The little dude definitely did things his own way during the pregnancy. People thought for sure that he would be a girl, that he would be early, that he would be big...but he was full of surprises, and his birth was no exception. I'm sure that Mickey and I have different memories of the event, so here is my version, and Mickey's will be soon to come.
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| ready to pop |
I was hoping and hoping that I would make it through the end of the school year. I did.
Then I was hoping and hoping to get a lot done to prepare for the baby before he arrived. We did.
Our due date came and went, and we started going to the doctor more and more often. We had a non-stress test, which the little dude failed, but he passed his ultrasound, so it was more waiting for us. I really wanted to avoid being induced, but when talking with the doctor, she didn't feel comfortable waiting any longer than 41 weeks, so we set a date and time. If he didn't come on his own, the baby would be encouraged to enter the world at 41 weeks...on my birthday.
As the date got closer, I started freaking out. Ok, yes, I had pretty much been freaking out the entire pregnancy, but now that we were getting so close to labor and delivery, I was learning that my whatever-happens-happens view of birth was not at strong as I thought and I was leaning toward having as natural a birth as possible. An induction would throw a wrench in that.
I started looking up old wives' tales of how to get labor started...but I was pretty much already doing them just by my everyday lifestyle. Raspberry leaf tea: check. Dates: check. Walking: about 3 miles a day. Spicy food: of course. An induction might be in my future after all.
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| all hot sauce all the time |
We decided to use our dwindling "couple time" as much as possible and resolved to accept every invitation we got to go out. Our thought was that we could stave off impending cabin fever by almost making ourselves sick of picnics, free concerts, and walks in the park. (note: it didn't prevent cabin fever, but we're still glad we had so much fun!) One of these outings was a picnic dinner and concert at Twilight Tuesday in Forest Park with the Wendlings, John, and my mom. To say I was stressed, frazzled, and crabby would be laughably understated. We went to Pat's Bar afterward and I cried in the bathroom.
I had contractions all through the night, but they didn't get close enough together to get anywhere, and they all but stopped by morning. We did some chores, exercised, ran some errands, and by the afternoon/evening the contractions were unmistakably back. We watched a movie to see if they would progress, and soon enough it became clear that, yes, I was in labor. I was determined to wait as long as possible to go to the hospital, and I was hungry, so, naturally, I decided we needed to take the 2.5 mile family walk to Pasta House to pick up some (definitively NOT diabetic friendly or even arguably healthy) dinner. This was my last chance to have a pregnancy craving, after all.
By the time we got home, ate, packed up, took a shower, etc., it was time to go. My contractions were 4 minutes apart in the shower, and I started to take breaks from packing the cooler to sit on the yoga ball, so we hopped in the car and started calling the families. Triage seemed to take forever--we think they must be used to false alarms--but once the nurse saw us and monitored a few contractions, we were led to labor and delivery and the absolute best nurse for me on the planet, Shira.
My contractions weren't too bad, but they were definitely intensifying and, more importantly, getting closer together. I told Shira that I was open to medication, an epidural, and whatever means were best for the baby, but that I would like to see how it went without it. The most important thing to me was to be active during labor--to walk and use the yoga ball.
Shira hooked me up to a fetal monitor, just for a while, she said, to get a good read of the dude's heart rate. Pretty soon I could switch to intermittent monitoring and walk around, but in the meantime, I could use the yoga ball. No problem. Well, unfortunately the next step wasn't to more movement, but to less. The yoga ball was no longer an option, because I needed to lie on my side for a while. Looking back, I probably should have known that something was up, but when I asked, I was told all was well, and I was very much in the zone. My contractions were intense and very close together--less than a minute apart.
This is where my timeline gets a little fuzzy. I think that the rush of nurses had come in a couple times already at this point, but I'm not entirely sure.
I do know that Shira let me try to labor on all fours instead of on my side, but that was ROUGH. When I said that position wasn't working for me and asked to switch, she misheard me and thought I asked for an epidural. She had been great about not asking about it to this point. I corrected, saying I just wanted to switch positions, but she (and Mickey and Mom) highly suggested I get an epidural. I was still unsure. Shira (again, what a lifesaver) talked me through my concerns and we decided to go ahead and do it. Again, I think they had a better idea of what was coming than I did.
When the anesthesiologist got there, we did another check and were shocked to find out that I had progressed to 8cm so quickly. It seemed like just moments ago I was at 2! I think that once the epidural was in (just in time), it was pretty much constant action. They had called Dr. Patel at least twice by this point, and she was heading in.
The house doctor, Dr. Kim, came in and explained that the baby's heartrate was dropping with my contractions and that we needed to break my water to put on an internal fetal monitor. We might also have to give medicine to stop/slow down my contractions to give him a break because he wasn't able to recover between them. It turns out they did need to give extra fluid internally and to give me the medicine to stop labor as soon as they broke my water. Dr. Kim was awesome and sat right next to my head explaining the possibility of a c section and what was going on currently as the whole process was happening--and it totally worked to distract me from the frenzy of nurses freaking out around me.
My family got there and got to come in and say hi, but the nurses were constantly rushing in, switching my position, and being very careful about monitoring. The next thing I knew, Dr. Patel got there and said we did need to do a c section after all. Dr. Weinstein, a family friend, checked in and it was great to have him there for reassurance in the chaos and to report back to family in the waiting room. I asked if I could see the last bit of family, but by the time they got in there, they were quickly shooed out and we had to quickly prep for surgery. It was clear that we were in a hurry, but not too scarily. Ok, yes, scarily. I was, as is the theme of this pregnancy, freaking out. Luckily, I had a nurse anesthetist whose job it was to keep me positive and distracted. And she was great at it.
I REALLY started freaking out, though, when we rolled down the hall to the OR, the nurse anesthetist explaining everything along the way, and plans changed. We went from waiting for another person to show up and Mickey to get in the room, to go time, even though they weren't there. I am not entirely sure what the change was (yay drugs!), but I can only imagine that it was the dude's heart dropping and staying at an unacceptable level. Mickey did get to come in and hold my hand, which helped greatly, but really I was pretty out of it, and the whole thing was so quick. We started the process at 7:17 and he was out by 7:24. Dr. Patel is pretty great.
I was scared and drugged, but when I heard the baby cry for the first time, Mickey and I just looked at each other and started crying. Mickey got to go over and cut the umbilical cord and hold the dude, and the most amazing thing was that he settled down when he heard my voice. At least I think he did. There were some times when I swear I was talking, but no one could hear me. Hearing him cry, Mickey and I knew he was a Brennan, who, destined to be a troublemaker like his dad, decided to cause all this commotion by wrapping the umbilical cord around his neck.
Once I was all closed up, and the dude was declared healthy, we got to go back to our labor and delivery room with our new nurse, Katie. Shira had stayed past her shift to get me through to surgery (see? amazing.), but now it was way beyond that. Katie was great, too. She helped me have skin to skin and feeding time with Brennan, and our new little family had some time together to bond.
And it was perfect.
Stay tuned for Mickey's (probably more accurate and reasonably lengthed) version of the birth and some highlights from the first month of Brennan's life.
