Don’t worry, we do have some pictures, and I’ll post them as soon as I get a chance.
I thought I’d give you a little review of what happened (even though you got most of it with my earlier post).
There was no doubt from the beginning that I wanted to have this baby in the hospital. And with an epidural. Yes it was different from how I had always done it, but that was how I wanted it and I never wavered (though my sister Megan can tell you that I was definitely scared of relinquishing my control. No one understood it and I couldn’t explain it.
There was also the insistence that I have the opportunity to be induced early. NO one understood that one. Especially with all of the pre-labor and other minor complications I had had with this pregnancy.
So that is the background.
Now what happened? I’ll tell you.
While this is not an “official” diognosis, I seem to have had something called Polyhydramnios which is basically too much amniotic fluid. This would account for
1. why I measured a few weeks larger than normal (I remember thinking it was weird that I would measure 40 weeks when I was only 37)
2. why all of the pre-labor that I had didn’t do much for dilating my cervix. While that was a very good thing back when I was 32 weeks, it wasn’t a good think when I was induced.
When I got to the hospital Friday morning to be induced, I was 50% effaced and 2.5 cm dilated. After two doses of prostaglandins and knocking out contractions every two minutes for almost 16 hours I was only at a 4. We were all stumped as to why it was taking so long. This was my fourth child after all.
A bag of waters is not the most efficient way to dilate the cervix. This is why thing happen so much faster once your water has broken. Baby’s head does a much better job. Matt’s theory is that there was so much fluid that it instead of pushing the baby’s head down like it should have, it just gave an equal distribution of pressure everywhere and thus, I was not dilating.
So at 7:30 Saturday morning Terry (my midwife, who knew my desire for an epidural) had the anesthesiologist place the epidural first. Everything went perfectly. It hurt, but no more than it did when they put the IV in my hand.
Immediately after laying back, Terry swooped in and broke my water. She and Kim (my nurse) were amazed at how much fluid there was. Every time it looked like it was done, I would move or have another contraction and more would come out. I don’t know what made her check me again, they usually don’t check you as often once your water has broken because of the increased chance of infection. It might have been the amount of fluid that was still coming or the baby’s heart rate might have dropped and I didn’t notice but she checked me again and she felt the umbilical cord.
Have you guessed yet what there is an increased risk of when you have polyhydramnios? Yup, cord troubles. The umbilical cord was preceeding the baby’s head. Which meant that every time I had a contraction his head was pushed into the cord and cutting of the blood and oxygen supply to him. The only thing keeping him alive was Terry pushing his head away from the cord. They gave me something to stop the contractions (I think, it was all pretty much a blur once she looked at me and said “This is an emergency and we need to get him out NOW!)
Terry and Kim switched places and Kim rode on the table holding his head back while we were rushed to the OR. Poor Matt was left standing in the room, not being allowed to come with me.
By the time we got to the OR, Kim could no longer feel a pulse in the cord. He was born at 8:37 am.
Because I had had my epidural before all of this happened, they didn’t have to knock me out. Yes I was numb but there was an insane amount of pressure and since they were in such a hurry, they weren’t able to be careful with the retractors and there is probably more than my fair share of internal bruising.
I remember looking over at the crowd of nurses that were working over him doing chest compressions and seeing his little blue chest. I remember hearing them cheer and say the word “heartbeat”. By this time, they had wrapped a warm towel around my head and I couldn’t see anything. Kim came over and said “his heart rate is sounding great”. But they were still frantically working over him and I thought I heard a tiny squeek before they whisked him away to the nursery.
After they finished sewing me up, they took me to the OR recovery room where they monitored my blood pressure and had to wait a bit to make sure the epidural was wearing off.
About 2 1/2 hours after it all it the fan they took me to the OB recovery room. I saw Matt in the nursery window and he waved at me and gave me a scared smile.
Just a minute after they put me in the recovery room, Matt came in. As soon as I saw him, all of the terrifying feelings I had been having over the last few hours came to a head and I couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t stop shaking either, but that was a side effect of the surgery.
Matt said that he was ok, he was on a whiff of oxygen and it took a long time to get him to breath on his own. They were about to intebate him when he started. So they only had to give him a nasal cannula. But it took a lot of pestering before he would cry. Terry told me later that he hated getting his hair washed and having his feet flicked so they kept at it until he started screaming.
Matt said that he was blond had blue eyes and a dimple, but didn’t look like the other kids. They brought him to me a few minutes later and he was screaming. It was such a wonderful sound. But Matt was wrong about one thing, he looks JUST like Lucy did when she was born (as the pictures testified to as soon as we got home).
He has been getting better ever since then. He nurses like a champ and after he figured out how to stop crying.
I’m so happy he’s alive and I’m so grateful that everything was in place so that we we could get him out as fast as possible.
That being said, I would take a vaginal delivery any day over a c-section. I’m so sore. My incision site burns every time I move. My insides feel like they are going to fall out and I never thought I would say this, but I miss my catheter! Getting up and going to the bathroom makes me cry (literally). Yeah, recovering is hard regardless, but at least before I was capable of walking and the only reason why I had to stop was because I was tired or weak, not because of pain.
And Matt just got home, unfortunately all of the pharmacies were closed. I’m going to have to just hope that the motrin is enough and/or scream every time I have to go to the bathroom or go upstairs to sleep. Cross your fingers that they open early tomorrow.
