Special Delivery

Well, you've all seen pictures of Elena now, and there will be LOTS more in the near future (I promise!) but I thought I'd tell the story of Wednesday night. Some of you have probably heard it already, some of you were lucky (or something) enough to be there, but here it is anyway...


Tuesday afternoon during my doctors' appointments Elena didn't do her practice breathing, so my doctor decided to induce Wednesday. Labor and Delivery was busy, so she said they would just call us and let us know when there was a bed open. So Josh and I spent a very odd Wednesday. We both took off work, and we went out to breakfast and went to Target to buy a last minute baby outfit (because we knew she'd be swimming in the outfit we brought to take her home) and just sitting around twiddling our thumbs. They finally called at about 3:00, and told us to come on in. So we did... we were both really nervous, it's not the same as the "Honey, I think it's time" drive, since we knew we were going in that day, but we still couldn't shake the fact that we were headed to the hospital to have a baby. It was a funny feeling to sit there and have Elena moving around inside me, thinking that she'd shortly be moving around outside me!



Anyway, we made it to the hospital and got all checked in around 3:30... The nurse started my pitocin drip, and asked me millions of questions. My contractions started, but they weren't bad. They were definitely different from the ones I'd been feeling at home, but I had a nice break in between them and didn't have much trouble breathing through them. Josh's family came in to say hi, Dave came by and prayed with us, and Mom and Ruth got there. Contractions got progressively worse, but I was still only dialated at 2 1/2 cm (I'd been 2 cm at my doctor's appointment the day before). My nurse, Sue, said that I could have 2 visitors at a time, and that I should probably settle in for a long night. Josh and I were a little bummed, because we wanted Elena to have the 12th as her birthday, just for the fun that it would be 5 years to the day after our second first date. But it really didn't matter to us...



Suddenly, the room was very full of people. Two nurses and Dr. Boulicault all came blowing in and slide the curtain closed behind them. They came over to me and said "Roll over on your left side. Ok, roll over on your right side." It was a little scary, too. Plus, as they rolled me over on my right side, I suddenly felt like I'd peed my pants. I thought at first it was just a little bit, so I must have just squirted... but then it just kept coming. So I told them, um, I think my water just broke. And they flipped the sheet up (you really lose your dignity/modesty very quickly during labor) and said "Oh, it sure did!" So then Dr. Boulicault put an internal monitor on Elena, and finally things calmed down. It wasn't until now that they told Josh and I what was going on. Apparently, Elena's heart rate had dropped below the ideal level and stayed there for a couple of minutes. It went right back up, but they decided to put the internal monitor on anyway, since my water had broken and they'd had trouble keeping track of her with the external monitor. The internal monitor (I actually remembered this from our birthing class) is a wire with a little corkscrew on the top of it that they stick inside and twist into the scalp of the baby. That way they're not trying to chase the baby from the outside to get a heartbeat- it's more reliable. Unfortunately, it also meant that I couldn't get up and walk. And it was really weird because as she moved around inside me the wire twisted outside me, which felt really weird. But, anyway, that scary episode aside, and my water broken, labor continued...



The contractions got progressively worse... and, actually worse than the pain was that there was no break between them. I would have one contraction, then 15 seconds later I'd have another one. So I told my nurse that maybe I would like something to take the edge off of the pain. It wasn't time for my epidural yet, but they gave me stadol instead. This was not helpful! It didn't really take the edge off the pain, I could still feel all of the contractions. What it did do was make me stupid. I couldn't put coherent thoughts together, and I could hardly open my eyes. But everything still really hurt, and the contractions were still coming one on top of the other. Josh and my mom and Ellen were all in with me at this point, and poor Josh's hand was beat red and had finger marks at the end of every contraction. Since the stadol didn't really help, they decided to go ahead and put in the epidural. So the nurse did an exam on me to get me ready for it, and I was 4 cm. dialated by then. Since I was less than aware after the stadol, I have no idea what time it was by then, but I'm thinking somewhere around 8:00 or 8:30. Ellen and Mom both left, Ellen had to go back to Sam's baseball game, and I think it bothered Mom to see me so out of it and still in pain. Plus, she'd always said she didn't want to be there for the ugly part! Anyway, the doctor who was putting in the epidural had another patient, and then he was going to be in to do mine. So we were back to waiting... the contractions gave me 15 or 20 seconds in between, and I was miserable. But eventually (I think it was probably around an hour later) he got there and started to put in my epidural.



I had to sit up so that he could get to my back, and I couldn't move, even during contractions (which I had several of), so putting in the epidural was pretty hard, too. The actual procedure didn't hurt (at least not enough to penetrate my stadol fuzziness) but sitting up during contractions hurt really bad. Once it was in, they said it would probably take 15 minutes or so to take complete effect. Then the nurse decided to examine me. It's all very fuzzy, but I remember her telling the other nurse "I can't find it." It took me a couple of minutes to realize that she was talking about my cervix, and she couldn't find it anymore, meaning I was fully dialated. So another nurse checked it, and she could feel the cervix, and said I was "8 cm and VERY thin." And suddenly the room was full of people again... even more than during the first low heart rate incident. Dr. Boulicault was there, Dr. Cowen (who did the epidural) was there, and lots of nurses. They came in and just flipped my sheets off (meaning I was basically totally naked in a room full of people) and Dr. Boulicault started examining me... she said that the baby's heart rate had dropped again, and they were trying to get it back up. If they couldn't, they would have to do a c-section. So she was massaging the top of Elena's head, and they were flipping me side to side. It was especially scary because the epidural gave me the shakes, so my whole body was shaking, I couldn't really put coherent thoughts together, and there was something wrong with my baby. And because all the doctors and nurses were there, Josh had to step away.



Anyway, they couldn't get the heartbeat to come up and stay up (it would go up, then drop again, then spike again) so Dr. Boulicault decided to go ahead and do a c-section. Suddenly they were shaving me, then wheeling me out of the room. Poor Josh got left behind, which I know was really hard on him. They told him they would be back to get him when they got me settled in and he could be with me during the operation. So they wheeled me very quickly to the operating room, and I have very random, disconnected memories of everything that happened next. They checked to see if my epidural was working, which it wasn't. Since that wasn't working, they had to knock me completely out, except I still remember a few things... I remember the doctor and the nurse both getting really close to my face and telling me that Elena was doing fine, her heartbeat was back up, but they were going to get her out anyway. I remember the doctor checking to see if my epidural was working by poking on my stomach and asking if it was a pinch or just pressure (it was a pinch, which meant the epidural wasn't working). I remember that they told me to cross my arms on my chest and then they moved me to the new table. And I remember being very, very aware that I was nearly naked in this very bright room. And I remember them counting something, which Ellen tells me was probably a sponge count after the surgery. Why I remember these things, I don't know. But those are the memories I have. The really sad part was that, since they knocked me totally out, Josh couldn't be in the room with me. So I don't have any memories of the actual birth, and he didn't get to see it, or cut the cord, or anything, either. That part was not really how I pictured it going, but then I didn't really picture having a c-section, either.

I woke up back in my labor and delivery room, with the doctors around me, checking out how I was coming out of it. I didn't really know what had happened, I think I even asked someone if I'd had a c-section and had the baby. Josh and Elena were nowhere to be seen. But when they were finished checking me out, they sent Josh in. I still had the shakes, which are actually common after delivery, so I was still shaking uncontrollably, which was still kind of scary. I felt better after Josh got there, though. He held my hand and told me that our daughter was beautiful and healthy. I think he had been as scared as me (if not more so, since he wasn't fuzzy from pain meds), and the shakes really bothered him. But he had taken pictures of Elena on the warmer, and showed them to me. Not how I pictured seeing my daughter for the first time, but she was beautiful.

The next hour or so passed kind of in a haze as I was coming off of the anesthesia. But the shaking stopped, and after an hour or so they brought Elena in to see us (that's the picture of the 3 of us that's on the last post). I nursed her a little, which I was glad I got the chance to do, because it's so important right after birth. And, of course, I fell in love with her. Then they moved us into our recovery room at about 1:15, and we got a little sleep.

Since then, we've been loving having our sweet baby girl. We spent Thursday and Friday in the hospital, and came home Saturday afternoon. It was very surreal to be driving her home on Saturday, to think that we were all on our own with her now. But we've had her home for a whole day now, and even got a little sleep last night! Probably the coolest thing about the last couple of days has been watching Josh become a daddy. It comes so naturally to him, and he's wonderful at it. He has changed more diapers then I have, and he loves his little girl. Although the birth wasn't exactly what I had pictured and hoped for, God watched over us both the whole time, and blessed us with a beautiful little girl. It's hard to believe that a week ago we didn't have a daughter. It still feels unreal sometimes, but at the same time it feels so natural. Parenthood is such a strange and wonderful blessing.

**I know everyone wants pictures, and they will be coming soon (probably tomorrow). I just wanted to get this all written out before the memories faded any more.**