have no problem pricking my finger for blood sugar
checks, taking blood at the doc doesn’t bother me, cuts, nosebleeds, etc. don’t
bother me. However, for some reason, I have IV issues. When mum was in the
hospital for her mastectomies, they came to take out her IV and the second I
saw the line coming out and the blood that followed, I got majorly light-headed
and had to sit down so I wouldn’t faint.
Anyway, Deanna came to my left hand and started talking
about how I have great veins and how great she was at starting IVs and on and
on. She stuck the needle in but wasn’t getting the “output” that she wanted so
she started wriggling it around. At that point, I broke into a cold sweat and
threw up for the first time. She apologized and said it was no big deal and
said she’d switch arms. Came around and got to work on my right arm and the
same thing happened – put in the needle, didn’t like the “output” and started
messing with it. At that point, I threw up again. Remember, I mentioned that
the McDonalds was a bad idea?
Deanna
finally decided to admit that she was having trouble and, after mentioning that
I might be dehydrated (what happened to my good veins?), she went to get the
charge nurse. The charge nurse was awesome – very matter of fact, some kind of
South American accent (Chile, Argentina, something), - and clearly was annoyed
that Deanna wasn’t able to start the IV. She came in and focused (without
chit-chatting) on putting the IV in my left arm a little higher up than the
previous attempt. She got it in one shot and patted my knee on her way out.
Next up was
the anesthesiologist, who came in to explain the pain relief options and also
what would happen in the event of a c-section. I signed a bunch of consent
papers and tried not to think about the fact that induction was one step closer
to c-section. Shift change happened during all of this and we were introduced
to nurse Karen who was assigned to us for the day.
Unfortunately,
my doc wasn’t available on that Monday because she had to leave town for a funeral
but Dr Hecker, my favorite of the resident doctors, was there and specifically
was looking in on me. She came and did my first check and I was 3 cms dilated.
Because of this, starting me on meds to open the cervix wasn’t an option and
they were immediately ready to start the pitocin. It, plus the antibiotics to
treat me being GBS+, plus the saline to keep me hydrated were all flowing by
6:15 am.
I was a little bit upset about going right to the pitocin. I
had hoped that cytotc or some other cervix-softening drug would get my labor
started and we could avoid the pitocin altogether but Dr Hecker explained that
it wouldn’t have been effective, given that I was already at 3 cms. I tried to
focus on staying positive but I kept remembering all my reading about how every
intervention is a step closer to c-section. I raised these concerns with the
Doc and she said that they would do everything possible to avoid cutting and
that they were starting me on the lowest possible pitocin dose in hopes that my
body would see it as a “jump start” and take over.
The conversation with Dr Hecker
made me feel a little better and, at that point, we thought it was time to
hurry up and wait. Brandon decided to head down to the cafeteria for some
breakfast (barely an hour after we hit the drive thru!) and I picked up my book
for a while. Brandon came back with some biscuits and gravy and then promptly
fell asleep. I was starting to feel a few contractions and was able to take
deep breaths and get thru them without much effort. Pain was not more than a 2,
although I was having trouble getting comfortable. I eventually settled on my
left side and kept reading and breathing thru contractions.
At 8:15, Dr Hecker came back and
checked me. I’d gone to 4 cms (one cm in 2 hours) and, because of this
relatively slow progression, Doc said she’d like to break my waters. She said
that breaking the bag of waters can often help to move labor along without
having to up the drugs too much. I agreed and she pulled out a long plastic
hook and went to work. It didn’t hurt but was kind of an odd pressure sensation
– truth be told, I’d rather have my waters broken again than to have another IV
started! The waters were clear which was awesome because it meant that Daniel
had not pooped inside me. When the baby has a bowl movement, there is always
the danger of aspirating the meconium during birth so it was awesome to have
something we didn’t have to worry about.
The one downside of having my
waters broken was that I wasn’t allowed to get out of bed due to the risk of
umbilical cord prolapse. This is when the umbilical cord comes out of the mom
before the baby and – as you can imagine – can be a problem. So I kept laboring
in bed and continued to have some trouble getting comfortable while I breathed
thru the contractions. More than once, I’d shift around only to wind up back on
my left side.
At 9:30, nurse Karen came back in
because my blood pressure was dropping (not really because I’ve always had low
blood pressure but they were a little nervous about it) and put me on oxygen.
My contractions were picking up and my pain was approaching 5s and 6s. I
started to notice that, while I could breathe thru the contraction itself, I
was tensing up as each new one started and I was having trouble making myself
relax. It was such and odd sensation because I knew I needed to relax but I
couldn’t.
By 10 AM, they were worried about
Daniel’s heartbeat decelerating and rolled me onto my right side to try to get
into a position that he liked a little more. What we didn’t know at the time
was that this was going to be the first of many concerns about his heartbeat.
Once on my right side, he stabilized a bit and they were content to let me keep
laboring. I wasn’t timing my contractions at all (since we were in the hospital
and I figured they were doing that) but I’d guess they were about 4 or 5
minutes apart at that point.
When they checked me again at
11:30, I was 6 cms. That means that I’d only gone 2 cms in a little over 3
hours. I was beginning to understand why they say that inductions can average
24 hours! Over the next 90 minutes, the contractions seemed to get worse and I
was certain that I must be making progress. They got to the point where I was
starting to cry through them and needed to hold on the Brandon’s hand.
At 1 PM when they next checked, I
was still at freaking 6 cms and thought I was going to lose my mind. We decided
to go ahead and get the epidural. Part of me was extremely upset about this because
I was hoping to go without meds – although, yes, I see the irony/stupidity of
trying to go “med free” when the meds are what put you in labor in the first
place. The process of putting in the epi was much harder than I expected. They
had me sit up on the side of the bed and lean on Brandon and the nurse – while
trying to sit completely still. Something about sitting up (or just general
labor) meant that my contractions were coming about every minute – even tho
they had turned the pitocin completely off. I was crying out in pain from the
contractions and tensing up in anticipation of each one while the poor doc was
trying to place the needle.
Once the epidural was in, my left
side went almost completely numb right away but I had a bizarre shooting/stabby
pain on my right side almost exactly where my appendix scar is. It was really
freaking me out that I couldn’t feel my left leg at all – I couldn’t move it
and kept thinking I had fallen off the bed – but could totally feel my right
leg and this shooting pain. The nurses and the anesthesiologist kept trying to
reposition me and kept checking to see if the right side pain was going away.
Even tho I could still feel pressure and knew I was having contractions, they
didn’t hurt like they had before.
It took about a half an hour for
them to put the epi in and get me settled and they were ready to check me again
and turn the pitocin back up. Turns out that, in that 30 minutes, I had gone
from 6 cms to 9 cms – no wonder I was wanting to scream through the
contractions! They told me to rest and labor for a bit to see if he’d drop
down. I was so tired at this point that I wanted to nap so I tried to close my
eyes.
Next thing I knew (some time
between 2 and 2:30) it was time to push. I’d agreed to allow students to be
present so there was nurse Karen, Dr Hecker, the baby nurse, the assistant
nurse, and the medical student when we got started. I pushed a few times and,
while they were being encouraging, it was fairly clear that we weren’t making
enough progress. Daniel was high and his heartbeat kept decelerating in between
pushes. They decided to thread a uterine monitor up inside me so that they
could have a better idea of what his heartbeat was doing.
All of a sudden, his heartbeat was
the loudest thing in the room and listening to it became my focus. It was
bizarre to hear it drop with each contraction and then there was an eternity in
between beats as we waited for it to pick up. In an instant, Dr Hecker and the
million nurses were back – this time with an attending physician – saying that
it was time for this baby to be born. I started pushing again and was finally
making some progress. It was great to hear them say that he had hair and that
they could see him coming but still terrifying because his heartbeat would drop
during each contraction.
Dr Hecker decided that Daniel was
having to work too hard and that they were going to have to use the vacuum. I
was really frightened at that point – obviously because I didn’t know if he was
ok and also because the vacuum is the last step before a c section. They got
everything organized and in place (all while I kept pushing) and then said that
we really needed to get him out on the next push because this was taking too
long.
So, on the next push, with all my
might, the help of a vacuum, a tear and an episiotomy, Daniel Eugene was born
at 3:03 PM. Because of the vacuum, I couldn’t hold him right away and they
plopped him in the warmer to check on everything while they sewed me up. He
yowled right away and had an APGAR score of 9/9 so – despite his funny cone
head and purple feet – he was perfect and weighed in at 6 pounds, 14 oz
They brought him back to me within
just few minutes and laid him on my chest. To his father’s amusement, Daniel proceeded
to poop all over me but I just didn’t care. Looking at his little face, all I
could think of was the “I am a child of the King, yes I am King Jesus’ child”
song that mum wrote when I was tiny. He was so gorgeous!
