New Arrival

So, here's the whole labor and delivery story (without all the gory stuff!!).

After feeling rather slight and somewhat painful contractions since Sunday the 11th I woke up on Sunday a week later and told Dan that I felt it would be soon, possibly today as the contractions really changed and were very close and very painful. Well, we had plans Sunday to go out to breakfast, I was going to go get a pedicure (thanks to Becky and Nadine for that one:) and then head to Becky's because they had some presents to give us. Well, we actually made it to all 3 things then we left Becky's house and headed home to time some contractions as the doctor told us not to go to the hospital until they were 4 minutes apart. By around 5pm the contractions were that close so we headed over and waited 3 hours in the pre delivery room while they assessed me to decide to admit me or not. After an hour or so they couldn't figure out why my contractions were so close together when the baby hadn't even dropped down. They thought he may have turned position and was now breech. So, they had an ultra sound tech come in to check. He determined the baby was still in the head down position. After that the hospital doctor (after consulting mine) decided the baby was still too high and thus it was too soon to admit me. So, they gave me a pain killer and sent me home, letting me know if the pain killer didn't work and contractions got worse to come back but they were confident the pain killer would cause the contractions to subside.

We headed home, a little disappointed. By the time we were home, within an hour, it was obvious the pain killer didn't work and I was in some serious pain with some very fast and hard contractions. Dan decided to give the hospital a call to ask them what to do. They asked him how far apart the contractions were now to which he responds "I don't know she wont stop crying!!" The person on the phone told him to bring me back in and so we literally turned around and went back to the hospital! This time they admitted me around 11pm and put us in a HUGE delivery room with all the "perks" even a hot tub.

A little after midnight I was given an epidural and hooked up to about 6000 other machines. Well the next several hours, from midnight until he was born at 10:37am the details are very fuzzy but I will post what I remember.

1. The active labor was nice with the epidural! The epi didn't hurt a bit despite the nurse and anesthesiologist making it sound like it was going to be the shot from hell. And it helped so much that I didn't feel any contractions for many hours to come. In fact, my body felt them so little, that the contractions all but stopped and the nurses had to put me on Oxytocin to induce me and get the contractions started again.

2. According to what the doctor told me today, I should have had Connor 5 hours earlier than I did. Unfortunately, he was positioned wrong, facing my leg rather than my spine and it was soon determined that was why he wasn't dropping with the contractions because he was "stuck" behind my pelvis bone. The doctor decided to give it time and headed off to work for a few hours with a promise to be back soon. Of course AFTER he left was when everything went crazy...

3. I was suddenly in a LOT of pain, and I mean a lot LOT. I could feel everything despite the constant shots of epidural I was giving myself as boosters. They called my doctor and asked him to come back, even though he had just left as I had just jumped from 5cm dilated to 8cm (something I tried to warn them about before the labor that I stay at 5 forever and then just jump up to the pushing stage but no one believed me!!) I remember the nurse saying "wow I guess you were right I should have believed you."

4. Then the baby's heart rate dropped from the normal 150 beats to only 60 beats and next thing I know there are literally 20 some doctors and staff in that room. The lead resident doctor gave me all of 10 seconds to decide if I wanted an emergency c-section or if I would accept her reaching up inside of me and using the vacuum to try to shift his position to get his heart rate back up. So during all this chaos I agree to the vacuum adjusting and let me tell you does that hurt! She adjusted him and his heart rate immediately returned to normal but... then... I don't know what was wrong with her, I think it may have just been panic or stress or maybe lack of experience... Dan thinks she just decided she wanted to "pull" the baby out... but she reaches inside of me again with the vacuum and starts literally pulling on him. She pulled on him so so so hard that the suction cup POPPED off his head!!! I'm screaming out in pain and Dan is saying to her (I don't know how he was staying so calm) "if his heart rate is back to normal can't we just leave him??" The delivery nurse agreed so she stopped and the room cleared out again. I cannot tell you how angry and upset I am that she did that though and that Dan was the one that had to stop her as her actions caused #7

5. Of all the friendly and wonderful nurses we met on this journey, there was one that I wanted to seriously punch! Here I am in a HUGE amount of pain and some anal nurse decides that is the time to fix the 5000 tangled wires coming off the machines and plugged, taped, stuck into my body, so they would be "organized." Organized?? Are you @#%@! kidding me?? For the next... I don't know... felt like 5 hours she was turning me and pulling at me and adjusting me and driving me crazy! Oh heaven forbid that some wires were crossing and twisted. Actually, I complained about her later on that evening (after the birth) to another nurse who responded "Oh that was Laurie... yea we all make fun of her too." So, really, I'm not exaggerating! And the whole time she's adjusting my wiring I'm screaming "I have to push" and she's like you can't push until your doctor gets here. Yea, right... that was impossible. I swear it took my doctor 8 hours to drive the 20m to the hospital.

6. Finally, my doctor was in the room with me, and pretty much all I remember after that was a lot of screaming my lungs out as the baby was still sideways and not really fitting but eventually I delivered a 9.14 lb baby boy.

7. When they brought him over to me I was informed that due to the other doctor's actions, Connor had a very swollen head and lacerations to his scalp in the shape of a big suction cup. He spent the next 3 days in the neonatal intensive care unit.

Connor is now at home with us. He has a huge circle scab/bruise on the back of his head and bruising all the way down onto his neck which makes it very hard to nurse him as I can't touch his head or neck without hurting him. :( But, we are finally able to rest and heal as Dan and I have spent the last 3 days living in the waiting rooms of the hospital so that we could feed him every 3 hours. I was discharged from the hospital that same night at 11pm we went and fed Connor then left the hospital around 1am and were back by 8am and staying until 1am again. We spent Tuesday and Weds like that and brought him home on Wednesday. Although, we have to keep bringing him back every day at 9am so they can check to make sure he doesn't have jaundice.

I am so swollen everywhere and sore and tired, our house is a mess with baby and hospital stuff everywhere, we have absolutely no food and no time to even shop and when we have the time we are so exhausted all we can do is go home and sleep! I am soooo looking forward to the day at home in bed enjoying the new baby. When that will happen is yet to be known...

On a positive note, though, I must say how impressed I was with my doctor. He was so patient and he was there almost the entire time. He didn't come rushing in as the baby was crowning, but was there to walk me through and calm me down during a huge portion of my delivery, almost the whole thing. He is very kind and understanding and even delivering a baby that big and mispositioned I didn't need any stitches and had absolutely no "common" birth issues. And even better... today when we took Connor to his office to see him we found out that he charged us LESS than HALF of his fee for the delivery!!! The guy is amazing. Period.

I'm sorry here's some flowers

So, Monday I went to the doctor for my weekly visit. It was a "semi" holiday... the day after Easter... so it was only the doctor and one receptionist working. I am assuming I was the last appointment of the day at 3:15 because they called me at 1pm asking if I could come in earlier as early as possible. Problem was, I was waiting for Dan's mom, Carol, to come over at 2pm as she was going to go with me to the appointment. So, I tried to call them back, to let them know but because of the "holiday" they weren't answering the phones and their message said such. So, we showed up around 2:45 which was the earliest we could get there, so I guess they still got off work half an hour earlier! It was weird not having the nurse there, the receptionist was filling in for her and seemed rather frazzled and ready to go home after a day of doing 2+ person's jobs.

I had gained 4 pounds in the week, which I knew I had already because my hands and feet keep swelling up like balloons (well they feel like that anyway) so I knew before I went that I was retaining fluids. I also knew that the combination of 4 or more pounds, high blood pressure and protein in the urine all mean preenclampsia and could mean some serious bed rest for me or inducing labor.

Well, when the doc took my blood pressure it was creeping up 140/88 but I explained to him we had been running around a lot in the past few days and I hadn't slept at home the night before and you know... other things that make the BP go up. He was a little concerned that with the weight gain spike and the blood pressure I *may* have the beginnings of preenclampsia, even though I was lacking the 3rd piece (protein in the sample), and wanted me to come in on Weds again to get my blood pressure checked. Well, being that it's a good half hour drive for us to go there, I asked if I could just go check it at the nearby pharmacy and he was alright with that.

On Weds I went and checked my blood pressure and all was back to normal. Phew. I am refusing to be induced with this baby, I went through that with Tyler, granted it was at 8 months and this baby is full term now so it would be different. But my labor and beyond with Tyler was so traumatic for me, I swore to myself I would forever choose bed rest over induction for any other kid (unless of course it's life threatening).

So, past few days I've been taking it pretty easy, laying down a lot. I use the laptop to keep myself entertained. I think going on bed rest at 6 months when I was pregnant with Tyler would have been a heck of a lot easier if I had had a laptop. Been drinking fluids like crazy as well.

This month is going so so so slow I am not due until the end of the month but it already feels like I am overdue! Yesterday, I was sure it *must* be close to the end of the month only to check the date and see it was only the 8th! I am NOT looking forward to the labor at all. Once again, I have now opted against an epidural, being that since we are paying out of pocket for this baby an epidural starts at $800 bucks. Not to mention, I really want to be able to walk around and the thought of a needle in my lower back freaks the heck out of me. So, I figure I already did it before epidural free and I can do it again. I told Dan to be prepared to make a lot of apologies to nurses and staff after the birth! Those of you that were with me for my first birth know what I'm talking about :) I got pretty... mouthy... angry... whatever at the nurses!

Well, I'm hoping that this birth will be easier than the first, mainly because I wont be medically induced and go through a month of pregnancy in a few short hours like I did with Tyler. But, the doctor said it won't be all that easy because it's been 10 years not 2 since I had Tyler.

I think I will just buy thank you/I'm sorry cards, candy and flowers for the staff now...