A Long Time Coming - The Birth Story

This is a very delayed post as our little one is already a month old, but I wanted to make sure I documented the birth story however late this might be.

I was scheduled to go in on January 24th to be induced because there wasn't any movement from our little guy and docs didn't want me to go much longer.  But on Wednesday, the 23rd, at about noon, my water broke!  I had been teleworking for the last 2 weeks and my mom was in town anxiously awaiting the arrival of her first grandson.  My mom and I were changing to get ready to go for a short walk around the neighborhood and I felt a small, warm gush of water down under. It was very strange and I went right to the bathroom to see if I had peed myself.  Nope, hadn't peed myself. I wiped and the fluid was clear but I thought no way - and continued to get dressed.  Then I felt it again, this time it was a trickle. Another bathroom check revealed that I couldn't stop this flow and I called my mom into the room.  After a few minutes of this trickle, we decided that indeed my water broke.  I was so thrilled and couldn't stop laughing. 

I called E at work and asked him if he wanted to come home. He was a bit confused but then I told him my water broke and he was so excited.  Mom and I decided to take showers as we hadn't gotten dressed for the day yet and I knew we had about 20 minutes before E would get home.  The whole time in the shower I was giddy with excitement.  Contractions hadn't started yet so I felt great!

E arrived at home and was definitely a little flustered. I made sure he calmed down and told him everything would be fine. I called my doc and told him we'd be in in about 15-20 mins.  This was it!!!

Mom, E and I arrived in labor and delivery and the whole thing was so surreal. I felt amazing and I knew I should have started to feel awful but I was trying to focus on the amazing part.

So they checked me in, got me hooked up to the monitors and since contractions still hadn't begun, they started me on pitocin.  I still couldn't quite feel the contractions and had to ask E and mom if I was even having them based on the monitor.  When I checked in I was 2 cm dilated and the pitocin was going to kick things into gear.  Fast forward 12 hours later and I was only 3cm dilated and baby had not moved down.

At the 6-7 hour mark, I started to get a little nervous that I wasn't dilated any further. I hadn't asked for any pain medication because the contractions were manageable.  This was not good I knew.  At the 12 hour mark - about 2 am on the 24th, my doctor did an internal exam where he would be able to tell if the baby was eventually going to move down.  He asked me to tell him how much it had hurt on a pain scale -- we were at 8, 9, 10 here people when he did this exam.  OMG that hurt way more than any contraction.

At this point, we discussed C-section. WHAT!?!? OMG this is not what I had planned. But the doc explained that there was less than a 10% chance that this baby was going to come out vaginally. He said we could wait a few hours to see if baby would come down, but he was not hopeful.  And the only reason he said we could wait is because baby was tolerating the pitocin well and looked great on the monitor. If we did the C-section now, then we could all calmly get ready and go into the operating room.  If we waited and all of a sudden baby was in distress then we'd be in an emergency situation.  He gave us some time alone to talk about the decision.

Que FREAK OUT!  I am not squeamish about surgery but I've never been in a surgery while I'm awake.  I was so scared of the thought even though I knew what had to be done.  E and mom helped talk me through the decision to go forward now, but I can tell you I was scared out of my mind. 

Once the decision to proceed was made, they got E dressed in scrubs and started to get me ready as well. I was only allowed to have one person in the OR with me unfortunately so E had the sole responsibility of keeping me calm.  They wheeled me into the operating room alone as E had to wait in another room until I was prepped.

I have never been the anxious type but I will tell you, I felt as if I might jump out of my own skin. I was definitely having an anxiety attack as they were prepping me - inserting the needle for my spinal, feeling numb, them laying me down on the table, the drape going up - the whole time I thought my heart might stop and I'd wake up from this nightmare.

The anesthesiologist was on my side of the curtain and trying to talk to me to keep me calm. I just kept wanting E to come in and join me and after what seemed like an eternity, finally he was there.  He brushed my hair on the side of my head and told me how well I was doing.  I was shaking and sooo cold.  I didn't know when things really started but I heard my doc on the other side so I knew he was in the room. The surgery felt like an eternity.

I could feel pressure but no pain. I was trying to think of anything, anything! to take my mind off the fact that on the other side of that curtain I was being sliced open.  Seriously the scariest moment of my life.  Then someone told me I was going to feel a lot, I mean A LOT of pressure.  OK - here goes!  Umm yeah it felt like someone had placed a Mac truck on my chest. I've never felt pressure like that in my life.  Two big "pressures" later and we heard cries and then someone lifted our little guy up so we could see him.

He was bright red, a little puffy and had a full head of hair! But perfect - totally perfect!  OMG that was my son and immediately I felt relief.  E left me and went to tend to our guy in the corner of the room. I kept looking back at them so I wouldn't think about what was still going on on the other side of the curtain. 

I watched as they weighed our little guy and did all sorts of things I couldn't quite make out but assumed it was the Apgar stuff.  A minute or 2 later, E was back by my side with our little man wrapped up in his arms. I kept trying to concentrate on E and my son, but I could still feel all the pressure going on on the other side of the curtain.

At one point in the surgery, my doctor asked about my previous laparoscopy.  He asked me who did it and I told him.  Now way back when I had this surgery, I hated the surgeon who did my lap. She had the worst bedside manner and assured me before she had opened me up that there would be no endo.  How wrong was she!?! Anyway, basically since there was so much going on in there, she excised the 2 cysts on my ovaries and then sewed me back up. She said she wasn't comfortable cutting any more.  This resulted in me having to have an appendectomy 2 months later becuase she found a growth while she was in there but didn't remove it.  YAY - who wants to have 2 surgeries when they could have easily had just one.

Well, back to the C-section. My current OB asks what the previous surgeon found and I told him, stage 4 endo. Then, I followed it up with the question, "Why? Is it everywhere?"  And he responded yes.  Of course it was everyhwere again.  After a few minutes I smelled a funny smell and asked E what it was even though I knew...E responded that it was probably some medicine or ointment or something like that, but I knew better.  My doc was removing my endo. 

He told me later that he did some micorsurgery while he was in there to help remove the endo and restore some of my fertility.  Apparently things were really really messed up in there. 

So another 10 minutes later and we were finished. Oh yeah, I forgot the part where I vomited while on the operating table.  I remember that clearly, but the next hour is a little blurry. 

Back in my room, I finally got to hold my son! It was amazing and I was so happy to be finished with the whole ordeal.  About an hour later they moved us into the mother/baby unit and we settled in as a family. 

I have so many emotions I associate with this day - anxiety, joy, happiness, terror. It was both the happiest and scariest day of my life. 

It's 1:30 am

And I'm trying to stay awake as I nurse my son.

These last 2.5 weeks have been some of the hardest of my life. Forget recovering from the c section and new mommy exhaustion and feeling overwhelmed - but I've been the absolute sickest I've ever been in my whole life and docs still aren't quite sure they know what I had/have.

Diareah for 5 days followed by intense abdominal and back pain, then headaches, fever of 103, chills and all over body aches. This landed me in the urgent care where they tested me for flu ( negative) determined I wasn't in need if IV fluids and mad me do stool samples. Uuuhhhh gross. Basic asssessment said i had a GI bug and to go home, rest and drink fluids. Geee great.

2 days later I got the chills so bad my lips turned blue and had a fever of 103! This landed me in the ER where the ER docs and the OB team assessed me for about 3 hrs and all they knew for sure was that my white blood count was up and there was  a lot of bacteria in my urine. After everyone consulted each other the only thing that seemed to fit was a kidney infection

So I took the antbiotics and didn't feel any change unrtil about 4 days later. One day I'll feel 80% better followed by a day where I feel like death again. It has made enjoying my new family difficult which has made things emotionally difficult as well. I am on the mend but it will likely take another week before I'm 100% based on the pace of things.

I will post the birth story soon, just need some more time to recover.

Oh and baby is doing amazingly well! Gaining weight and eating like a champ. I'm just so thrilled it's me and not him with this sickness.

Quick Post

Sorry this has to be a quick post...but we ended up in a C-section after 12 hours of labor little man was not moving down.  It was both the scariest and happiest days of my life.  I have spent the last week and a half recovering from the C-section, sore nipples, a massive spinal headache that lasted for 2 days and 4 straight days of a stomach bug.  It's been a lot to handle but baby is doing so well and he's a very good sleeper. Will post more when I have more brain power.