2/10/2013

Happy birthday, Charlie


I’ve been working on this post here and there as to try and remember all of the details from Charlie’s birthday.

We woke up on Dec. 20th – my due date – to the most snow Kansas City had seen in 2012. Of course we did! But all indications said we would not be having a baby that day and we’d likely be induced as scheduled on Dec. 26th. Or so we thought…

We had an appointment with Dr. Matthews that snowy afternoon and we went, expecting another pretty routine visit.  I had plans to Christmas shop after the appointment and snap my “40 Weeks” photo. Instead soon after we arrived I got the “what’s going on with your blood pressure?” question again from the nurse. It was high. She had me lay down for a while and later checked it, only for my BP to be lower. When Dr. Matthews came in, you could tell the blood pressure was of concern to her again. Nurse Ruth popped in to ask the doctor a question and Dr. Matthews had her check it again. High.

Sitting up was the culprit and Dr. Matthews started talking about our options. One was to wait until our scheduled induction on Dec. 26th to give me a little more time to progress (I was not dilated at all). That would mean bed rest for the next week, which I knew would be tough with Christmas and my family in town. The other option was to scoot on over to Labor and Delivery and have this baby! We were 40 weeks, baby was good size and there were no concerns from her on inducing that day. After talking through everything (using the BRAIN acronym we learned in class—benefits, risks, alternatives, intuition and what happens if I say no?) Dr. Matthews said if it was her, she’d induce that day. We decided to take the plunge and do it! She commented on how calm we were for deciding right then and there to have a baby. I think that’s a sign we were just ready. The only downside was Dr. Matthews was leaving the next day for vacation (and that was really her only reason for wanting us to wait until the 26th).

So, around 3:30 pm on Dec. 20th, we were off to Labor and Delivery…again. It was such a different feeling than when we went in November. Another sign we were just ready. We sat in the waiting room for about 20 minutes while they got a room ready for us and soon our nurse Kati came and got us. She escorted us to our room and got the party started. They did some blood work and hooked me up to the IV and gave me my last pregnant meal (mac & cheese, asiago chicken and pears. I remember it vividly). A little before 6 pm Kati administered Cervadil. That was not a pleasant process. In fact—that may have been one of the worst parts of the entire labor process. Cervadil starts the induction process by ripening the cervix. The plan was Cervadil for 12 hours and then start me on Pitocin.

Right after the Cervadil was administered, Trevor ran home to grab our bags (he kept saying “I KNEW I should have put them in the car before we left,”) so Lindsay came to the hospital to sit with me. I wasn’t a very friendly patient because almost as soon as she got there the Cervadil started kicking in (which was immediately after receiving it), and I started having contractions. Not light, minor, sporadic, contractions. More like one, steady, nonstop contraction. No ups and downs on that bottom monitor—just one straight line. Earlier that day Dr. Matthews said I had an unfavorable cervix and I told Lindsay “this is going to end in a c-section.” Speaking of Dr. Matthews, it was about this time she popped in to see how I was doing. She said she called all of the doctors on-call that weekend and told them to take good care of us; that we were her “favorite patients.” I was super bummed she’d be gone for this baby’s birth. We had shared so much with her over the last 40+ weeks!

Around 11 pm they gave me an Ambien. I thought that would knock me right out but I was not comfortable. I was having terrible back labor. I really didn’t want pain meds because I heard they made you wacko, but Trevor finally talked me into it because otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to sleep. I can’t remember what pain med they gave me (I can’t remember if it was IV or pill form) but they did tell me it would make me out of it and boy oh boy did it ever. I remember laying n my bed thinking I and everything around me was made of gingerbread men. WTF? I had other random hallucinations too. I just remember telling my doped up self, “just be quiet. Don’t say anything.” Because I knew I wouldn’t be able to control what was coming out of my mouth.

I slept decently. I remember waking up to a random nurse in the middle of the night and asking her for more of the wonder drug. She obliged. Round two of crack head preggo Wendy.

I woke up around 5 to go to the bathroom and at this point I think they had removed the Cervadil because I couldn’t stop contracting and come to find out, the baby (Charlie boy as we now call him!) wasn’t liking it. I thought my water had broke but the nurse (our second nurse of this process) assured me it hadn’t. The minute I got back in bed, it broke. There was no mistaking that. So glad that didn’t happen at work or in public! 

For the next several hours I was on Pitocin and unbeknownst to me, the nurse, Faith, was busy monitoring the contractions, me, the baby, etc. and adjusting the Pitocin accordingly. What I wasn’t totally realizing early that day was how much the baby was not liking what was going on. (Looking back, I think I was pretty out of it that morning.) Faith talked about a possible arrhythmia with his heart and was constantly moving me around to make his heart rate go back up. At some point I had an internal heart rate monitor inserted to better track his heart rate. I also ended up with an internal contraction monitor to help better gauge the strength of the contractions. I was having contractions but not really progressing, so they were hoping that would help them monitor the strength of the contractions to get things moving. (Add the catheter I had after the epidural and I had a lot going on down there.)

I got the epidural around 11:30 am and man oh man those things are wonderful. I was really nervous to get the epidural but it was a total breeze and the anesthesiologist was super nice. I had to get it redosed a few times during the day due to the not fun back labor. And just when I’d get comfortable, Charlie’s heart rate would drop and they’d have to turn me on my side and the medicine wouldn’t help as much.

I really spent most of the day trying to sleep. I tried to watch Elf but couldn’t focus. We watched a little bit of our wedding video. I tried to surf Facebook but couldn’t even really concentrate on that. That’s how you know I was in pain.  Plus, everyone on FBook was talking about the end of the world and I was just thinking about how I was really going to be mad if I went through all of that labor and the world was going to end.

I was at a 4 from about 9 am through at least 3 pm. Things were not progressing. Pitocin went on and off all afternoon.

At 6 pm our fourth nurse entered the picture—Maggie. She was wonderful. Like Faith, she played around with the Pitocin.  At some point that afternoon, Maggie offered me a popsicle (sorry, ice cream client, but I ate it and man did it taste delicious).  With more hours passing, Maggie finally came to with us with a plan around 7:30 pm. She explained we needed the contractions to get stronger in order to get me to a 10. The issue was Charlie was not tolerating the stronger contractions well. So, they were going to crank the Pitocin as long as he’d tolerate it. We’d do this for about an hour and a half, see where we were and then decide how he was coming out.

9 pm came faster than I expected and I was 7-8. Maggie proposed keeping the Pitocin going or gave the option of a a c-section. The Pitocin was just so I had the chance to push—she said she believed this baby was not going to come out of my hooha.

It took us no time at all to agree a c-section was the way to go and as soon as we said yes—about 9:30 pm--they were in there prepping us. One nurse was putting a hair net and compression socks on me, one grooming me, Dr. Martinez came in to explain the procedure and sign my consent forms, the nurse anesthetist (who will be called Chris from now on because that is easier to type) was making me more numb and someone was telling Trevor to pack up our stuff and get in his scrubs and explaining his role in the operating room.

Soon we were leaving the confines of our nice Labor and Delivery room being wheeled down the hallway in my bed. (I was my own worst nightmare—walking down the hall of a hospital only to be passed by a patient being pushed in a bed. Yet I still watch Grey’s Anatomy…though opted not to the Thursday I was on the hospital for obvious reasons.) When we entered the operating room they transferred me to the table. I remember my head tilted down a bit and I had to ask if I was tilted or if I was feeling funny. Chris said he’d sit at my head the entire time with Trevor and that if I felt anything to just holler. He let me know as soon as they started cutting and I didn’t feel a darn thing—just a little pressure. The doctor and the nurses were chatting about their Christmas plans. (Just like in Grey’s—having a totally normal conversation over an open abdominal cavity.) Minutes after they started the procedure Chris said he was out and soon they lifted out little baby boy over the curtain for me to see. Trevor said, “he looks like a Charlie to me!” When they brought him over to me, I won’t lie—he looked a little alien-esque. And he was hungry—sticking his tongue out at me saying “FEED ME MOM!”

I remember everyone in the room congratulating us and commenting on how cute he was. It was so surreal—we had a son!! While the doctor and nurses south of the curtain were sewing me up, Trevor, Charlie and I were taking photos up North. I could turn my head to the right to see Charlie in his little bassinet with Trevor, while the nurses cleaned him off, calculated his Apgar score (8 at 1 minute, 9 at 5 minutes), etc. When they weighed him and announced 8 pounds, 1 ounce, I was shocked! We thought he’d be so much bigger than that.

I did puke at one point, bet vomit ever. Tasted like a cherry popsicle. Again, including all of the details in here for posterity sake.

Trevor and Charlie went off to the nursery for his first bath and they wheeled me to post-op. It was while I was in this room by myself when Maggie said, “Wendy, Faith is on the phone. Can I tell her about Charlie?!?” Our nurse from earlier that day had called to see how I was doing. How sweet is that?!?

When the daddy/son duo came back in, my heart melted. Cute little Charlie was in a Santa hat; it was the sweetest thing I had ever seen! I just kept saying “that CHIN!” It was cute and little and pointy and perfect, sandwiched between the most delicious, chubbiest cheeks ever. He was absolutely perfect.

The grandparents were the first to visit the post-opp room. I can’t describe it but I remember my mom’s face vividly. It was so awesome to get to introduce them to their first grandchild. Then came aunt Kate, aunt Lindsay and Uncle Kalin. They too were immediately smitten.

We got to our post-partum room around 2:30 am on December 22. My mom and dad and Kalin and Lindsay had stuck around and came and visited. I don’t remember much other from that night/morning other than being very very tired.

From this point forward, we had an amazing few days in the hospital. I had heard great things about the care at Shawnee Mission Medical Center, and my expectations were exceeded. Every person we encountered was absolutely wonderful, helpful, kind, etc. Our primary mommy/baby nurses were Jeanine (night) and Roxanne (day).  I can’t describe it, nor do I know why, but the hospital stay was an amazing time—despite the confinement to a small room, being fresh off of surgery, being away from home, etc. I was actually kind of sad to go home but that made for the most memorable Christmas Eve ever.





No comments: