So, here is the story... it all started around 5:30am on April 29th, 2009. I woke up in the morning with contractions that were uncomfortable enough to disrupt my sleep. Initially I didn't think anything of it because I had been experiencing this kind of thing off and on for weeks before and nothing had ever come of it. Plus I was so beyond ready to get the baby out that I didn't want to think that it was finally going to happen, but then have it really be nothing. As I was lying in bed I started noticing that the contractions were coming regularly.... so I pulled out my iphone and started timing them. They were lasting around 1 minute long... and coming every 6-9 minutes apart. It was still pretty early in the morning and I didn't believe that labor was every going to happen so I just let time pass until I noticed Cliff stewing in the bed. Around 6:30 in the morning Cliff looked like he was slowly waking up so I told him what I was experiencing. I made sure to also say, "Don't get yourself excited about anything, cause it's probably nothing, like everything else has been." Well he got excited anyway.
Then about 7am I decided to call my Mom so that she had a heads up, in case she should call in to work. I made a tentative plan in my mind to just continue waiting and watching to see if there was any changes in the contraction patterns that I had been experiencing. I had an appointment to see Dr. David at 11:30 that morning. I got up, ate breakfast and then went back up to bed to lay down for a bit... I started to feel like maybe the contractions were dying down, or going away and that disappointed me a little. At 11:30 we went to see Dr. David and she put me on the fetal monitor for a while. After examining the strip and checking me out she determined that I was definitely in labor and that I should head to the hospital.
At the hospital I was immediately admitted and the excitement was starting to build. This was about 12:30 -1pm in the afternoon. The plan was for me to just normal labor management. The complicating issue was that I was having several high blood pressures so the nurse started an IV and sent labs out to test for pre-eclampsia. They were negative. It apparently was just what they called gestational hypertension. Later my pressures came down and we were ok..
Several hours later, I asked if they were examine me and see if I had made any changes since the doctors office. I had not. So that's when the next course of action was initiated. They started me on pitocin. For some strange reason I didn't feel it to be that necessary to get the epidural right away. I felt as if I had to pay my dues and experience some real labor pains before i wimped out and got relief. Finally, I caved in and got it. It was great.
I was sitting in the bed not feeling a doggarn thing. It was as if my contractions just stopped. A short while later they broke my water and things started happening. Not such great things actually. The heart tones started dropping, which happens very often as a complication to labor. Finally I am laboring over hours and hours... the pressure and discomfort is getting worse regardless of help from the epidural. At 4am they rechecked me, I was 8cm, at 5am I was 9cm and then around 6am I was fully dilated and started pushing. It was horribly embarrassing and humiliating the whole pushing experience and I hated every moment of it. I didn't want anybody holding my legs... I didn't want anybody counting in my face and truthfully I had no idea how to push a baby out! I was miserably uncomfortable but I kept persisting on. I had problems pushing and laboring because the baby's heart rate kept on dropping, I couldn't move at all because no matter what I did his heart rate would start dropping. Dr. Janicki who was on call for Dr. David came in the room and said that we were going to try to deliver the baby with a vacuum assisted birth. My mom did not like the sound of that at all and said, why don't we just have a c-section? But using the vacuum was worth a shot and the anesthesiologist came in to the room to re dose my epidural. I still didn't feel like it made much of a difference because I was incredibly uncomfortable with all the horrible pressure.
Dr. Janicki applied the vacuum to the baby's head and I pushed as hard as I possibly could but no luck and off I was to the operating room. They rolled me in, prepped me and they started the surgery immediately. Cliff comes in to the room all robed up and I felt the need to reassure him because he wasn't looking so hot. I had no idea what he was seeing on his end... and before I knew it Cliff was turning pale white and wanted out of the room. By this time the baby was out.... I was feeling horrible. The oxygen mask was on my face but I felt as if I couldn't breathe and I started feeling like I was going to throw up, and I did. My mom had by this time come into the OR and was able to see the baby and brought him over to me.
Now Cliff got to see it all. He got to see way more of me than he ever thought that he wanted. He could see them cutting me open, reaching their hands in to my body... pulling out the baby and removing my insides and placing them on my belly. Meanwhile he was hearing what the doctors were saying to each other.... Dr. Janicki who was the attending doctor kept repeatedly correcting the resident doctor. He was saying things like, "No not there, that's the liver!". So this is why Cliff had a hard time getting through the entire procedure. My mom came in and thought that was the coolest and was hoping to capture some of my dismemberment on video.
They stapled me shut and back to the room I went. I was the last of everyone to hold my very own baby. But when I did it was the most incredible moment. Incredible love at first sight that is so intense and so strong it's almost too hard to bare.
Jordan Abraham Chaitman was born on April 30th, 2009 at 8:12 am weighing in at 7lbs 12 oz and was 19 3/4 inches long.
No comments:
Post a Comment