Saturday, February 13th, 2010
Everything happened so quickly this time, three hours. I feel like I can fit the entire story onto a Post-It versus the four typed pages of Ella’s 20 hour labor and delivery. I couldn’t even type it out right away because I’ve been trying to piece it all together. Like a detective, I had to use phone records and other people’s recounts to figure out what happened.
40 weeks, my due date. I woke up feeling absolutely nothing. Because Ella was early, I was anticipating another early delivery, so everyday for the last week was agonizing. I felt late, even though I wasn’t. On my due date, I was pretty crabby that I felt nothing was going to happen, again…my membranes were stripped at 39 weeks, I’d walked, eaten spicy food and more. I was read to resort to jumping jacks!
I took a shower around 10:30a and when I got out, I was getting ready and felt fluid running down my leg – when I looked down, it was tinged pink. This is exactly what had happened with Ella. I wasn’t sure if it was my water leaking, but it was not like anything I’d experienced up to that point. I told Loran what was happening and it didn’t click with him that I was telling him that my water may be leaking. He carried on as usual, finally I was in tears that he didn’t care that my water may be broken…then he got it. Loran urged me to call L&D to see what they thought. They thought I should come in to be checked. Since I had been dilated to 4cm on Monday they told me I would stay if my water had broken or I was 6cm. They told us to come in at noon.
We called Nana and she and Nathan made their way over from their shopping to pick up Ella. We did our last minute packing, gave Ella a snack and did some cleaning just in case we were going to be gone a few days. I wasn’t holding out a lot of hope that this was it because I was having no contractions, and just minor leaking.
We packed up the car and set off to the hospital. But first, Loran had to stop at the library to return/checkout some books. This is how un-hurried and non-dramatic this “labor” was going. Obviously, this wasn’t our first baby! We got to the hospital (late) at 12:30 and we met our nurse, Sue, who set us up in a room right away. Last time, we’d been triaged and when I asked how we got a room, Sue said we were better candidates to stay since I was so dilated so she wanted to make sure I got a room because they were pretty full. They weren’t able to tell if my water had broken, but I was dilated to five with a bulging bag of water. Sue didn’t want to release me, and so she was really lobbying with the doctor on call to keep me because she was worried I’d go really fast.
Because it was a weekend, Dr. Goralski, my doctor, wasn’t on call. Dr. Votel was leery to give me pitocin because then they’d be inducting my labor since I wasn’t contracting. But, Sue lobbied for me and Dr. Votel decided to give me a small amount of pitocin to see if it started anything and they’d reassess me at 6:00p. If I was having contractions and making change, they’d keep me, otherwise, I’d be on my way home. Meanwhile, while everything was being ordered and set up, Loran left to go get lunch around 2:00p. He came back with both McDonalds and Jimmy John’s! He wasn’t going to be unprepared. Once again, no drama with this labor, very laid back. We sat back, watching Olympics and eating sandwiches and fries, hoping something would happen.
Before the pitocin could even take effect, I started to have very very mild contractions. Not even enough to pause and take much notice of. I sat on the monitors, getting my pitocin and eating my Jimmy John’s sub for an hour while they monitored Lily’s heart rate. Around 4, I was hooked up to a telemetry device that allowed me to walk around and still be monitored and received my first dose of the IV antibiotics for Strep B with another dose due at 8p before Lily was born. So, off I went, walking around the halls. At first, my contractions were so easy, I didn’t need to breathe through them. But, they started to get harder, almost with each lap. After 5p, I was really starting to feel pretty rough. Each contraction was making me stop, sway, lean on Loran and eventually cry. My parents and Chelsey arrived around 5:30 and I was not happy. Sue, noticing that my laps were getting slower and then eventually, I stopped passing the nurse’s station, came into the room to bring me the paperwork for the epidural. She had planned to check me at 6, but I was begging her to check me then because I was feeling horrible and really wanted the epidural. She wasn’t going to up my pitocin at that point, which I was grateful for!
Around 5:45, Sue checked me and I was dilated to 6, bulging bag and Lily’s head was still floating. Each contraction was torture. I was crying and told Loran I wanted my mom. Loran called my mom back into the room at 6:01p. I was also feeling extremely warm (despite having the room temp turned down to 62 degrees!) and asked for some wet cloths. Loran got me some wet paper towels for my forehead. I enjoyed them, until I had a contraction, then I’d peel them off my head and throw them across the room. Sue was going to order the epidural when my water broke a few minutes after 6p. And boy did it break! It felt so weird and then it really hurt. The water breaking had made me go from 6cm to 10cm immediately and Lily’s head went from floating to +3 in seconds. (+4 is crowning). Things then got crazy.
Suddenly, there was a flurry of activity. My pitocin was turned off completely. Doctors were called, nurses flew in and supplies were being tossed about. I was on my side clutching the rails and trying not to push. It was really hard because my body was trying so hard to push her out on its own. The pain was unbearable. Sue even came in with the epidural forms to be signed and I remember flailing my arms out trying to get the pen but when they checked me, she told me that I just had to wait and not push until they opened a tray. Suddenly, it dawned on me, there would be no epidural. The only thing standing between me pushing this baby out was tearing paper off of a tray. That, and securing a doctor. Dr. Votel was 10-15 minutes away, but Lily wasn’t going to wait for that. Three doctors were paged and showed up. One was an Obstetrician; the other two were Family Practice. We have suspicions that all three were residents because all three stood in the back of the room, wide-eyed, as if willing one of the other two to step in. Finally, the one I presume was the
I asked if I could push, and they said yes. I didn’t receive much guidance from anyone so I just went for it. The first push, I could feel the head coming out, but then my contraction went away while the head was half-way out. That was painful so I just kept pushing to expedite the process. I think I heard mystery doctor say the cord was around her neck. Dr. Votel came in right as Lily was coming out. Three pushes total. Chelsey informed me that she could hear me screaming from the waiting room. Probably…it hurt. But, the second she came out, the pain went away immediately and I was full of adrenaline and endorphins. I was so proud of myself! The placenta came out easily and Dr. Votel had to guide mystery doctor through stitches. I had a second degree tear, and the stitches hurt a bit. Loran once again, checked out the placenta and this time did see a little more of the birth. He was quite brave through this entire event, given how crazy it went, definitely a huge support for me.
Because Lily had made such a quick entrance into the world, she had quite a bit of fluid in her lungs and needed some suctioning. She scored 7 and 8 on her APGARs though. After she was suctioned out, we spent about an hour having skin to skin contact which was awesome. Lily nursed for the first time and we just bonded. Then she got weighed, washed up and had her procedures done. She weighed 7 pounds, 6 ounces and was 21 inches. My mom, dad and sister Chelsey came in to see her while she was under the warmer. My delivery nurse, Sue, left for the night and our new nurse, Kara came in. Kara happened to be the sister of our family friend, Angie. It was fun to have someone “familiar” to us. However, it was also a little weird to have her be involved in the clean-up, but she was so sweet and fun. It made our stay even better.
We had a great stay in the newly remodeled room and had many visitors. Loran even treated me to a massage/beauty treatment which was amazing and helped me feel much better. Even more fun, it happened on Valentine’s night. After the relaxing massage, we were asked by the nurses if we’d be willing to change rooms. They were getting quite full and there were more people coming in; must have been the snow that was falling. We agreed to move to another room. They’d set up a makeshift maternity area during their room renovations, unfortunately, the rooms were really, really small. We had to store our bags and gifts in the shower and poor Loran couldn’t open his bed/couch all the way or the nurses couldn’t open the door. And we needed them to have access because we sent Lily to the nursery both nights so we could rest up. They staff was very gracious towards us for moving and showered us with little gifts: a free smoothie coupon, free blooming onion at Outback Steakhouse (food every nursing mother needs...), some nice body lotion and shower gel. The small room didn’t leave much room for entertaining, or really moving around. It made going home a little easier. We were originally told we’d have to stay 48 hours because Lily had come so quickly, I hadn’t received my second dose of antibiotics so they needed to observe her to make sure she was healthy. But, they decided she wasn’t showing any signs of illness so we were able to go home around 2:30p once we completed all of our paperwork, nurse’s visits and various baby care training. It took Loran a couple of trips to get our stuff out to the car and then we were off to start our life as a family of four!
The time stamp on this photo is 4:40p - and I'm smiling. One hour later, I thought I was at death's door.
No comments:
Post a Comment