Forgive me. This is a little long...but, I want to have this documented for myself and I've always loved hearing other people's birth stories. I'm hoping my blog posts will help me pull together Austin's baby book, which I plan to make in iPhoto.
Sweet Austin, you gave us quite a scare on the day you were born...
On Monday, October 10th, I started my day as usual…woke up sometime between 7 and 7:30am. Went downstairs, made a pot of coffee for Andy and had my regular bowl of cereal and glass of orange juice. I started working on the last project I needed to finish for work before maternity leave. Around 8:30 or so, I started feeling faint cramps in my lower abdomen…nothing sharp, just a dull ache. I kept working for another 30 minutes or so, and then decided I should probably take a shower just in case I went into labor later in the day. At the childbirth prep classes, they told us that first labors usually take at least 12 hours and to shower and lay down for at least an hour to time contractions before you call the doctor and head to the hospital. So, I figured I had at least a few hours to get ready.
Around 9, I went upstairs and told Andy, who was working from home, that I was going to take a shower and that I thought maybe I was starting to go into labor. By the time I got out of the shower, I was down on the floor crawling around in pain. I got in bed to lay down and start timing contractions. They were exactly 4 minutes apart and were getting more and more painful. I decided that I couldn’t wait a full hour to call the doctor, so I called and they said to go ahead and come in to get checked. I was bound and determined to finish blow-drying my hair and getting ready before we left for the doctor. I wanted to look somewhat decent in the hospital pictures. Well, that didn’t happen! I was in too much pain, so we quickly finished packing the hospital bag (thank goodness it was 90% packed already) and ran out the door to go to the doctor.
We got to the doctor around 10:30 or so. My doctor and hospital are only about 5 minutes away from our house, thank God! He took one look at me and said “that doesn’t look like a face that is going home today.” He checked me and I was dilated 3cm. My doctor’s office is basically attached to the Hospital, so we walked over …well, walked halfway then caught a ride with the security guy on the golf cart because I was in so much pain.
We checked in at Labor and Delivery, had to wait about 5 minutes in a waiting room, and then were admitted to my room. My L&D nurse’s name was Sheila – she was amazing and such a rock for us that day. The anesthesiologist came right away and I was able to get an epidural very quickly. I can’t remember the exact timeframe, but I'm guessing it was probably around noon. Thank God for epidurals – I felt so much better!
This is when it starts to get a little foggy for me…I can't remember the exact sequence of events…
Austin’s heart rate started to drop a little low during contractions. Apparently, 90 is the bottom of the normal range and his was dropping to 70 at this point. They gave me oxygen and rolled me from side to side to see if that would stabilize his heart rate. I think this worked for a little bit but they couldn't get the heart rate completely stable. They had to put in the electrode heart rate monitor on his scalp because the stomach straps weren't working well.
At some point, I think probably around 1:15 or 1:30, I was fully dilated, so they had me start pushing. I think I pushed only a few times, but his heart rate wasn’t cooperating. Dr. E thought the umbilical cord might be wrapped around something, so the pushing and contractions pulled on the cord and made his heart rate drop.
I heard someone say something about prepping the O.R. and at some point looked up and saw that there were about 10 new people in my room. I knew that wasn’t good! Dr. E’s plan was to get me into the O.R. and have me push in there since Austin was so close to being born. Pretty quickly after I got to the O.R., Austin’s heart rate dropped again sharply (30 was the lowest), so they decided they needed to just go for the C Section. Andy had time to get scrubbed in for the surgery, but I was in there for a few minutes alone. I've never really been in a hospital, or had surgery, so it was a little scary because I could tell everyone was moving fast. I remember signing the consent form as they were rolling me into the room.
Once they made the incision, I heard them say “lots of meconium” …I obviously couldn't see anything so I was worried. I could hear him cry(phew!) and Andy assured me he was ok. It turns out that there was week old Meconium in the water – scary! Once they put him on the scale, Austin weighed in at 5lbs 8oz…quite small for a 39 week baby. They were a little concerned because it looked like he had lost weight in the womb – his skin was dry and wrinkly and he had no fat on his little body.
The nurses said he looked like a post term baby. Apparently post term babies lose weight after a certain point. The other theory (the one I think is correct), is that the placenta stopped doing its job a little early. We also learned later on that his umbilical cord was very small – which can be very dangerous during pregnancy and could have been part of the weight loss issue. He truly is our little miracle baby. We had no idea any of this going into this day…all of my ultrasounds and appointments were perfect!
I barely got to see him before Andy and Austin went to the recovery room and the doctors finished putting me back together. I remember feeling panicked because I was numb up to my chin and I felt like I needed the oxygen mask to breathe still. Andy said it was about 30 minutes before we were all together again in the room.
Once in the recovery room, Austin’s temperature was very low – around 94 degrees. We could tell that the nurses were stressed again. The NICU nurses came in to help get his temperature back up. After an hour or so in the warming tray, with a warming pad under his back and wrapped around his feet, they got his temperature back up.
They prepped us that they were likely going to have to take him to the NICU to monitor his temperature, but they were finally able to stabilize it and I was finally able to hold my baby! Good news but we weren't done yet.
At some point when we were in the recovery room, our nurse came back in and said “not to alarm you, but is there any possible way your water broke last week and you don’t remember?” I’m 99.9% sure that it didn’t…the only thing I could imagine is that it could have broke in the bath tub the night before…but I think would have known. After talking to Dr. E at my check up, I think the water just dried up at some point. They were on the phone a lot with his pediatrician and ended up taking his blood to test for an infection – thankfully the blood work came back quickly and he was perfectly healthy! By the end of a long day, the only concern was his weight…to keep his weight up, we had to supplement feed him with a little syringe at every feeding so he wouldn’t lose much weight in the hospital. Thankfully, Austin only dropped to 5lbs 5oz (3%) during the week!
On Wednesday, Austin had to spend the day and night under the biliruben light for Jaundice. Thankfully, by Thursday morning his levels were back down and he didn’t have to go back under the light. He had to wear little eye shields the whole time he was under the light and the darn things wouldn't stay on! Andy and Jan had to sit next to him the whole time to make sure they stayed on.
A lot of the week was a blur… we hardly have any pictures, I look a wreck, and we slept a total of 5 hours the entire week! I had always envisioned taking cute pictures in the hospital with all of our visitors, pictures before delivery showing that we were in the hospital, cute family pictures of the 3 of us, etc…but we ended up asking for no visitors besides family since the week was stressful and we looked horrible all week and didn't think to take pictures! Oh well! We can live without the pictures and are just so thankful for a healthy baby boy!
Ok…phew…that was long!
Scary story, but so glad it ended with a perfectly healthy little boy! Congrats!
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