Sew.What.: birth story

Eli came into the world nice and quietly. Here is his story....

We got to the hospital for my repeat c-section around 530am on Wednesday. They got us all checked into our room and me in my fancy paper gown. My biggest concern was my IV - when I had Aiden they blew 3 veins in my left arm before the settled on the right, and then the plastic IV clamp was on my wrist and left a scar still visible today. Thankfully, the nurse who was in charge this time had no problems and got it first try with no pain. I didn't even get a small bruise when it was removed! The nurse told me what to expect during surgery, they turned on my heating gown, shaved my incision site etc. The anesthesiologist came in and took a look at my spine and said it looked like there would be no problems.

Next thing I know our moms are here in the room, the nurse comes and gives Kris his surgery scrubs to put on and we are set to go. I give hugs and kisses, they wheel me to the OR and help me to walk in and get seated on the table. It's really strange just sitting around waiting to have a baby. I watched the nurse open and lay out all the sterile equipment, the nurses were counting things off out loud. My Dr. is short, so I made fun of her when she asked for a step stool. My spinal was quick and painless. It really wasn't bad at all, the worst part was sitting on the cold table! The numb and warm legs set in almost immediately. They helped me lay down since I couldn't feel my lower half. A few minutes after I was laid down my blood pressure went up really high and I got hot and dry heaved for about 2 minutes. The anesthesiologist was great, put a cold cloth on my face, got my blood pressure down really quick and I felt fine after that. They got the paper partition up and Kris came in. We were set.

The surgery took what seems like no time at all. I think we began about 10 minutes before 8 and at 8:09am my Dr told Kris to stand up and start taking pictures. Eli was here. Kris got some great pictures of Eli being pulled out and the first minute while he was being held by my Dr. He only let out a little cry when he came into the world, but it was again the most beautiful sound ever. On the way to weigh him the nurse brought him to me to see his feet - the were perfect to me. He weighed 6lbs 5oz, and was 19.5 inches long. He scored 9's on his agar's.

Tiffany

Kris cut the cord, he got all swaddled up and brought him over to me. The rest of the surgery was a breeze. Kris and I just sat and looked at our little miracle. We still can't believe that God helped us create this two amazing boys. We are soo lucky. We had an extra nurse in the OR who was just there to shadow, so she took our camera and took some first family photos. In the recovery room all went well. The moms were allowed in 1 at a time to see me and the baby. Eli and I were holding our own without a problem, they brought in a bottle and my mom was the first to feed him since my arms were still numb to me and Kris wasn't in the room. My father in law also came in to see Eli. After 2 hours I was wheeled back to my room.

The rest of the day was exactly what I expected. All of our family came to visit, Aiden was introduced to his little brother and he seemed to love him. He wasn't sure about him, but was thrilled to see me for sure. We took pictures, my dad and all Kris' aunts came that evening. My friend Tiffany came in the evening and brought me some magazines to read. She'd never held a newborn and she got to feed him and hold him and it was really fun sharing that with her. It was nice being able to have visitors this time in the hospital {swine flu last time meant no visitors at all}. Kris's aunts brought me a big bouquet of flowers too!

Over the next few days Eli was wearing preemie diapers and clothes because he was just soo tiny. He passed his hearing test, no jaundice, and the pediatrician told us that he had "a boring case of club feet". He said that because you can easily manipulate his foot now and almost hold it into a corrected position he appears that casts may be all he will need. Our first appointment with the pediatric orthopedic dr is on the 28th so he will get his first cast and we will see what the outlook is then.

Going home - soo tiny in his car seat

The rest of the hospital stay was pretty typical, except for a certain nurse on Friday. The nurse from hell is a long story in itself, so I will put it in a separate post. It is certainly worth a read though, she was one interesting character and I managed to put all the nurses on alert to her situation.... stay tuned.

We were released on Saturday because we were doing so well. Nurses couldn't believe I was up walking that same evening, I took a shower the next day and was trying to tidy up the hospital room. The nurse told me I needed to relax that I just had surgery. There was even one dr. who came in and thought she had the wrong room because I was up being so active and looked so good just 24 hours after my c-section.

It all started as planned. A scheduled induction on Wed Oct 7th. We arrived at the hospital at 7:30pm and were immediately ushered into our room and told "we had 5 deliveries come in in the last hour and we may not be able to keep you here toinght". She was nice to us, but you could tell they were really busy and overwhelmed. So I got a gown on and a while later they came and checked on Aiden - after 20 minutes on a monitor he was doing great, so they told us to go home and we would try again tomorrow. She said they couldn't admit me because they didn't have enough staff to make sure that we were fully taken care of which isn't fair, or safe for us and Aiden. I was heartbroken to leave without my baby in my arms. I don't know how, but I got some sleep that night. We waited for the call the next morning. I took my "last pregnant shower" again. Sad.

Thursday we got a call at 11am telling us to come on in at 12:30pm and we'd get this show on the road. The plan was still to use the cervical ripening procedure which would take 6 hours before we could start pitocin. Well, before they could get started, I didn't have any IV's hooked up or anything, surprise surprise I start gushing stuff! I went pee and it kept up. Then I sat in bed and a huge gush came out, I really did feel like I was just sitting there peeing myself. It was the strangest feeling ever to sit there and just keep gushing. They did a test on it to see if it was my water, and the test said no! However, I kept dripping through my exam and I just felt it was my water despite the test, I mean we had problems getting a positive HPT too, why wouldn't we have problems now! Hours later they determined it must have been a forebag and I really had been ruptured.

During my exam they decided that he was at -1 station and I was 30% effaced and now at about 3-4cm. So we were making some progress, I was happy he was dropping down. At 5pm they started me on pitocin and an IV. I was already having regular contractions when they started pitocin, but they were not very painful, they were about 2 or 3 minutes apart though. I made it up until 8pm when I decided I should get the epi before they got much worse. They say "don't wait too long to ask for the epi" and boy I thought I was right on it when I asked. I was doing okay, I was still only at 4cm but 15 minutes later I thought I was dying! So the request was sent out and I was 3rd on the list to see the dr. I was starting to have some bad contractions, then they got worse! By 9pm I was sitting in the rocking chair in soo much pain. My entire body was shaking soo violently during each contraction. I was having my mom sit on the floor holding my legs down and my husband was standing behind me holding my head and shoulders so I wasn't shaking soo badly. I had a cold wash cloth on me because I was feeling sick to my stomach with each one. They were coming back to back and all I could do was breathe through them and cry. It had taken me a while to decide to just order the epi because my pain was still manageable, boy was I so surprised that in 15 minutes it went from my smart "get it early" choice to praying the pain would just end. So 9:30 rolls around and finally we are getting started on the epi, I was beyond thrilled. I did really well laying on my side and being still while he did his work. I thought I would be golden after this.

30 minutes later I was still feeling every contraction on my low right side. I was starting to complain and feeling the need to "breathe" through the contractions again. I kept telling the nurse that something wasn't right, I just wasn't getting the relief I thought I would be. By 11 the nurse could see my pain again and we ordered a redo. At 1130 the head of the anesthesiologist department came in and he felt really bad for me. He was so very gentle when he took out and redid my epi. Of course it was even easier than the first because I was half numb. Within 5 minutes my entire lower half and even part of my right arm were soo numb. The dr had given me a double dose to start with to make up for the first time. I was able to rest finally! My dr checked me next at 1am after some resting and I was at 4cm, 50 % effaced and -1 station. We were finally seeing some progress now.

Aiden didn't like the monitors that were on my stomach. He had been moving around so much then entire time or kicking the monitor or just plain finding a way to get away from it. The poor nurses had to readjust the stomach monitor soo many times throughout the night. We thought that once I rested he'd calm down. We were wrong. His heart rate just kept jumping around and the decision was made to check me and put an internal monitor on his head. This was at 2am and I was now at 6cm. I was thrilled! Then we had another set back with my monitor. It wasn't picking up any contractions and they were worried about that. Another internal monitor for me it looked like. At 220am they placed this one, it just fits right between his head and my cervix which I found very interesting. By this time I was at 7cm. In only 20 minutes I had gone another cm! Now were are talking. The dr decided to stick around (she was the on call that night) because we didn't think it would be long until delivery time. I was getting nervous and couldn't believe I would be pushing soon. How do you prepare for that? My nurse told me to rest, she encouraged Kris, mom and I all to cat nap until I was woken up by the urge to push.

We had been napping the best we could but I kept having to be watched because Aiden was somehow still managing to be a pest with his monitor. His heart rate kept dropping and then would be normal again almost instantly. 3:45am and 3 nurses came rushing into the room. They immediately grab me and start turning me onto my side. Then they watched the screen next to my bed. Not a minute later they swiftly flipped me to my other side. They were talking amongst themselves about "maybe try on all fours" "no, she is way to numb to attempt that" "he's not coming out of it" then it happened.... they started unplugging everything and all I heard was "we gotta go now, call the dr". My poor mom and Kris are sitting on the pull out sofa in a complete haze and I'm laying in a now fastly moving bed not understanding what was going on.

As we were all being rushed out of the room a nurse explained that Aiden's heartbeat had dropped a lot, into the 80's, but unlike the other times during my labor it would not come back up. They were going to have to do an emergency c-section because they needed to get him out now. I was crying, and all I could say was "is he breathing?" I was soo worried about him, I could care less that I was having surgery. Kris and mom were left with the knowledge that his heart rate was dropping at the OR door and they told Kris they'd be right back for him. They were both in tears as well. Once I was in the OR they moved me from my bed to the operating table. His heart rate was becoming stable again so my dr explained that now we were not going to rush, we would slow down and make this as normal as possible as not to stress out me or the baby further. I was finally starting to relax and understand what was going on. I loudly announced to everyone in the room "well at least now I won't poop when I push!". I got a lot of laughs, but I was being super serious, I was concerned about it all day. I just love my dr, she was very reassuring that Aiden was okay and laughed at my comment. The same anesthesiologist was at my head and was explaining everything to me (they are going to clean you, now they are shaving you.. they are taking scrubs to Kris and will tell your mom everything is okay now etc). He gave me more drugs to top me off at this point and tried to calm me down until Kris could come in.

At 3:55am surgery was started and we found out right away that Aiden was sunny side up and had his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck twice. My dr said that even had I gotten to 10cm we would have ended up in a c-section because his cord was just cutting off way to much oxygen and pushing would have been too stressful for him. It made me feel better to realize that this would have been the end result no matter what - better to have done it early then to cause him stress for who knows how much longer. He arrived screaming at 4:14am. Kris stood up with the video camera and taped him just as he was pulled out. Kris was sobbing by this point and I began to cry when I heard him cry. I was in shock that was my son screaming. He scored 8 and 9's on his apgar tests, which is wonderful. He was 6lbs 15oz (far from the "at least 8lbs" we expected), 19 1/2 inches long and his head was 13 inches in diameter. It was beyond amazing when they brought him over and I finally saw his face.

Kris held him near my head and they finished closing me up, we were a family. Aiden was screaming when he came out but within 30 seconds of Kris holding him and me talking to him Aiden was wide eyed and just staring at us. You can see this in the pics, he just calmed down immediately and just took in our faces. I didn't realize it right away but the anesthesiologist had grabbed Kris' camera and was snapping our first family pics for us. He took a lot of them and I'm soo grateful he did. He was a wonderful dr, but more than anything he was a compassionate man. In the recovery room my mom got to see him, Kris walked out holding him and my mom just started crying. Everyone was okay but so emotional after such the emergency. Aiden was quickly put to breast but my arms were still numb and I couldn't hold him just yet. I had the shakes again as I came down from the meds. Later on they would cause me to have extreme itches too.

Having a c-section was something I knew would be a possibility because I was being induced. The fact that my water broke on it's own because induction started didn't change much. I knew the chances and didn't mind if it happened. I just always assumed if I had a c-section it would be because I wasn't progressing on my own. Or that he was too big to fit after hours of pushing. To have to be rushed to the OR and not knowing if he would be alright in the end was the scariest thing in my life. I hadn't even seen his precious face and his life was already at risk, nothing I could do. In the end I believe it happened like it did for a reason. I believe had we continued with labor and found out about the cord near the end it would have been much worse. God has a plan.
Aiden and I have been doing so very wonderful. He is eating a lot, and like a little champ. He has gone down in weight though, hopefully that will turn around with tonight's weigh in as he is getting close the losing the 10% max allowed, that is a bad sign. He is soo small he looks premie to me and his newborn clothes just swim on him. He has such a personality already too, but I will write more about him and his characteristics in many other posts I'm sure.

My healing has been soo much easier than I ever imagined with a surgery. I was up and out of bed by the 24hr mark (3am Sat to be exact). I took a shower on my own by Saturday evening. I've been keeping on top of my pain meds so that I don't get to a point where it's hard to get comfortable again. Better to take drugs every 4hrs than to wait 5 and be in pain again! I still have a nice swollen stomach and a scale in the hall says I'm still the same weight as when I came in to deliver. Isn't that nice? Oh well, no worries. This so called 6 week period I'm supposed to have seems like a joke to me. I am, and have since right after surgery, barely bleeding. I mean to the point I could wear a pad all day and still not leak. Not that I am, I'm creeped out by using pads so I'm obsessively changing my mesh panties. I've heard such minimal bleeding is wonderful and is due to the c-section. I guess my dr was sweet enough to really umm, clean me out if you will, before she closed me up. My recovery has been so easy that each new nurse (a new one every 12hrs) is shocked to see me and mentions it.

I can't believe it all happened the way it did, but I have to say I am in love with my birth story. I was going to be induced, I ended up starting labor on my own, I went through 2hrs of awful, horrible contractions (just because I was a wuss during them doesn't mean I shouldn't get credit for it!) and I think in general we all handled the emergency situation pretty well. I'm now a c-section mama and looking forward to having at least 2 more kids. I fully plan to embrace this easier recovery and just schedule c-sections in the future. This was God's plan for me. Maybe he didn't want to see me poop either?

I wrote this for myself and for my family and friends to read, but over at Mama Kat's this week's topic happens to be the story of your birth, so I get to share it with all the blog world now too. I hope you enjoyed.