DISCLAIMER:
This is my birth story. With all big events in my life, I
like to have a place where I can record the details and emotions of the
experience so that I have something to look back on. I have decided to share
this on my blog, but want to forewarn that it will be lengthy, detailed, and
include somewhat “graphic” features. I understand that this sort of account may
not be everyone’s cup of tea, so thought I would include this note up front. :)
PS—there will also be pictures. Most are not too gruesome, but I will feature several of Otto and I shortly after his birth.
---
My pregnancy was overall pretty healthy / normal. I had a
tough first trimester with morning sickness and exhaustion, but once I got past
that, everything continued on as normal. Everything always looked great at my
doctor’s appointments and baby grew right on track.
At my 35 weeks appointment, my blood pressure was a bit
higher than normal. I had done some gardening outside beforehand and didn’t eat
lunch soon enough, which gave me low blood sugar / the jitters. We chalked it
up to that. However, a week later, my blood pressure had climbed to 140/90, so
my OB sent me into L&D triage at the hospital to be monitored.
I was monitored for a few hours and then sent home with
orders to do bi-weekly BP checks. Over the next couple of weeks, I did these
checks, and my blood pressure actually improved quite a bit and returned to a
normal level. My OB was a bit shocked but also pleasantly surprised, as he had
mentioned the possibility of inducing me early if needed at 37 weeks if my BP
didn’t go back down.
Also during these last few weeks, I had a huge burst of
energy and felt absolutely amazing! I definitely hit “nesting mode” and used it
to clean my house, organize my kitchen, and make freezer meals. I was thankful
to be feeling so well so late in my pregnancy.
At 38 weeks, I was dilated to 1cm and 50% effaced. I was
glad to hear this, because baby had dropped clear down and I was having a lot
of pressure. I also had a lot of random Braxton Hicks contractions, although
they were never consistent nor did they ever develop into anything. However, it
was still encouraging to know a little progress had been made…
Around 39 weeks, I was starting to get really anxious to
meet my little guy! I had actually convinced myself that I would deliver early,
since both of my sisters and my mom delivered their babies early. In fact, one
of my sisters never made it past 38 weeks with her kids!
At 39 weeks, I was still feeling pretty good and hoping that
I had made some more progress. On the day of my appointment (which was
Wednesday, 9/20) I had gone to my women’s bible study that morning and then
stopped at the grocery store to pick up ingredients for that night’s dinner. I
ate lunch at Chick-Fil-A and then headed over to my appointment later that
afternoon.
Much to my surprise (because I had been feeling great), my
BP had climbed back up to 145/90. My OB was not surprised given my struggle
with it several weeks before. He explained that at this point in pregnancy,
when the mother has high BP, there is no benefit to continuing the pregnancy
because the baby is already developed. To do so can cause danger to the mom and
also up chances of other complications like pre-eclampsia. He gave me about 10
minutes to relax so that he could re-check my BP a second time, but at this
point I was pretty worked up about this news and it remained high. He ended up
sending me into L&D triage again to get bloodwork done and told me to pack
my bags in case I needed to stay.
I would say that my main goal going into having my baby was
to remain open and know that in the end, I just wanted a safe delivery and
healthy baby. I tried to keep my expectations low and not “plan” on too much,
but for some reason this change of events really hit me hard. One thing I
really wanted to avoid was being induced, and now it looked like this would be
my reality. I was just hoping to be able to go into labor on my own, and let me
body lead the way. And I also really wanted to avoid a C-Section and have my
baby vaginally if at all possible.
At this point, it was about 3:30 in the afternoon, and I
called my husband crying, telling him this turn of events. He came right home
from work so we could head to the hospital. In the mean time, I headed home and
finished packing my bags and hopped in the shower. As soon as the hot water hit
me, I started bawling. I don’t know why it hit me so hard, but I was really
upset and also slightly anxious about what lie ahead. I think I was just so
surprised and taken off guard, and everything seemed to be happening so fast.
I finally pulled myself together :) and Ryan and I headed into
the hospital. They immediately hooked me up to a BP cuff and drew some labs. I
believe my bloodwork came back OK, but some of my levels were starting to look
off and my BP remained high, so they admitted me. They did a quick ultrasound
to confirm baby’s head was down (it was—yea!!) and checked me again… which
showed no new progress (still dilated to a 1cm and 50% effaced).
We were put into a birthing room and the nurse explained to
me that the first step was to start me on Cervadil, which was a 4-hour pill
that they insert to see if your cervix will soften / dilate on its own. My main
concern at this point was dinner :) and they assured me I could eat while this was taking place. Ryan got us Subway
and the pill was inserted around 6:45pm. I would later be thankful for this
meal, as it would be my last for the next 48 hours!
At this point, I was in communication with family and my
parents were trying to decide whether to head to Madison that evening or wait
until morning. They ended up deciding to head our way, which I would again be
thankful for because of what would unfold ahead.
Around 10:45, they checked me again to see if the Cervidil
had worked. Unfortunately, it had not—there was no new progress :( and my BP continued to
remain high. My nurse was amazing and super sweet and explained to me that the
only other thing option at this point was a Foley catheter. Normally, they
could try a 12 hour Cervidil pill, but they were worried about my BP being so
high and needed to keep moving things along. The Foley catheter is inserted
into cervix and a balloon helps to mechanically dilate the cervix. If it sounds
painful, that’s because it is! They explained that the placement would be
uncomfortable, but that usually women get used to it and the pain goes away.
My nurse had explained that I would likely have to do this,
but again, it just felt like everything was happening so fast. The next thing I
knew, they were inserting this contraption and I was shaking from fear. I
turned away and tried not to think about what was happening. I think my nurse
saw my discomfort and smiled at me and said, “Do you want a hand?” I nodded,
and she held my hand while this long, wiry contraption was placed inside of me.
They said it would need to be in for at least 4 hours before checking me again.
The placement WAS uncomfortable, but nothing could prepare
me for the pain I felt afterwards. Thankfully, around this time, my parents had
made it to the hospital.
By 11:30, I was in extreme pain. I felt each contraction as
if I was dilated to a 9… I had to breathe through each one. Because my BP had
continued to climb and they deemed me as getting “sicker and sicker,” they
started me on Magnesium. This is the treatment for pre-eclampsia, which they
were treating me for at this point because of my BP. They explained that this
would make me feel crummy, “like I had the flu.” Super.
The next several hours consisted of my mom holding one hand
while Ryan held the other, and me writhing in pain through each contraction
because the catheter was SO uncomfortable. I felt tremendous pain and pressure
each time. Also, the magnesium started to kick in, and it made me EXTREMELY
hot. I sweat profusely, so every 2-3 minutes, my mom would soak a rag in cold
ice water and put it on my forehead. The room was an igloo; everyone else was
freezing cold and in sweaters / cardigans and I was dripping with sweat.
I also had terrible labor shakes, so I basically shook
violently / sweat / breathed the best I could through each contraction. I was
bedridden at this point, with a BP cuff on one arm, compression cuffs on both
legs, and an IV in my other arm giving me meds.
My nurse gave me some IV meds for the pain eventually, which
helped take the edge off for about the first 10-15 minutes each time she gave
them. They were wonderful for those first minutes, but unfortunately quickly
wore off.
Usually, once dilated to a 4, the catheter would just fall
out on its own. However, at around 2:30am, they checked for progress and said… “We’ll
call that a 4,” with a smile… I was SO thankful! The pain was seriously
terrible! My nurse told me that no one has a Foley catheter and comes out “happy,”
but that they DO work.
Because I was experiencing so much pain already, my nurse
said, “Let’s get you an epidural.” I didn’t argue with her… I didn’t know how I’d
keep going at this level of pain and just wanted it to go away! However, as
soon as they took the catheter out, my pain almost disappeared! They wondered if
it wasn’t just a poor placement because of how much discomfort I experienced.
Since the anesthesiologist was on his way, I decided to get
the epi, anyway. It was nice to get it placed while I wasn’t writhing in pain. Ryan came around to my
front and held both of my hands while it was put in… and honestly, I barely
felt anything. After the pain I had just gone through, it didn’t seem like a
big deal at all!
So at this point, I was officially hooked up to meds all
over my body and every limb was occupied. The epidural did its job and
immediately made me feel 1000% better. It also dropped my BP quite a bit, which
is normal, so my nurse gave me oxygen to make sure the baby wasn’t affected by
such a drastic drop.
It was around 2:30/3am by now, so my dad went to our house
to sleep, and my mom and Ryan slept in the hospital room for a few hours. I
tried to “rest,” so I would relax my body, but every time I felt myself
starting to fall asleep, I noticed I was tense again! My body was still very
much laboring and sleep seemed impossible, but it was nice to just lay and
relax for awhile.
My contractions spaced out quite a bit and there was no new progress
(I was dilated to about a 5cm since 3am), so they started me on Pitocin at 7am.
About a half hour later, I remember Ryan waking up and coming over to my bed
and checking in on me. He then went back to the couch and I believe was on his
phone for a bit.
At about 8am, my mom had gone into the bathroom. My nurse
was in the room with me, and I was still laying in bed dozing. All of the
sudden, I heard a choking noise and saw Ryan fall off the couch face-forward,
smacking his forehead on the ground. I immediately knew he had passed out and
started screaming for my mom in the bathroom.
The nurse was thankfully in the room and had seen him go
down. She thought he was just standing up from the couch, but later realized
his arms were slack and he had just fallen forward. She paged a “Medical Emergency”
to my room.
At this point, my mom had flown out of the bathroom and we
realized Ryan was having a seizure. I was unable to see anything, but hearing
it was enough. I had never witnessed a seizure before, so it was very scary. I
honestly thought my husband had collapsed and was dying right in front of me.
What was so amazing, though, is that within SECONDS of the
nurse calling an emergency, our room was flooded with people. In under a
minute, there were nurses and doctors EVERYWHERE (my guess is that there were
no less than 15 people in our room). A chaplain appeared at the left side of my
bed and was holding my hand; my mom was on my other side holding my other hand.
Doctors kept approaching my bed, asking me questions about if this has happened
before, how old he was, what his medical history was. Meanwhile, Ryan was
convulsing on the ground and crying out.
The medical personnel all helped to keep Ryan calm and safe
and talked him through as he came out of his seizure. It was seriously the
scariest thing I had heard or experienced in all my life and I felt so helpless
and out of control laying in my hospital bed, hooked up to a million things,
unable to see. They strapped him to a board and carried him out of my room. The
chaplain spoke softly to me and had a prayer with me.
My room had literally exploded into a flurry of activity, but
somehow through it all, I felt this amazing peace. Especially after the prayer,
this tremendous calm came over me, and although I had no idea what was
happening with my husband, I somehow knew it was going to be OK.
My mom later told me that my blood pressure stayed
completely stable through this entire process. Everyone assured me that Ryan
was in the best place he could be for that to have happened, and my nurse said
that there was a faster than usual response time because anytime a “Medical Emergency” is called in an L&D
room, they assume it’s the mom (and/or baby) that’s in distress, so they come
even faster since they have to act so quickly.
What was so amazing to me was how amazing all of the staff
was during this process. They could not have been nicer, more understanding,
and thorough. My mom told me that over the next few days, doctors stopped her
in the hallway and would say, “Excuse me, you look familiar. Are you the
mother-in-law of the guy who had the seizure? How is he doing?”
Ryan was taken down to the ER. My dad came over to the
hospital to sit with Ryan, and his parents immediately started on their way
from Central Illinois. He woke up from his seizure a bit confused, but
eventually came to and asked about me. Ryan’s nurse was made aware that his
wife was in labor, and they gave him updates on me. His nurse was awesome and
told Ryan, “If I have to CARRY you up to the L&D room, you WILL be there
for your son’s birth.”
He was pretty exhausted and also nauseous from the seizure,
so they gave him fluids and let him sleep and ran some tests.
Meanwhile, almost immediately after Ryan gets taken down to
the ER, my water broke. :) I was a bit worried this would mean I would start progressing quicker, but I
really didn’t. Around 10:30, they actually had to go in and finish breaking my
water, as part of the bag was folded over and still in tact. At this point, I
was about a 5-6cm.
My nursing staff was amazing and I think kind of “strung me
along” with the Pit at this point, since we were waiting on Ryan to make it
back up for the delivery. Ryan’s parents made it a couple hours later and sat
with him the rest of the time, and my sisters also made it to the hospital
around early afternoon.
During this entire process, due to being on the Magnesium, I
was on an all-liquids diet, which meant I could only have ice chips / water or
popsicles / Jello every couple hours. Through most of my L&D, this wasn’t a
big deal since once you progress to a certain point, you don’t feel much like
eating, but I did remember being SO thirsty.
Ryan made it back up to the room mid-afternoon and was able
to eat a little lunch. I remember looking over at him and reaching out to him
from my bed. I wanted so badly to burst into tears and fall apart, but I didn’t
feel like I could at that point. I was in labor and needed to stay calm. I took
the opportunity to thank God—I was just so thankful that he was OK.
Shortly after, I believe they started to up my Pitocin,
because I started to progress some more. Around 2:30pm, I was a 7-8cm. At this
point, I started to feel tremendous pressure, “like I needed to have a bowel
movement.” It was obviously way too early to push, but I would have this
feeling for the rest of my labor and it would only gain in intensity.
A welcome distraction were my sisters, who each took the time to come and spend some time with me and talk to me. It was so fun knowing they were in the hospital waiting for little boy to be born!
Over the next couple hours, I started to get really
uncomfortable again. Each contraction, I had to breathe through it, because the
pressure was almost unbearable. I just felt like pushing each time, or like
maybe I was going to have to go to the bathroom!!
I remember the doctor checking me at about 8cm and saying, “OK,
I’ll be back in 2 hours to check you again,” and I wanted to scream at her, “NO!
Check me in 20 minutes again!! I just want to push this baby out NOW!”
Thankfully, she came in at a little under 2 hours and
checked me again at 4:30—and I was a 10cm and fully effaced! Hooray!!
I was SO ready to push at this point. A resident, my nurse,
and the doctor all came into the room. They coached me through the pushing
process, and told me I’d have to tell them when I was having contractions—they had
inserted something inside of me to show the strength of the contractions, but
took it out for the pushing phase. I told them NO PROBLEM! It was very obvious
to me when I had them. Since every inch of my body was hooked up to something
and I was bedridden, my legs had to go up into stirrups and I asked them to
pull the mirrors down so I could watch.
I began pushing at 4:30… after my first push, his head
appeared and we could see all of his dark hair! It was SO crazy! They were very
impressed that I made so much progress with just one push. However, because of
my position and I was also new at this whole “pushing” thing, it took awhile
before his head came all the way out. My contractions actually spaced apart,
and were almost 4 minutes apart! So in between each contraction, we all
literally stood around and waited. Thankfully, I wasn’t in too much pain. I
felt the discomfort of his head being halfway out :P but nothing like what it
would have felt like without an epidural!
After about an hour and a half (18-19 pushes- I made Ryan
count), after 24 hours of labor, Otto came out at 5:59pm! He had a head full of tons of dark, curly
hair! They immediately put him on my chest… I kept trying to lift his head up
to see his face, but he didn’t like that and would start crying. I would later
learn that this little guy has a mind of his own, and lets you know when he
doesn’t like something… he came out of the womb that way! :)
We were all immediately in love with little Otto Ryan. I
didn’t have too many expectations about how he would look, but in my mind I
always thought I’d have a dark-haired, chubby-faced boy, and that’s exactly
what he is! He weighed 8 pounds 3 oz. and was 20” long. I cannot say enough about all of the medical staff at St. Mary's Hospital who helped me deliver... they were all so wonderful to work with! I had amazing care all the way through.
We had no shortage of visitors to come love on Otto shortly after he was born...
One of the moments I'll never forget is how when I was holding Otto and showing him off to family, he just stared at me as I talked. It's like he was realizing who the person was behind the voice he was hearing for the past 9 months! It was the sweetest thing and melted my mommy heart right away!
Because I was a pre-eclampsia risk, I was kept on Magnesium
for the next 24 hours following labor. I was disappointed to learn this,
because it thwarted my plans of a post-delivery cheeseburger meal!! I had to
stay on an all-liquids diet, so I celebrated with a popsicle. I was also
bedridden for this time, so was not able to change my baby’s diaper or do much
other than hold and nurse him.
The hospital kept me an extra night for observation, so we
were there a total of 4 nights including the night of his birth. We were able
to go home on Sunday at noon. All I remember about this time is how very weak
and tired I was. Getting up and out of bed was very hard—I would become really
dizzy and felt like I could barely walk. I had intense feelings of shortness of
breath, and couldn’t make it far without having to stop and get my breath. I
was just very weak.
Once home, I pretty much stayed down for the next couple of
days unless I had to be up. Thankfully, my mom was still with us and was a huge
help! Ryan had a follow-up appointment a few days later, where we learned that
his seizures are a carry-over from his childhood petite-mal seizures that he
used to have. A small percentage of kids who have these seizures will go on to develop
epilepsy into adulthood and have grand-mal seizures, and he is just one of the
unlucky few. As he has had 3 other episodes in his past adult life (none of
which have been observed by anyone else, but all factors point to a seizure),
we know his triggers are emotional stress paired with little sleep. Our job is
to manage these triggers and the medicine he is on should also help reduce the
chances of him having another one. He will also have an MRI and EEG to check
for any abnormalities.
He is unable to drive for 3 months from the time of his
seizure (it’s the law in Wisconsin—a little better than 6 months in Illinois!!)
This has been an interesting caveat to work through as a new mom with a baby,
but thankfully we have awesome parents who have come to help us, and it just
means I get to perfect my skills as chauffeur for the next few months :)
Over the next few days, I started to feel myself get a
little stronger, but was still struggling with shortness of breath and
dizziness, so I called into my OB. He again sent me into the ER triage, where I
was monitored, labs were drawn, a chest X-Ray was done and a urine sample.
Thankfully, everything came back with flying colors… which gave me peace of
mind, since I was feeling so crummy. The next day at my appointment, we
determined that my BP medication was making me feel weird and we took the dose
down a little.
This is when I started turning a corner and feeling a lot
better. Each day, I felt a bit stronger and could do a little more. And the
next week at my doctor’s appointment, I was able to completely go off my BP
medication!
My story is a bit crazy and nothing like I ever would have
expected. The most amazing part to me is that with everything that was working
against me (being on Magnesium, which is actually known to SLOW labor /
contractions, having such high blood pressure, and then my husband having a
seizure), I was still able to have a vaginal birth. Also, throughout this
entire process, little Otto NEVER showed any signs of distress! His poor
parents didn’t handle L&D very well, but he was a champ! He stayed calm
during the storm. His heart rate stayed steady, and he came out perfectly
healthy. We are so thankful for this!
I never would have picked for things to go this way, but
even so, I see God’s hand in it. It just reminds me that life never seems to
unfold as planned, yet His Presence is always near and His Peace is always
available. I just keep going back to those horrifyingly scary moments while my husband
was down, and I had no idea what was going on with him… and even though it was
scary, I felt this inexplicable peace surrounding me. I remember just breathing
so deeply and drinking in God’s goodness in those moments, and letting the
Chaplain’s prayer / words swirl around me like a big hug.
Nothing is guaranteed in this life, but I know that God is
good and He is full of grace. I lean on that daily as we navigate this “new
normal” as a family of 3, and all of the challenges that come along with it. We
also bask in the joy our sweet little boy brings to us, and daily thank God for
the miracle he is in our life.
