Four days after Noa's due date we were headed down to Newport for my weekly OB checkup. I had a feeling that I was not going to come home before having her, so I made sure to have my hospital bags and my own pillows and our infant car seat in the back of the car before leaving that morning for my appointment. Since we lived next door to my parents and I didn't want everyone aware of my "feeling" I tried really hard not to make it obvious that I was packing the car for a hospital stay.
For a month or so, I had had small amounts of protein in my urine. My blood pressure, however, had remained within a good range, so my doctor chose to simply watch my progress closely. I had noticed with my borrowed (from a doctor friend who had just had a bout with pre-eclampsia) automatic home blood pressure cuff that my blood pressure had been creeping up in the day or two before that appointment. So, my feeling was fairly grounded in reality and not just preggo-mama-mysticism.
Sure enough, at my appointment, my doctor noticed the rising blood pressure, so she told us to head across the street to the hospital and that she would call to let them know that I was on my way. The plan was to induce labor which was something I had hoped to avoid, but I also knew we needed to go forward with the new plan due to the pre-eclampsia symptoms.
I was feeling a little rebellious so I had my husband stop by Jack-in-the-Box on the way to the hospital. Even though I had had a feeling that this was what was going to happen, I wasn't mentally prepared to go straight to the hospital. I kind of hoped to go into labor on my own right then. I ate part of a breakfast burrito. I was too excited to eat much, but I wanted something in my stomach since I knew that I wouldn't get anything to eat after that until 24 hours after the baby had arrived (due to the pre-eclampsia meds).
The room they gave us had a gorgeous ocean view that I couldn't see from the bed. I lasted a few hours on the Pitocin without an epidural, but even my husband was ready for me to get the drugs by the time I was dilated to 4cm. It then took almost two hours for the anesthesiologist to arrive.
He told me that if I flinched when he pricked me that he wouldn't be able to do the epidural. He didn't give me any warning and pricked me for practice a couple times to see if I would jump. I've never "jumped" with shots or needle pricks before. He told an awful story of how he'd seen someone's brain fluid spray out of the line once, killing them, because the person moved during placement. I was relieved to have him finish up and just leave the room.
Soon after receiving the epidural I started shaking, shivering uncontrollably. My teeth were rattling so much that I could barely ask the nurse what was happening to me. She didn't offer anything in the way of an explanation and it wasn't until well after I'd gotten home from the hospital that I researched and found out that it can be a reaction to the epidural.
A little while later I was allowed a grape popsicle which was very nice since they hadn't allowed me to have even a sip of water. A few minutes after that, I threw up the grape popsicle.
I was still shivering violently and couldn't relax a single muscle in my body. This was just as exhausting as the contractions had been before the epidural.
My labor started progressing very quickly, but as it did, Noa's heart rate began dropping with every contraction. The nurses kept stopping and starting my labor. Finally, my doctor came to check on me and let me know that they were thinking that I should probably have a c-section. She knew how much I didn't want that so she started to say that they would try starting the Potocin again, but right then Noa's heart rate began slowing fairly dramatically without contractions. Based on the concern my doctor and the entire nursing staff were expressing, my husband and I felt that getting her out sooner was best so we agreed to go ahead with the c-section. I'd be lying to say I wasn't a bit relieved about it all being over a little bit faster even though I was bummed out about not being able to have the vaginal delivery.
When I arrived in the operating room, it was just me and the OR nurses as my husband and my doctors were still getting gowned and masked and washed. When the nurses plugged in my monitors, Noa's heart rate had dropped below 30 bpm. The nurses started hollering for "the doctors and the husband!" What they had told me would take 45 minutes took about 2 seconds. They all ran in and cut me right open and yanked her out. I never stopped praying. My husband kept one hand on me, but kept straining to look over the curtain and watch them slice my belly open and yank it apart. He was fascinated and intently focused on the procedure. I could only every so often feel slight soft tugging. I felt like I was only my head and shoulders and that the rest of me didn't exist. It was a very strange feeling to be so incredibly helpless about something I cared so deeply about.
Noa was fine. The cord had been wrapped around her shoulder and it had been compressed with every contraction which I was told was what was probably causing her heart rate to slow so dramatically. (After this experience and then having a similar thing happen with our 3rd, I think I will ask to not have my water broken in the future.)
When they put her on my chest for the first time, I still couldn't move my sock monkey arms. The nurse picked them up for me and flopped them around her. I was so afraid my arms would slip off and that she would fall to the floor.
The first thing I noticed was her tongue. It was so precious and pointy and long! She kept sticking it out slowly as if she was tasting the air.
My parents were there right outside of the operating room. Apparently, my husband had simply texted them "C-section" and that was the last they had heard from him.
Because of the magnesium they had to give me for the pre-eclampsia symptoms, I had to stay in the recovery room and in bed for 24 hours. The recovery room was very large and in this room I could see the ocean from the bed. I couldn't move from the bed and I couldn't eat or drink anything for a full day after the delivery. I don't remember being hungry at all. I do remember being incredibly thirsty and I felt very dirty and smelly.
The night Noa was born, my husband's sister happened to be in the area, so she came to the hospital to meet her baby niece. Noa already reminded me a lot of this Auntie's baby photos. The next day, which was also spent mostly in the recovery room, my cousin and brother visited. My brother brought me a card that said, "I'm sorry you had to have surgery," which still makes me laugh today. FYI brothers: making someone who just had major abdominal surgery laugh, is not a particularly nice thing to do.
That second night we were finally moved to the mother-baby room and I was allowed to stand up, I couldn't take my eyes off the bathroom. I needed a shower desperately. I had to wait till morning though because it was still too difficult to stand on my own. I could barely make it to the toilet and back because of the dizziness. The next morning I found that shower to be the best, most exhausting and most painful shower I have ever experienced. Before I was even dressed, my other sister-in-law and her mom were there to visit us.
By the third day, we were ready to go home. The sweet day-shift nurse wanted us to stay another day, but the night before we had had an awful, downright rude nurse. This nurse was so abrupt and demanding. She would scold me for breastfeeding the wrong way or forgetting exactly what time I had last changed a wet diaper. She would burst through the door just after we would doze off and turn all the lights on to take my pulse. Noa would cry and once we would get her back to sleep, I would struggle to go back to sleep with all the hospital noise and then as soon as I started to nod off the nurse would promptly come bursting in to take Noa's vitals. I knew this was not normal as all the other nurses had been so careful to creep in so quietly and politely. She raised her voice, almost yelling at me and talked to me as if I was an annoying child. I was not about to risk spending another night with that nurse or a similar one.
This was suppose to be her going home outfit, but as you can see it was much too large! Luckily, I had brought a backup outfit that was a bit smaller. The drive home was surreal. Every time I drive that stretch of Pacific Coast Highway, I think about driving home with our first daughter.
We had lots of visitors those first few weeks. I found myself going nuts if anyone in the house coughed or showed signs of a slight sniffle. After one set of visitors I went around spraying almost an entire can of Lysol. My husband had to open all the windows and doors in order to breathe.
Weird little details are what I remember most about those first few weeks. Still to this day, the venti, breve, sugar-free vanilla, extra-shot latte that one of my aunts brought me, was the best thing I have ever drank in my life. Liquid heaven. I still occasionally order this drink and it brings me right back to those moments after Noa arrived.
And up next, our second daughter's birth story!
2 comments:
Aww, she is so beautiful! Your Epidural guy sounds terrible! I can't believe he would tell stories like that. I remember that incredibly exhausting shower after my first birth, I really think that my first birth was the most exhausting. I love the details in your story, the view from your bedroom, the lysol, the coffee, great memories! :)
Yes, that guy was something else! I still consider it fortunate, though, that we already had the epidural in place before the c-section became an emergency. If I'd waited, they may have had to just knock me out completely. Even though it was basically opposite from the birth experience I had wanted, I am glad that I at least got to be conscious to meet her!
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