Long Overdue Explanations
No doubt you may be seeking some sort of explanation as to my prolonged absence from the blogosphere. Well, this post should explain all...the mother of all posts.The last time I was online was about a week ago. Since then, the world has been upended.
Last Monday, you may recall, I was still on bed rest, following doctor's orders and taking care of myself. Monday was supposed to have been Day 5 of the bed rest saga, but I had a regular doctor's appointment that morning.
I went in and my doctor first sent me to ultrasound for another well-baby test (this is an ultrasound where they look for diaphragm movement, 3 independent movements, and check fluid in a 30 minute window). We passed this test again, indicating that our baby girl was doing fine.
However, I then went into see the doctor. We discussed how things were going and she indicated her concerns for my health again over prolonging the pregnancy unnecessarily, given the baby's fine condition. She wanted to induce labor. I said "great! Let's do it!"
So, Monday after meeting the doctor, my husband and I raced home and packed our stuff for a brief hospital stay. At 2:00 p.m. that afternoon, we checked into our birthing suite (which was very nice). My doctor arrived at 4:00 p.m. and inserted the Cervidil. I may not be spelling that correctly, but in essence, this is the "magic string." They insert the string way up there and the gel that is implanted on it slowly melts with body heat and makes the cervix dilate. My doc told me that this might not "get us there" and that an additional string might be needed 12 hours later. This, it would turn out, would be the famous last words of this story.
You see, not long after inserting the magic string, they hooked me up to the fetal monitoring belts and it turns out I was already having contractions, though they were small and I just wasn't feeling them. No big deal, really. Prince Charming and I started watching some television and he soon fell asleep on the couch in our suite. Then I felt something.
It was sort of like a jolt or a pop. Then I felt something trickling oddly from my nether regions. It was exceedingly disconcerting. I freaked a bit, but figured it was probably just my water breaking. I yelled across the room to Prince Charming and finally woke him and explained this new development. He urged me to use the call button to call the nurse and I did. She came and confirmed that, yes indeed, my water had broken. She decided to call the on-call doctor from my doctor's office (not my doctor but his buddy) and share this new development. I should point out that this was happening at 7:40 p.m. My doctor's buddy (who I shall now refer to as the doctor) told the nurse to pull out the string, and that he was on his way to the hospital.
That's just about when I started feeling those contractions. And, holy hell, was that something I could do without!
You know how in the movies and on television contractions come regularly one at a time with significant time between moments?
Not mine. Not mine at all! It turns out that I am a bit different from most in that I was having couplets and triplets of contractions spaced tightly together followed by very brief periods of respite between couplets and triplets. My husband, my hero, was giving me ice chips and holding my hand as I ran this marathon (and busy joking to keep me from killing someone).
The doctor arrived and "checked" me to see how far dilated I was. It turns out that I was most of the way "there" and the doctor was astounded. He was also astounded at what the baby monitor indicated my contractions were doing. Anyway, he had them hook me up for a catheter and an iv and told me he'd be back soon. He also said the following words which made me feel so much better: "I'm not leaving until this baby gets here, so don't worry." That made me feel pretty safe.
And so he was. He returned about an hour later and told me I was fully dilated, but that the baby hadn't dropped into the birth canal yet. He said we needed to give this time to happen and asked me my views on pain management. Did I want the epidural? HELL YES! BRING ON THE DRUGS! I said. He laughed. (Remember, this whole time I feel as though the space-time continuum is erupting and reerupting every few minutes in my nether regions.)
Doc called the anesthesiologist and he came to do the epidural. Did I mention the shaking? Oh, well, I should. It turns out all of those hormones racing through your body at this moment in a woman's life can give you the uncontrollable shakes. So, there I was, perched on the side of my hospital bed with my feet propped up on a chair, a doctor sticking needles in my back, as I shake uncontrollably and fight off my couplets and triplets of contractions. Prince Charming has said, throughout the entire ordeal, that this is what scared him. He said I was shaking worse than Mohammed Ali and he was very concerned.
Yeah, me too, but I wanted the drugs.
Finally the epidural kicked in and my legs turned into rubber. The anesthesiologist asked me how I was doing and I may have told him that I love him. I know that I squeaked out, "You rock!" in a breathy voice as my pain died away. He laughed. It is good when you can make someone realize just how much they are appreciated in their work.
My doctor checked me again and said the baby still hadn't dropped into the birth canal, so he suggested that I get some sleep. He said that in 2 hours we would start pushing. "We." Yeah, right. Perhaps there was a frog in the pocket of my hospital gown?
Shortly before 4 a.m. on Tuesday morning, the euphemistic "we" started pushing. Prince Charming was on my left and my wonderful nurse was on my right. We fought through these couplets and triplets of contractions that were now happening practically all the time for 2 hours. The doctor was in and out of the room, mostly in after the 1 hour mark passed, and finally announced, to my dismay, that the baby still hadn't dropped. This is when we had our come-to-jesus discussion.
He said that I was doing a fabulous job, fighting like a champ, but that the baby already had a cone head. He said that we could continue down this path, but the pain would only get worse and would likely take many many many more hours. He also informed me that I don't have a normal pelvic arch. Most women have a pelvic arch with a 90 degree angle and mine is more like half of that. This means that my baby was going to have to do some very serious contorting to get past the road block. He said we had three options:
1. Continue to do what we were doing, knowing full well that pain, hours of intense labor, and the very real liklihood of a serious episiotomy were in the near future.
2. Continue to do what we were doing, but have him help matters along with the use of forceps (and all of the aforementioned unpleasantness of option 1).
3. Roll into the OR and do a Caesarian Section. I already had the epidural and the iv, so it was a simple matter of calling the anesthesiologist back for another dose of the good stuff and rolling down the hallway. Then he said the magic words: "We can have this baby out in 30 minutes."
Sign me up, I said.
So, they did. They rolled me into the OR and I got some much needed drugs. Then, I literally proceeded to tell jokes through my own surgery. I get sort of manic when I'm nervous, I'm not really perverse. Prince Charming got to "scrub in." He looks so cute in scrubs, but I almost didn't recognize him in his hair hat thingy.
We had our baby at 6:39 a.m. on Tuesday, December 20th. She wasn't super vigorous right out of the womb, but she perked up in no time. Prince Charming did just as I had instructed back months ago when we had our "worst-case-scenario" discussion and left my side to be with our baby girl. They stapled me back together and rolled me into recovery.
I still hadn't seen my little girl and was getting a bit anxious, but they finally brought her to me. I was still shaking like crazy though, and refused to hold her until I had better control of my motor skills. They gave me a shot of something and my shaking soon subsided. Eventually they took us upstairs to a new room for the prolonged recovery period that goes with C-sections.
Now, the details.
Our daughter, London Avery, weighed 7 lbs 4 ounces at birth. She has a full head of dark brown hair. She was 20 inches long. She is perfect in every possible way and we are well and truly blessed.
We didn't get to leave the hospital until Friday. And even then, we went with health concerns over London's weight (she lost weight waiting for my breast milk to come in) and jaundice.
We are over these hurdles now too, though, and blogging should return to normal soon.
For now, our thanks to everyone for all of the well wishes. I'm going to go feed my daughter.
