The Birth Story

Saturday, February 10th, I went to bed at midnight and tried to get some good sleep because I had a lot to do over the weekend and for the next 4 days before my c-section.  At 2 a.m. I woke up with these horrible cramps - it would last about 10 seconds and then stop.  It happened a few times before I decided to get into a hot bath.  So I drew the bath and laid in it for about 30 minutes but nothing was stopping these cramps.  I tried to lay back down in several different positions but it still hurt no matter what position I was in.  I went to look up online if this was real labor or not, but couldn't find anything that made me confident that I was in labor so I tried to go to bed again.  My roommate could hear me crying in pain when the contraction would start and he told me I should consider going to the hospital but I didn't want to go in the middle of the night.  I figured if the pain didn't go away in a few hours, then we could talk about that.  At 5 a.m. I tried to sleep again but it was to no luck - I would fall asleep and wake up to a contraction, only 15-25 seconds long and three to five times an hour.  At 8 a.m. my other roommate came home from work while I was having a contraction and told me I really should consider calling the doctor but again, I didn't want to or felt like I really needed to.  One last time I tried to go to sleep and it was just not working.  At 9, I finally called the hospital and they told me that it didn't sound like I was in labor at all but when I said "And I'm breech" they said "Come on it, and bring your bags."  It took me about an hour to finish (start) packing my bag for the hospital and Chris (roommate #1) went to go get gas in his car and then came and picked me up.

We got to the hospital at 10 and we were literally the only ones around.  He dropped me off in the front and parked in the garage and I went to ER to get admitted.  The lady had no idea what was going on and thought I was there to get an injection (?) and I said again "No, I'm here because I'm having contractions" and she said "Oh.  I need to go home" and sent me to Labor and Delivery.  So we walk over there and I explain to the nurse that I called and they told me to come in so she takes me to the back and sends Chris out to the waiting room and has me get in the hospital gown and lie on the table and straps me up with the two belts and starts taking my medical history.  We're halfway through the questions when I have another contraction and she says "Yeah, you're having contractions but they are very sporadic... let's check you."  Mind you, I've never had a pelvic exam done, not even during my pregnancy so she puts on her gloves and says "Deep breath" and oh man... yeah.

Then she pulls out her glove and says "I don't know what I'm feeling, but it's not a head or a butt... you're 100% effaced and 3 centimeters dilated.  Looks like you're in labor."  Then she runs the sonogram over me and says "See, I don't know how he's laying" and I said "His head is here (and pointed under my left ribs)" and she's telling me "No, I don't think so" as she's looking AT THE HEAD on the monitor...  Sigh.  So she gets the midwife who confirms what I said and says "We're going to have a baby today!"  I'm kind of in tears because I wasn't ready for this so I call my Mom and just say "Um, we're having a c-section today."  My Dad was out of town so she said she'd call him and they'd be on their way but I told her that she wouldn't be there in time for surgery by any means because they were already assembling, so take their time and just be there when I get out.  They allowed Chris to come back in and I told him what was going on and asked him to hold my phone as I filled out paperwork and got my IV in.  My Aunt Kathi (who is an RN) called just seconds later and he explained to her what was going on and she said she was on her way and would be there in 30 minutes and I grabbed the phone and said "See you in recovery, they aren't waiting."

I was then taken to the OR where the nurse who couldn't tell a head from a butt, grabbed the wrong chart for the doctor, who said "You're not 19 and Hispanic."  (Duh)  We got the right chart and they took me into the operating room and had me sit on the table while my anesthesiologist took his time in arriving.  My OB doctor had the day off so I was having another doctor from the same OB group do the surgery.  I didn't know her but I was told she was fairly new and she had 3 women in active labor at the hospital down the street so they were kind of in a hurry.  Lovely.  I was also worried because my friend Sara had delivered in the same hospital with one of the other doctors in my OB group and her surgery ended up in a horrible infection, and I didn't know what doctor she had so I was nervous that I got the same doctor she did.  The anesthesiologist came and gave me an epidural which hurt a little going in but I knew it was going to feel much better in a minute.  They got me prepped and let Chris come in and sit next to my head.  They had my right arm strapped down and the left arm with my IV in my wrist on the other side of the table and I asked Chris to just start talking to me about anything.  I don't even know what we talked about but he mentioned that he could smell my burning flesh.  I couldn't smell a thing because I had the oxygen tube in my nose but I told him to just talk to me about other stuff.  I felt a lot of pressure from the waist down and I kept saying "Ow, pressure" and they kept telling me it was okay and then all of a sudden I heard "WAH!" as I felt my entire body being lifted off the table from the stomach.  (He came out butt first.)

They took Drew to a table that was at a 90 degree angle to me on my left where Chris was seated and started cleaning him up and sticking a tube down his throat to get all the fluid out.  I was just in shock as Chris is saying "Wow, he's really beautiful" and the nurses were saying the same and talking about his head of blond hair and how rare it is to see that down in this area.  His APGAR score was an 8 and went up to a 9 after 5 minutes.  He was 7 pounds, 4 ounces and 18 inches long.  They cleaned him all up and handed him to Chris so I could see him.  I just fell in love.  Then they sewed me up and sent me into recovery where my aunt and uncle were waiting.  While they were doing the sonogram, they said that he had a full bladder and after birth they mentioned he only had 2 of the 3 vessels in his umbilical cord.  I had heard that at his 19 week sonogram but at my next sonogram, they counted all 3... so the debate started in recovery with one nurse saying "there's only two, look" and another saying "no there's three, you look" and it was very nerve wracking for me because I didn't even know what that meant.  Finally a nurse said "It could mean kidney problems and he already has a full bladder and hasn't urinated yet."  Then they told me to breastfeed.  I had no real clue what to do, despite taking a couple of classes and reading lots of material on it, but neither did Drew, but we figured it out.

Next I went to my postpartum room and my parents showed up shortly after and played with Drew.  Shortly after they left, it happened... Drew decided to empty his bladder.  However, he decided to empty it all over Chris's arm while he was changing Drew's diaper.  We were so happy that he didn't have kidney problems, that it didn't really matter that Chris now smelled like urine.  Well, at least it didn't bother me much, ha!

The third day (Monday), they said Drew was jaundiced and made him sleep under the bili-lights for 24 hours and his score didn't change one bit so I begged the pediatrician not to put him under again and they didn't.  It was a very long day for me, because I only got to feed him every four hours, and the rest of the day, he slept under those stupid lights.

Tuesday, also known as discharge day, he was circumcised by my OB (Dr. Williamson) before we left the hospital and (oops) he didn't have his umbilical cord stump anymore.  Depends on who you ask to find out what happened because I promise it just kind of fell out... however Chris knows that I might have helped it come out when Drew and I were trying out the football hold for feeding.  All I know is that he had his stump (and the security monitor attached to it) when he was with me, they took him for his circumcision, and when he came back, it was gone.  It doesn't quite help my story that the stump and monitor was later found in my robe (cough)...  He did really well in the circumcision - the nurse said he didn't even cry.  That's my trooper!