Birth Story

Well it has almost been two weeks so I guess I should probably get this all written down before I start to forget the details of the day.  Sadly, as many of you know labor never started for us.  As sad as it was, we had the understanding that our favorite doctor would induce on Thursday, December 1st. 

Now before we get into this lets talk about birth plans.  As Lillie is my first child I had no idea what to expect, so we really never made up a birth plan.  Instead we talked between the two of us as to what I really did NOT want to happen.  Remember dear readers:  I am deathly afraid of needles.  

• Did not want to be induced.  I have heard that labor during induction is more painful and intense.
• Really didn't want them to break my water.  Have heard that this really hurts.
• Dreading an epidural, but understood that I would really want one.  Hello NEEDLES!
• Cathedar...really didn't want one, kinda hoped we could make it without one
• C-Section.  Uh, duh this is a HECK NO!  My mom had all of her children via c-section as her pelvis was too small to deliver.  Lucky her however, she was given a general each time so she never had to live through the whole being awake while they have cut into you. 

7:00 a.m.  Arrive at the hospital for our induction.  David and my mom came with me.  We had an awesome nurse who made sure I felt comfortable and explained exactly what would be happening.  Not sure if this was for my benefit or that of the nursing student she had following her around.  Soon after we arrived they started my i.v.  Poor David, he had no idea how afraid I really was.  We had talked about my fears, but he has never been with me during a needle attack.  As the nurse approached my mom realized that I was about to loose it so she offered to come hold my hand.  By the time David realized what was happening I was surrounded by nurses and mom, so he got stuck at the foot of the bed rubbing my feet.   Just after the i.v. was placed he had to leave for school as he had a test he had to take.  We had believed that our induction would be later in the day so he had scheduled his test for first thing in the morning. 

8:02  Literally minutes after David walked out the door in came our Doctor.  He checked everything and decided that it was time to break my water.  As this was our first and I was not sure how fast things would proceed (that and I was scared) I asked the doctor to please wait until my husband reappeared.  Doc was not necessarily excited about this but he did as I asked and left for surgery.  Pit was administered at this point and once again they encouraged me to get my epidural as soon as possible.  Once again, I felt that I should wait, kinda wanted to see if I could withstand the pain and maybe make it without one.  David was back with in the hour and we continued to wait.

10:45  Doctor returns.  David has left the room (to go to the bathroom) once again.  After checking things out we have finally started to dialate and have now progressed to a 3.  Water was then broken.  Didn't hurt at all, just felt really gooey.  It was then that we learned that she had had a bowel movement (aka she pooped) in the womb and there was a considerable amount of meconium in the water.  The doc and nurses remained calm and explained the complication to me and that we would have an extra couple of people in the room during delivery to watch out for our daughter.  He then placed what he called 'babies first toy,' a foley cathedar into the womb, which would flush out the bad water and replace it with clean amniotic fluid so the baby was less likely to breath in the bad when she was born.  At this point I asked for my epidural (unless you are the doctor then it is called a happy-dural).

11:00  A very nice epidural man comes into place the contraption.  Gotta say as much as I dislike needles, I really liked this guy, he gives great back rubs!  Didn't take too long and the epi was placed.  After checking for problems he gave me some meds and left me to continue along my way.  Give or take ten minutes later I started to cry because of a blinding pain in my right side.  The nurse ran and grabbed Dan the epi man and as he returned he said the now dreaded words, "it didn't work."  Back up the the edge of the table I went and he tried again, and again, and a few more agains.  Eventually admitting defeat a new epi man appeared and he tried four more times before we were able to successfully administer the epidural.  In all it took 12 tries and 2 hours to place...all while the contractions were getting stronger and stronger because oh yes, that's right, the pitocin was turned up too high.  Ooops.

Eventually things calmed down, the epidural is my new best friend.  Honestly, getting it placed was not that bad.  I was all for them continuing the poking as longs as they took the pain away.  After sending my support crew (by this point Dad, Mom, David, and Stacy who had just left for work) to get themselves some lunch my nurse returned to place the cathedar.  No fun stories there.  Then we sat and waited the afternoon away.  At one point the nurse thought were were at a 5+ and at 6:00 she left for the day. 

6:00 brought on a new nurse who was agast at the state of my room.  she cleaned the room up and prepared the baby warmer, stating that this was the real reason that the baby had not yet arrived.  As she checked our progress we were sad to hear that she would not consider us to be as dialated as previously thought, instead she placed us at a 4.  Not so excited by this news we continued to wait as we started to notice that the monitor was loosing the babies heat rated.  Continually moving the monitor and even holding it in place proved not to help, this is where the nurse started to worry.  What little bit of information we had was showing her heart rate as much lower than we wanted.  At first the nurse told us not to worry as this just meant that the baby was starting to feel the 'squeeze,' and that she should be here soon.  But as we watched the heart rate continued to drop and for longer periods of time.  At this point the doctor was contacted. 

7:00  Dr. Melendez arrived from the other hospital and checked the computer feeds.  He decided to place a monitor on the baby to better track her heart beat.  At this point I have cords and cables all over my body, made it very awkward each time I tried to move.  After placing the monitor the doctor told me he did not like how low the heart rate was and that if it continued or dropped much lower we would be rushing to the operating room for a c-section.  Not gonna lie, at this point in the game I started to freak out.  I remember shaking, alot, crying, and asking for strength.  David and my dad gave me a blessing of strength and comfort and away we went. 

As I entered the operating room I remember being very afraid that the epidural was not working.  To reassure me they kept pinching me and rubbing me down with cold towels.  Dan my dear anesthesiologist was there calming and talking to me, explaining what would be happening.  As they started the surgery David entered the room and sat on his 'throne' at my head.  My strength proved to be my husband as he did his best to be a calming force, he talked, he soothed, he shushed, he even sang to me and disgusted me with the fact that he got the words wrong!  When I called him on this he admitted that he was just trying to distract me from what was actually happening.  It was not long into the actually surgery before I suddenly yelled out that I could feel what they were doing and that it hurt.  Dan reminded me that it was just pressure not pain that I could feel.  I quickly assured him that, NO, this was pain and I know the difference.  At this point I started to cry out and swear, apologize, and swear some more.  Dan asked more than once if I would be able to deal with the pain, to which I asked how much longer would it last?  I figured if it was only a minute or two I would be okay, but if it were much longer I probobly would not be able to.  Crying I told Dan that I did NOT want to be put to sleep, to which he reassured me he did not want to put me under as I was a high risk for anesthesia. 

It was around this point that I heard the doctor comment that they were too the baby, they had her head and were pulling her out.  Silence followed.  Scared I asked why she was not crying, almost instantly after asking this she let out her cry.  David turned to me only to see his wife dead to the world.  Before he could get to worried Dan reassured him that I had been given a sedative and I would be just fine.  It was then that David was able to focus on our beautiful daughter and go with her. 

Eight minutes later I awoke, no husband, no baby, and almost completly sewn back up.  The doctor joked with me that he wanted to rename my child Elfaba, as she had come out completly green from the meconium.  I was told about how beautiful she was, her head of dark hair, and how I would be reunited with her soon enough. 

All in all it was a day to grow up, to confront all of my greatest fears, and confront we did.  David proved he would be my strength through it all and we have a beautiful little angel in our lives.  Sorry the photo is so horrible, it really does not do her justice.