My life changed on Monday, October 11, 2010. I fell in love with another man, but don't worry, Tim is ok with it. In this post I'm only going to focus on the delivery and we will get to these amazing post-birthday days in my next entry.
Sunday: 2:00pm... Casey flies in from Lynchburg for a quick 29 hour trip.
6:00pm Take a deep breath, look around our home, and gather up the courage to leave and head to the hospital emergency room. This is thoroughly documented by my dad's video camera. He may have been videoing and driving.....do not try this at home, people. We valeted our car, loaded ourselves with our belongings, and headed through the hospital doors. We waited for transport in the Emergency Room.
(still) Sunday: 7:oo-ish... Comfortably arranged in my Labor and Delivery room at Memorial Regional Hospital with Mom, Dad, Casey and Kaitlyn in attendance for our regular Sunday Evening Family night activities...that includes watching America's Funniest Home Videos. It was made things a little more normal even though we could hardly focus on it. This is the same hospital that my siblings and I were born in, and I was excited that Connor could be born there too. Originally I was told that if I came in at 3 cm, that they would start my induction Sunday night and the ball would get rolling; if I wasn't, then we would start the process the following morning at 6am. Well, I came in at 3 Cm and 80% effaced. I was super excited, they on the other hand, made the decision to go ahead and wait until morning but they moved it to 5am instead of 6. At that point we knew it was going to be a practically uneventful night and the real excitement would be the next day, so we all kept each other company for a little while and then the family left to all sleep at home. Tim of course stayed with me, and we spent a very restless, butterflies-in-the-belly-night in Labor and Delivery Room 5.
Monday: 4:30am... WAKE UP! I have already done an early morning post on waking up early, so let me get on with the story.
5:00am... Start the Petocin, start the contractions. To be honest I had already been contracting on my own so these contractions weren't much different from some of the ones I had already been having for days. Yet, even with contracting regularly all night I still hadn't progressed.
7:00am-ish... My family gets to the hospital for some sitting around and waiting. We had a new group of nurses and they didn't like having everyone in the room at the same time, so they limited it to 3 guests at a time. Of course Tim stayed by my side the entire time, the other 4 had to take turns....about 30 min visits, switching back and forth all day long. It would go like this... "Hi Mom and Kaitlyn!" we'd talk, pass time, watch TV and then it would switch..."Hi Dad and Casey!" we'd talk, pass time, watch TV and then it would switch..."Hi Mom and Kaitlyn"....ok you get the point. This took place the entire Labor and Delivery process and it was a very unique dance.
9:00am... At this point, even with increasing the Petocin regularly, I wasn't progressing as quickly as we all would have liked, I was still about 3 cm and they decided it was time to break my water. Woah! That certainly changes things. Hello, new and more intense contractions. Those contractions made me very quiet and I would tend to hold my breath and hold Tim's hand.
10:00am... I had dilated to about 4-5 cm and it was time for the GLORIOUS EPIDURAL! Oh welcome to cloud 9! It was weird not being able to feel my legs but in a strange way I could still focus and wiggle my toes. I couldn't feel any sensations in my legs themselves though, almost like an out of body experience when I would touch my hip. It made me a little itchy at first, but oh my goodness I think epidurals are fabulous!!!
11:oo Still not progressing, the nurses decide to try moving me into different positions. Funny thing, when you can't move your legs it's extremely difficult to move your body....they literally had to roll me themselves. So the dance of my family continued; we'd talk, pass time, watch TV then switch.
12:00 At this point my Petocin is up as high as they are allowed to put it without the Doctor's consent and I am still at 4-5 cm. Golly, a lot of build up for a lot of waiting. So they inform us that my Doctor will stop by on her lunch break and they also got her permission to increase my Petocin some more. And the dance continues....we'd talk, pass time, watch TV then switch.
1:15pm Dr. Davila stops by finally and after having been positioned all wopper-jobbered to help me dilate she announced I was at 8-9 Cm and it would be soon. She was heading to another room to deliver a baby and would be back in a little while to see how I was. To say we were excited was and understatement. Things were finally moving along! There would only be need for one more dance exchange.
1:45-ish....."Woah...hey Tim, go look at the monitor, I feel a lot of pressure with these contractions." Tim heads over to check the printout and gets to see the unique pattern of this new series of Labor Pains. They even looked different from my other contractions, a high spike and almost no tail....3 in a row. Within minutes a different nurse walks in (my nurse was assisting with the delivery my doctor had gone to) and asks me if I had felt those contractions. I said I had and she encourages me to do a practice push to see how good I am. At this point Dad and Casey are out of their seats to go and switch with Mom. A lot happens during this dance exchange:
While I am practicing my first push, immediately Connor's heart rate dropped very very low. The nurse yells at me to stop and in an instant my room fills with nurses. I look over at Tim while they are putting an oxygen mask over my mouth and he is reaching for a chair to sit in. I looked at him and told him to pray. The nurses are throwing things, yelling orders at each other, attempting to find Connor's heart beat and unlocking the wheels on my bed to wheel me into the C-Section room. Tim and I are praying as hard as we possibly can. At that moment my doctor comes rushing in putting on her scrubs and immediately takes control of the situation. She looks at Tim and tells him it will be ok while she is ordering a vacuum and attaching an internal fetal monitor to Connor's head. Side-Note: Dad and Casey didn't realize what exactly they were leaving, so in the switch they just said it was Mom and Kaitlyn's turn. So in walks Mom and Kaitlyn during this emergency situation. I look at mom and quickly say that Kaitlyn shouldn't be in here. I didn't know what was going to happen and didn't want her to be a part of a traumatic situation. She heads back out to the waiting room and switches with Dad. Everything was happening so fast the "dancers" didn't really understand what was going on. Dr. Davila looks at me and says "ok let me see how you push". The only thing going through my head was I need to get the baby out so they can help him. If he was out, he would be safe. Even sitting here now writing about it brings tears to my eyes. I was so scared. I had nurses on each side of me, they wouldn't let my mom or Tim hold me, they didn't even want them to take pictures. It took Dr. Davila telling them they could to allow some pictures of the moment Connor came into the world. I pushed for 3 sets. In other words I only took 3 deep breaths with pushing to get him out. Connor was born at 1:59pm. From contractions to delivery was about 15 minutes. They unwrapped the chord from his neck and placed a beautiful crying baby on my tummy. In that moment my heart grew 7lbs and 3oz more. He cried first, the rest of the room was quickly in tow. He was ok. He was more than ok, he was perfect.
We have him home now and I will write about it soon. He tested positive for jaundice so we've been dealing with a billyblanket for the past 2 days and it makes little Connor our own little glow worm. At our pediatrician visit today his count was down which means he is off the blanket! wahoo! Now on to a new normal for our sweet little family.
