Day 4

Definitely the roughest day physically.  I just have to say, having done a natural vaginal birth and now a c-section - I would never voluntarily choose to have a c-section.  I have never had any kind of surgery before, or even a broken bone, so this kind of pain is very different from anything I have ever experienced. And I never want to experience it again.  Wow.   Although I tried to get out of bed several times I was way too dizzy to stand up for more than a minute or two before I had to lay back down.  So that was rough cause I was really trying hard to get up so I could go see Tate but was getting really frustrated that I couldn't do it.  We thought it was from the painkillers I was taking so I didn't take any after 10 am hoping ot get it out of my system.  But the dizziness was just as bad by 6 pm, which should have been plenty of time for it to clear out of my system, so we decided to try taking the painkillers again. 

Jamie went in to see Tate every couple hours and kept coming back with good reports.  Today they started feeding him (breastmilk that I have been pumping) through a feeding tube.  He gets 3 ml every 3 hours.  He still is breathing great on his own.  His bilirubin levels were a little high so they do have him under UV lights to get that down.  They also are allowing us to hold him 2 times a day now - once every 12 hours - for about 30 minutes, as long as he tolerates the stimulation okay.  So Jamie got to hold him for the first time about 3 pm this afternoon. He also got to change his diaper. 

By evening I was determined to get to the NICU to hold Tate.  I told Jamie he could just pick me up, throw me in the wheelchair, revive me if I pass out, and then wheel me down there.  I didn't care by that point - I just wanted to get down there.   The night nurse did promise that if I didn't make it down in the wheelchair she would wheel my bed down once things slowed down.  But I took a painkiller with dinner and although I was still really dizzy when I got up, I made it to the wheelchair without passing out and once I sat there for a little bit was feeling good enough to go down to the NICU. 

I was able to hold him for about 15 minutes and he woke up a little and looked at me. His eyes are the same grey color Hudson's were when he was a baby.  And he has Hudson's nose and lips as well, I think.  He definitely reminds me of Hudson when he was a newborn.  His IV in his arm did come out so they moved it to a vein in the front of his head.  I do not like looking at that.  Looks painful but they said it's usually the best place and the easiest one to keep in.  They fed him while we were there.  They suction his stomach every time before they feed him the next feeding to make sure that he is digesting his food okay and he is doing fine with that.  

The goal for tomorrow is to get myself out of bed and walking.  I'm kind of torn about it because I know once I am up and moving they'll send me home and I don't want to leave since I have to leave without Tate.  So the longer I am here is okay with me so that I can see him more often and easily.  I am dreading leaving the hospital without him and still trying to figure out what we do from here.  How often do we come back to visit?  How long do we stay?  They have "mother" rooms that I can stay in 24 hours so should I stay in those for awhile?  Just lots of questions....

 

Hudson bought this little monkey for his baby brother.  He got it at Build A Bear and when you squeeze its tummy it has a recording inside it that is Hudson saying "I love you baby brother!"   Of course, the monkey is like 3 times the size of Tate!

The Cesarean

The first thing I noticed in the operating room was how small the operating table was. Then the fact that there were a lot of people in the room. They had me sit up on the side of the table and hunch my back up for the spinal. I sat there for what seemed like forever before they got it done. Of course, it didn’t help that I was still contracting this whole time and having a hard time focusing on any one thing. But as soon as they laid me back I could feel my toes going numb and pretty soon I couldn’t feel my stomach or the contractions anymore. They tilted the table back so that the spinal would run up my chest a little higher since I was still feeling sharp pin pricks. That part was awful cause I felt like I couldn’t breathe and was getting nauseous. But pretty quickly they righted the table up and then draped the curtain over me and got to work. There were about 12 people in the room because there was a group from the NICU waiting to take the baby as soon as he was delivered. But before they start they did what’s called a “timeout” and asked me my name and what I wanted Dr. Jensen to do to me. Guess they just have to keep confirming I am the right person and in the right frame of mind for the surgery. They did this just before the spinal too.


The first thing Dr. Jensen did was mark my belly with a pen for the incision. Then he turned and gave Jamie the pen and said “here’s a free pen from St. Joe.” Then he got to work. All I could feel was pressure, pulling and tugging, but there wasn’t any pain. It only took a minute or two before they said “I see toes” and the baby was out. At this point they told Jamie he could start watching and he stood up and started taking pictures. I was laying there watching him take pictures thinking “I don’t think that’s allowed yet”. Sure enough, a nurse came over and told him he couldn’t take pics yet – but he got a few great ones of the baby coming out and they didn’t confiscate our camera…The next thing I heard was the baby crying. Most wonderful sound on earth since that meant his lungs could handle that. And he kept crying and crying. They immediately took him to the next room and the NICU team went to work on him. Jamie followed them but came back really quickly holding the baby all wrapped in a blanket and put him on my chest. He was still crying and looked like a wrinkly, old man but totally perfect. Jamie said he was doing great on all his vitals and breathing on his own which was why they let him bring him back in to show me. He stayed on my chest for a minute or two and then they took him up to the NICU.

Stitching me up seemed to take forever. Dr. Jensen let the resident do most of it and they just stood up there joking about taking out my gallbladder or spleen while they were in there. I asked for a tummy tuck but they said I didn’t need one! There was lots of pulling while they stitched me back together and I haven’t actually even seen what the cut or stitches look like yet. Jensen did say the cord was a little short but nothing that should have caused any problems and that the placenta looked fine. So we still don’t really know why all this happened. Dr. Jensen did mention that by the time he got in there I was already dilated to an 8.  So with how small the baby was, if he hadn't been breech, I probably could have delivered him in another 30 minutes or maybe even less, considering how fast I progressed.  Very frustrating for me. Especially now going through the pain of the c-section. 
I was in recovery for about 2 hours. Very sleepy and weird as I slowly got the feeling back in my legs and body. I could already wiggle the big toe on my right foot when we got into recovery but it took quite a while before I could wiggle the one on my left. I kept trying to move my feet, lift my legs but couldn’t do it. That’s a weird feeling. Jamie was back and forth telling everyone how we were doing, checking on the baby and checking on me. At 7 pm they rolled me back to my room. Normally they roll the mom through the NICU and let her see the baby before taking her to her room but because he was born in the late afternoon he was admitted during a shift change so they weren’t ready for us to come in yet. So they took me back to the room and it was 11 pm before he was ready. So they rolled my bed back out and into the NICU and we got to spend 15 minutes or so with him there. We weren’t able to hold him or touch him – he was in the incubator sleeping. But all his vitals were looking great and most importantly he was breathing on his own still. The nurse answered lots of questions for us about everything they were doing and what they were testing. He hasn’t had to be on oxygen or have assistance with his breathing at all. They were able to just put an IV in through a vein instead of one in the umbilical cord like most preemies have. She said not to be surprised if it gets moved around because they are hard to keep in those tiny veins. Right now it’s in his arm. He is regulating his own body temperature really well and all of his other stats are looking good. His blood type is O negative (like mine) which means I don’t have to take another Rhogam shot. Hudson was O positive (like Jamie) so I had to have the shots with him and it was one thing the neo-natologist was really worried about. If his blood had been different than mine and ours had accidentally mixed during delivery (like if the placenta tore from the wall) he could have had to have had blood transfusions. But thankfully none of that happened and he had my same blood type anyways.

After we saw him in the NICU they took me back to my room and, after I pumped for the first time, we thanked God for bringing us both through the surgery and that the baby was so strong, and went to bed. I was exhausted and I have to admit, it felt so good to be able to sleep on my back again!

Day 3

The day began innocent enough. Had a pretty good night’s rest in my new bed in the postpartum section and they did a test strip on the baby and me first thing in the morning. Although I was feeling some tightening and thought I might be having a few contractions, nothing showed on the monitor and the baby’s heart still looked great.


They also came in and did a bio physical profile on the baby. It’s a sonogram that lasts 30 minutes but rather than measuring baby’s size and those kind of things they give the baby an “internal” APGAR score based on the things he does. I am not sure exactly everything they were looking for but some of it was movement, the baby’s chest inhaling and exhaling, fluid levels, etc. We knew up front we wouldn’t get a perfect score since I didn’t have much fluid left, but the baby did great on everything else.

What I had thought was going to be the highlight of my day was finally getting to take a shower. It felt wonderful to wash my hair – I had one of those permanent creases across the back of my head from wearing it in a ponytail for so many days. Plus since I wasn’t on constant monitoring anymore I was able to put on some of my own clothes rather than continuing to wear the wonderful hospital gown. So we did all of that by noon and I was feeling really good.

This was also Jamie’s first time to go back to work. He was working from 2-6 pm and had 20 patients scheduled from having cancelled all the patients on Monday. So he left about 1 to go to work and my mom and Gammy were with me for awhile and then left so I could take a nap. Before they left I had noticed that I had started leaking a lot of fluid again but I talked to the nurse and she said it could just be the way I was sitting and then when I moved it was coming out. So she wasn’t concerned. So I decided to lay down and read and I hadn’t been laying down for more than 5 minutes before the first contraction hit. And this was a painful one – hard enough I had to do some breathing through it. I was hoping it was just random so I just continued to read but it wasn’t 5 minutes later another one hit. Just as hard as the first. So I called the nurse and she came in and immediately hooked me up to the monitors. It confirmed that I was having contractions so I made my first phone call to Jamie. Of course, this was our worst case scenario – I’d go into labor while he was at work and there was no one even in the room with me! He called his dad to come sit with me and I told Jamie I’d call him back after we talked to the resident. The resident came in and decided that since I was having contractions every 2.5-4 minutes and they were pretty strong that it was time to check me. I told her my husband was at work and asked if I should have him come back and she said yes. So his Dad called him and Jamie broke every speed limit and law driving back. But I was so glad to see him when he walked in. The contractions were coming very strong and I was having a hard time breathing through them. I told the resident I should have brushed up on my breathing techniques – I wasn’t ready for that yet! In the meantime they had checked me and I was already at a 4.

So they brought us the news that since I was already at a 4 and the contractions were so strong there was no way to stop the baby coming so we were going in for a c-section at 4 pm. So this all happened in less than 2 hours. Things were pretty crazy from there. Nurses everywhere hooking up my IV’s, changing my clothes, getting Jamie his scrubs, giving me meds, etc. And of course the whole time I’m contracting and focusing on getting through those. Then they wheeled me out of the room and down to the operating room….

Day 1

Definitely the most emotional day so far.   Just realizing this is really happening, we most definitely aren't doing a home birth now (even though we already knew there was a high probability that wouldn't happen because he was breech).  Calling family to let them know what's going on.  Saturday morning we were thinking we still had 9 weeks to get ready for the baby to come, then by Saturday night we are hearing 3 weeks, possibly just 48 hours.   I've got all sorts of stuff running through my head, on top of all the health/baby concerns - I'm worrying about how I'll get the nursery ready but then realizing the baby will be here for a long time after he's born so there'll be time for that later.   I'm going to have to buy some preemie clothes - and #1 - you might notice I am just calling him baby.  We have to come up with a name!!

We finally got moved into our pre partum delivery room by about 4 am.  Jamie and I both got about 45 minutes of sleep till 5 and then that was it for the night.   They were able to take a sample of the amniotic fluid to test his lung development and that showed they are still immature.  So I had to have 2 shots of steriods that will help quickly mature his lungs.  That's why the first goal was to make it 48 hours after the steriod shots so that those would take full effect.  They also gave me magnesium through an IV for the first 24 hours.  That made me pretty sick.  Hot flashes, headache, nausea, dizziness, muscle weakness.  Of course, I can only get out of bed to go to the bathroom so as long as I was in bed things weren't too awful.  The dizziness and muscle weakness got pretty bad after 18 hours.   They gave me meds for the nausea so I was able to eat lunch by Sunday afternoon.  The magnesium was to stop any contractions.  The baby and I were on constant monitoring for the first 48 hours to track the baby's heartrate and my contractions.  The baby's heartrate was great the whole time - he had lots of accelerations which are what we want to see.  So he is not in any distress right now.  I was having a few contractions, but most of them I didn't even feel so that is good news too. 
  
Hudson came to visit a few times on Sunday.  I wasn't sure what his reaction would be to seeing me in bed hooked up to all the monitors but it didn't phase him.  He was pretty interested in my IV and the heartrate monitor - but he was most excited about the buttons that make my bed move and the TV in the room.  Figuring out what we are going to do with Hudson over the next few weeks is going to be one of the biggest challenges.  We have cut Jamie's clinic hours back quite a bit so that he can be here and everyone has offered to take him whenever - so we just have to figure out what's going to work best.  I had been working at the clinic for the past 5 weeks and his schedule has been pretty messed up from that.  So I was looking forward to getting things back to normal, decorating for Christmas.  But I guess, for now, this will be our new normal. 

The Beginning...

(Fair warning:  these posts are going to really long and detailed...I don't have much else to do!)

We were already aware of some complications (low amniotic fluid, baby measuring 2 weeks small, breech and a short cord) from a sonogram we had done on Monday so we had an appointment with our OB, Dr. Jensen, on Thursday. He didn’t seem as concerned with the sonogram results so I was encouraged that maybe we were just overreacting. But he did schedule a sonogram and follow up appt for next Thursday, just to check it out. Because the baby was breech Jamie and I had already had to start seriously considering changing our birth plan from a home birth to a hospital birth, so our conversation when we left the appt Thursday was that at some point in the near future we had to just decide one way or the other and go with that direction. Well, the baby decided for us.


Saturday evening after I put Hudson to put I was lying on the floor downstairs watching a football game with Jamie and his dad. I laughed at something someone said and felt a wet burst. My first thought was that I had lost control of my bladder cause I know that happens to some women in their pregnancies, plus this baby has been just sitting on my bladder for the last several weeks so I wasn’t too surprised. Just more worried about getting up and changing it before my father-in-law noticed! But then when I stood up I felt more water trickle down my legs and that was my first inkling that this might be more than a little incontinence. So I went up and changed and then went back downstairs. I sat in the recliner for about 20 more minutes and didn’t notice anything until I stood up again and had another gush. So then I was getting worried… Went upstairs and changed again and by this time knew I needed to tell Jamie. I was still really hoping it was urine so when he came up a few minutes later I showed him. He immediately said “Call Deidre” so I did. I told Deidre I was concerned I might be leaking amniotic fluid but I wasn’t sure it could still just be urine (still really hoping!). She immediately said to go to the ER and since she was already at St. Joseph and Dr. Jensen was on his way there for a delivery, we went there.

Jamie’s flying down the street at 80 mph and I keep telling him to slow down, I probably just wet my pants and there’s no need to hurry….we get to the ER and as they wheel me up in a wheel chair to the labor and delivery floor I can feel more water gushing out. It was then that I knew this wasn’t just a little incontinence. But in my head and to the nurses I kept telling them “I was leaking amniotic fluid.” It still hadn’t occurred to me that my water had actually broke.

But tests confirmed it and that’s when our world changed…at least for the next couple of months.