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.
