This is the story of how my son Brennan made his way into the world. It all started on Tuesday October 30th I was at 37 weeks 4 days. I woke up at around 3am to change position in bed. I recall feeling somewhat wet down there but decided to ignore it as I was still half asleep. By 6am I got up for the day and noticed that I still seemed to be quite wet down there and every time I stood up I would notice a small trickle. I was a little concerned but chalked it up to be checked at my Doctor's appointment the day before especially since I was seeing some mucous material also. As the day progressed I thought that this wet problem was clearing up. Around 2:15 that afternoon I decided to lay in bed and try to take a nap. I settled in and not too long after I got comfortable I felt a gush…no pop like some people describe...just a gush. I knew what it was though. I got up right away and ran to the bathroom. Of course I was soaked and it just kept gushing out. I found a pad and some new underwear and pants found the phone and called my mother and father. "Um I think my water just broke." My parents drove right over to take me to the hospital meanwhile I was running around trying to make sure I had everything I needed. I called my Will, my sister and a friend. I wasn't having any contractions. I had been having some mild cramping which is normal in late pregnancy so I knew we didn't really need to hurry to get to the hospital but we were all anxious anyways.
When we got to the hospital Will was already there and waiting. We went up to the labor and delivery ward and were told to wait. Hum sounds like fun eh? What was the point of pre-registering at the hospital if I had to do it all over again? They finally took me back to a case room where a resident performed the nitrazine test to see for certain that my membranes had ruptured this test came back positive. They hooked me up to the monitor and we could see that I was having mild contractions every 3-4 minutes most of which I couldn't feel. Baby was doing fine. I was dilated only to 2cm which was .5 more than the day before at the doctor's appointment. They contacted the Doctor on call in my practice and it was him that decided I should be admitted and then if labor did not begin on it's own I would be induced the next morning. So off I went to antepartum still gushing and using those lovely postpartum pads and mesh undies. By 10ish I told Will that he might as well go home and get some sleep. I was in a ward and he wasn't allowed to stay with me in the room. He could have slept in the waiting room but I thought he would be more comfortable at home. I didn't anticipate anything happening that night. I was having mild AF like cramps and nothing more. I promised to call of course if he was needed.
Turns out I had a very very rough night. I was "cramping" every 5-10 minutes and the pains were gradually getting more and more painful. They gave me some T3's but it didn't really cut through the pain. So needless to say I didn't get one wink of sleep all night. The next morning I called Will at around 5 am and told him to get his butt back to the hospital. I was feeling pretty crappy and I though he needed to share that with me…lol.
By 10 am they had space for me back upstairs in labour and delivery….back to the case room I went. They hooked me up to the monitors again for a while. At this point I was having more intense contractions and the back pain was starting to get unbearable. As soon as I knew that there would be an induction all thought of a natural med free childbirth went out the window. I was already in a lot of pain plus no sleep, I didn't want to be more uncomfortable, tired and in labor. The nurse attempted to put my IV line in for the Oxytocin. She tried two times with two fails. They had to call the anesthesiologist to do it. They ended up putting it right in the left side of my left wrist….very uncomfortable. After that was done they moved me to the actual delivery room where I started to feel the effects of the Oxytocin right away. The nurse checked me and I was at 4-5 cm already so she said I could go ahead with the epidural. The epidural went in and for a while it felt great then after not too long…early afternoon I was starting to feel pain again. At first it was all in my left hip but eventually it was all over my lower left side. I was pretty much in agony when the head anesthiologist for the floor came in to check on me he decided to give me a top up. A large dose all at once. That did the trick and I was pain free again. But only for a short time. Around 1pm I was check and was almost fully dialted, there was only a small lip left of the cervix. So we decided to try some pushing. I did see my doctor around this time and he was pleased with the progress. So we did some pushing and even though I couldn't feel a thing, I couldn't feel my legs or contractions but the nurse was enthusiastic and was happy with the way I was pushing. By 3 pm my nurse's shift was over and a second nurse came on duty.
This new nurse was briefed as too what was going on. As soon as the first nurse left she turned to me and said. We are going to take a break for a while. I want you feeling something before you start too push again. I was a little leery of this, but she is supposed to be the person who knows what to do. So she turned OFF my epidural and UPPED the oxytocin. Well it didn't take long for me to start feeling contractions again and boy were they ever hard and right on top of each other. Not to mention that HORRIBLE back pain was back and that was constant. I was starting to lose control when that nurse left for her dinner break. A nice younger nurse came in to cover and I absolutely lost it. I was bawling so hard. I was in so much back pain plus these contractions coming over and over and over. I cried to the nurse "why did I get an epidural if I wanted to be in this much pain?????" So she got the anesthesiologist back who noted my epidural had been turned off. He was my savior. He actually bereted the second nurse for turning it off. Especially since I was in such obvious agony. He turned it back up for my and gave me a little extra. I was much happier. Anyways I was back to not feeling my lower half and back to concentrating on pushing. My contractions had started to space out so the Oxytocin was upped. The contractions never got really regular again but I was still pushing when ever I felt pressure or the machine said I was contracting. Everybody could see the head descending upon the push but it would go right back up again.
The nurse kept telling me to push hard right into my bottom. I WAS pushing as hard as I could. It was very discouraging to not make any progress. The nurse called the Doctor back the final time around 7pm. When he had been there at 5pm he expected that I was only a few pushes away…wrongo! He came back to find my pretty much at the same spot as 2 hours prior. Between him and the nurse they finally decided that baby was facing left occiput transverse (LOT). So instead of head down facing the floor his face was more to the left side. The doctor discussed options with us. But really he only gave us the c-section option. He said turning with forceps he wouldn't do because of potential risk to baby and vacuum was really only used to pull and not turn.
By this time I was ready to just have the baby out safe and sound and agreed to the section. I felt slightly jipped…especially since having gone through all that labor but the baby would get here soon and that was all that mattered.
I had a short wait as the OR was being used. So I had a little rest. Although I was feeling some pain as the epidural was wearing off again. They took me back to the OR (my first ever surgery) set me up topped up the epidural again. The doctor came in and began. I was actually still feeling pain as he cut in so I was given a shot of something through my IV. Well that shot pretty much put me out. The next thing I remember was looking to my right, seeing double, and seeing Will with a baby over at the warmer. He came over to me and said he was going with the baby and that he would see me in recovery. It took me a few minutes to gather myself. I was very confused. I could see the doctors and they were sewing me up. I started to shiver with the chill of the room. The doctors finally finished and they cleaned me up and moved me to the recovery room. I stayed there for an hour at which time I got to meet my son for the first time. My memory of this is pretty fuzzy. Then he was taken to the nursery to be cleaned up and to stay the night.
I was transferred to my post partum room after 11pm. Most of this I don't remember, but I do remember telling Will to go home and to update the family. I was very exhausted and drugged. I don't remember being moved into bed or anything. I remember waking a couple times in the night wondering about my baby and when I would get to see him again. Finally at about 5 am the nurse came into check on me and I was awake. She asked if I wanted her to bring the baby. Of course I said yes and she brought him in. We finally were able to have some bonding time.
My doctor came to visit me that morning. He told me that I had done nothing wrong. Baby was just in the wrong position. He told me that when they delivered the baby my uterus tore (he told Will my cervix the night before). My hospital/surgical records confirm my uterus torn down through my cervix on the left side starting at the uterine incision. The hospital stay was not fun. I was on liquid diet for the most part, I couldn't pee on my own for the most part and had to wear a catheter for an extra day. The incision site was sore every muscle was sore from the prolonged labour and I had to use these ugly suppository pain killers.
I wanted to breastfeed however Brennan was given formula in the hospital due to low blood sugar and he was also very very tired from the drugs passed through me. I had a lot of issues with breast feeding. The baby became very jaundiced and had to be readmitted to the hospital after our discharge to go under the lights. I did work with a specialist in regards to breastfeeding and we determined that I wasn't making sufficient milk and would have to supplement. We couldn't be sure if this was due to my PCOS or our bad start or both.
I do believe that my c-section was needed we did push for approximately 5 hours with no progress. That is much long than normal. However I do think that there were certain events leading up to it that could have been changed and maybe it could have been avoided.
I feel very bitter about how the birth turned out. I hate that I didn't get to see my son being born or hear his first cry's. We don't even have pictures. Nothing can replace those lost memories.
This is the only picture of us the night Brennan was born. The only time I saw him and held him on his birthday.
1 comment:
Thanks for sharing. I felt very traumatized by Mikayla's birth as well. It's definitely not the way you dream of your children coming into the world, right?
Post a Comment