This is us the night before we went to dinner at Red Lobster to celebrate our last night without a baby.
So on January 24th I went to the hospital at 4:45 in the morning to be induced. I was scared, but I was so ready to have this baby out of me, not to mention to stop paying maternity insurance, so there we were. They checked us into a delivery room and started hooking me up to monitors and an IV. I should have known things were going to go badly when the first attempt at an IV popped a blood vessel or something so we had to do it on the other side. Eventually, I got hooked up to everything and we just sat. Jason worked on homework and I put my iPod in and tried to fall asleep or something. I'd never had an IV before so I wanted a picture.
Close to 9am my doctor came in and broke my water. It was the most disgusting thing ever. Like I wet my pants and it just kept coming. Every so often a little more would leak out and it was horrible.
Meanwhile the drug induced contractions were intensifying. They felt like unpleasant period cramps, but nothing too horrible. They told me to request my epidural whenever I was ready. Once the cramps got bad enough that I would have taken a Motrin an hour before and would be curled up clutching my stomach if it was my period, I asked for the epidural. The nurse told me the anesthesiologist was a gruff guy and to not take it personally. When he came up he was totally not gruff, personally I thought he was nice, but maybe that was just because he was taking away my pain. He hooked me up and my legs started to go numb instantly and the pain went away. It was lovely. This lasted for maybe an hour and then I started feeling pain in my stomach again. At first the pain had been focused in my back so I thought "maybe epidurals don't impact the stomach?" But things started to hurt worse and pushing the button to get more wasn't helping so they called the anesthesiologist back. It was a different guy and he tried to give me a shot to give me another dose, but his syringe filled with blood. Turns out the epidural had migrated into a blood vessel and I would need another one. Meanwhile my contractions were hurting like crazy. I got pretty mad at the guy because he said "I need to go give someone else an epidural and then I'll come back and we'll fix yours." I could have punched him. How dare he go help someone who hadn't had the presence of mind to ask for one earlier. I SHOULD BE FIRST!!! So while he was helping someone else I was in pain. I kept grabbing Jason's hand and saying things like "Can't they just cut him out or something so I don't have to feel this?!?!" "He better be the cutest baby in the world if I have to suffer through this to get him here!!!" Honestly, I'm sure that other people have suffered far worse than me, but I was supposed to be drugged so it wasn't fair! He came back and fixed my epidural and I was a happy nice person again.
They put a baby heart monitor on his head, but this also had to be done twice, so I decided I'm cursed and everything would go wrong first and then they could fix it. I turned out to be pretty dang right considering what happened next. After a few hours of staying at 5 the doctor wasn't very thrilled, also they put me on oxygen for Liam because (they didn't tell us this) his heart rate was decreasing after every contraction. Eventually, after she had come in and re-positioned me, put me on oxygen, and checked the monitors repeatedly, she explained what was going on. Liam was not tolerating labor. Of course my baby wouldn't put up with the nonsense of being born... She continued to explain that this meant the doctor would likely recommend a c-section. Words like "probably, likely, could" were used nothing concrete. Then the doctor came in and removed all doubt. He explained that the fact my contractions weren't getting regular and that I wasn't dilating were a bad signs, not to mention the drop in heart rate following big contractions. He recommended a c-section.
Enter panic mode. I didn't want to be cut open!!! I started shaking. When he left I had Jason give me a blessing and we said a family prayer. I kept shaking as they got me ready: increasing my epidural so that I was REALLY numb, shaving the area that needed to be cut open, and removing all the monitors. Then they rolled my bed into the operating room. Jason couldn't come yet because there wasn't enough room for all the doctors, nurses, the hospital bed and the operating table and Jason. They moved me onto the operating table and I didn't like this at all because it was like being a sack of potatoes; I had no control of what happened to me. I forgave the anesthesiologist for his previous crimes because he made sure everything was good and numb and he asked me questions to distract me from the fact that they were prepping sharp objects and putting a "target" sheet over my belly with an opening for the operation.
Finally, Jason came in and they put up a curtain so that I couldn't see what they were doing. Jason made calming physical contact (stroking my hair, holding my hand) while looking into my eyes and telling me stories about when we were dating and after we were married ("remember that time...). I love that man so much. All the while I was still shaking like a leaf in the wind. I could feel the pressure as they made the incision and while they were pulling Liam out etc. Then they were holding a massive blood covered baby boy over the curtain. I was so happy he was okay! But then I think I went into mild shock because I started shaking even worse and I was a little out of it as they sewed me up and Jason went with Liam to the nursery so he could be weighed and measured (9lbs 5oz, 22in).
No comments:
Post a Comment