Adam's Birth Story - Part 1

Today (well, yesterday actually now that I actually am posting this) is Adam's due date!  I was scheduled to be induced tonight at 6 PM if I hadn't gone spontaneously into labor, and would still be on bed rest playing the waiting game.  How much has changed in one week!

Last Wednesday (July 10) I went to my 39 week doctor's appointment, having completed two weeks on complete bed rest.  It was my first time out of the house in a week.  Similar to the previous two weeks, we had a biophysical profile (ultrasound) done to check how the baby was doing due to my high blood pressure.  The ultrasound went well --- Adam was still growing on track and showed no signs of distress.  He had also moved to a head down position and seemed lined up well to be born!  We were excited to hear that, and relieved that everything with him continued to look normal.  At my 39 week appointment with Katie, the amniotic fluid levels were low, which caused me to go on bed rest for a few days with her before being induced.

We then went to wait in the exam room for my doctor, and I laid quietly on my side on the exam table, willing my blood pressure to be low.  I had been monitoring it at home, and it was often a fair bit higher at my appointments than it was at home.  The nurse came in and wanted to take my weight first, but I asked her to take my BP while it was at its lowest.  It measured high, of course, although I can't remember how high.  We then did the rest of the exam, and I laid back down and waited for Dr. Del.  He arrived and took my blood pressure, which I believe at this point was a bit lower, but still too high, and then proceeded with the examination to determine how far along I was.  He also tried to strip my membranes to help move things along (something that I would not have wanted in the past - but I preferred this procedure over being induced), but my cervix was not dilated enough for him to do so.

So we discussed the options at this point in the pregnancy.  I feel really fortunate to have Dr. Del as my doctor, as I believe he is just the right balance of cautious and calm for me.  He respects our desires to do things as naturally as possible, but I trust his judgement with weighing the risks of not intervening.  This proved crucial during the labor, as it was touch and go several times with Adam's tolerance of the contractions.  We agreed on an induction date the following week, which would buy me a few days closer to the due date.

We checked out with the nurse, with a final appointment with Dr. Del planned for Tuesday (July 16) for one last check-up before the scheduled induction (planned for his due date July 17, as that was the only opening they had in the time frame Dr Del requested at the hospital).

Following the appointment, we decided to be wild and went to Jamba Juice to get a smoothie. :)  I knew (or at least I thought I knew) that it would be my last time out of the house for another week.  Then we headed home where I continued on with my bed rest routine --- alternating between napping or reading on the bed, watching TV on the couch, or working on a hook rug reclined in the chair.

Thank goodness my parents were here to help with the rest!  My first week of bed rest, Mark had to juggle work, carting the kids to St Andrews, cooking, cleaning, taking care of the kids, etc.  With my parents' arrival, he finally got a bit of a break.  It was (and continues to be) wonderful to have their company and help while we waited for the baby to arrive, while at the hospital, and then again as we settle back into life at home.  It's going to be a bit of a shock when we have to resume care of three children after they leave next week.

Wednesday evening, my parents and Mark took the kids to a trial gymnastics class that we had scheduled while I rested at home.  Thursday looked to be pretty much the same as a typical bed rest day.  Mark had a double daytime rehearsal, so he took the kids to their activities (Ben is now at a 2-week long arts camp, while Katie continues at St Andrews) and then headed downtown for his rehearsal.  My parents stayed at home, and my dad made me a baked potato for lunch (one of the few low sodium foods I could eat --- as an aside - low sodium diets are difficult!) before he and my mom headed out to pick up the kids from their activities.  Katie had a swim lesson, so they were planning to take the kids for a sweet treat at Menchies before Katie's swim lesson.

I ate my baked potato in the recliner, and then decided to watch some (bad) TV on the couch.  I got up and headed to the bedroom to get a few pillows and had walked a few steps down the hallway when my water broke.  It was a dramatic gush - similar to what you see in the movies!  It completely soaked my pants, and I froze for a moment thinking "is that what I think it is" --- but it was so much all at once, that I knew it wasn't just a little incontinence.  I dripped down the hallway to the bathroom, changed my pants and put on a pad, wrapped my waist in a towel and then lay down on the bed to figure out what the heck to do!

I decided to reach Mark first.  I knew that he would likely be in the middle of a rehearsal (it was just before 2 PM), but we had agreed he would keep his phone on vibrate so that I could text him if anything happened.  So I sent him a text message, and then waited for a few minutes, and then tried calling him, but he didn't respond.  My parents then called to tell me that they had forgotten Katie's swimsuit, and were headed back home.  I told them my water broke, so we might have to adjust our afternoon plans. :)  I then called the doctor's office, and they instructed me to head to the hospital.

Mark had still not replied at this point, so I called his number one more time, and then decided to try to reach someone else in the symphony to get a hold of him.  I tried our friend Steve's cell phone number, since he works at the Symphony and would be able to reach Mark, but he did not answer.  I did not have the personnel manager's phone number, but I remembered that another friend in the Symphony was not playing in the afternoon rehearsal, so I called her.  She was very excited for us, and offered to call the personnel manager to get a hold of Mark.  She sent me a text message confirming that she had reached the personnel manager, and he was on his way to the stage to tell Mark.  A few minutes later, I got a very excited phone call from Mark telling me that he was on his way home!  It ends up that they had just started a break in the rehearsal when the personnel manager came on stage to get Mark, and he was done with the day's rehearsal anyways.  However, he was certainly not going to be at the rehearsal the following day or the weekend's concerts, so he had a brief discussion regarding getting a sub to cover his parts.

My parents arrived back home with the kids and they came to the bedroom where I told them it was time to go have the baby.  Katie was very wide eyed and curious about the whole thing, but Ben was eager to express his desire to NOT go to Katie's swim lesson and instead stay home to play his Batman Wii game. :)  My parents had told them in the car on the way home that it was time to have the baby, and apparently he showed a little more interest at that point. 

I got out our hospital packing list, and my mom helped me put the final items we needed in our suitcase while Katie chatted at us and wanted to take everything back out of the suitcase.  We ended up sending her to play with Grandpa in the living room.  Mark arrived back home and finished packing the suitcase.  We then took one final photo and loaded up the car to head to the hospital.  It was time!

At this point, it was about 3:30 PM.  I still was not having any real contractions.  We got the hospital and went to the waiting room to be seen by a triage nurse.  Apparently the hospital was VERY busy that afternoon, as I heard a woman complaining that she had been waiting with her friend to see the triage nurse for hours as she had not felt the baby move in a while.  Of course I immediately worried about how our baby was faring, but fortunately Adam was giving little kicks here and there to let me know he was okay.  So we sat in the waiting room and sent a few text messages to friends and family and continued to post on facebook. :)  I think it was about 4:30 PM when I was called into the triage area to begin filling out paperwork --- it still surprises me how much paperwork you have to do at the hospital despite the lengthy forms you fill out in the pre-registration process. 

I was asked to give a urine sample and then change into a gown for an examination.  While I was changing into the gown, another gush of fluid flowed out on the floor next to the table.  When the nurse came into the room, I warned her about it, and she said she would not need to perform the test to see whether my bag of water had truly broken. :)  She then attempted to perform an examination to see how far dilated I was.  Apparently my cervix was still very high, as she was having trouble figuring it out and it was QUITE uncomfortable.  She then brought in another nurse to try to verify (really?!), and they determined I was about 2 cm dilated.  

We were informed that my doctor was not on call that night, so his back-up (who I had never met) would be our doctor for the evening.  I was heartbroken, as I had assumed that Dr Del was covering the week day nights --- I knew he alternated weekends off, but I assumed he would be there for the birth.

We were then assigned a room, so I put on a bathrobe and we walked over to the labor and delivery area.  We were assigned to the same type of room that Katie was born in.  The labor and delivery area is organized into "pods" and there are three rooms in each pod.  3/4 are identical, with the remaining room a fair amount smaller than the others.  We were assigned the smaller room, but I was actually sort of pleased for the familiarity/nostalgia of being in a similar room to that where Katie was born.

It was now around 6:30 PM.  Our first nurse came in and told us to get settled as she begin setting up all the monitors, etc.  Mark got out the exercise ball and blew it up, and got out the laptop where we would use to play relaxing music.  Shortly thereafter, I began to get hooked up to various things --- first the IV fluids, then the fetal monitor and contraction monitor, and finally a blood pressure cuff.

The anaesthesiologist arrived to talk about pain management (epidurals, etc) - and was really relaxed and talked a lot about how the various procedures worked.  I told him that we may want an epidural, but wanted to wait to see if I really needed one, and warned him about the failed epidural during Katie's birth.  He was very reassuring talking about how they worked, etc.  The hospital we were at was a teaching hospital, so I asked him about his tenure --- I did NOT want to be a resident's first epidural!  Fortunately, he was in his fourth year rotation, and would be an attending physician the following year.  After he left, the nurse assured us that he was quite good, and so we decided that if I needed an epidural, we would allow him to do it versus requesting the attending physician.

The nurse then told us that they would be starting the pitocin shortly.  I asked if we could wait, I was beginning to have some contractions, and wanted to delay true labor a bit anyways, in the hope that if I wasn't ready to deliver until the morning that Dr. Del would deliver the baby.  She told us the doctor's orders were to start the pitocin soon, as the risk of infection increases with the amount of time that the water is broken.  I was disappointed, as I wasn't sure whether this was Dr. Del's orders or that of his back-up. 

Fortunately, the staff was quite busy, so they didn't come in to start the pitocin until about 8:30 PM.  We also had several nurses come and go, informing us that they would be our nurse, and we liked some better than others, so didn't really mind a few of the changes. :)  I asked again about delaying the pitocin to another nurse, and she said she would check the doctor's orders, as often Dr Del was fine with taking things slowly.  She came back and confirmed, however, that he wanted to get started.  Again, I wondered if they were Dr. Del's orders or his back-up.  I enquired about having juice, somewhat as a test, as he allowed me to drink juice during Katie's induction --- and found out I was only allowed ice chips.  I was really disappointed at this point, as I figured I was operating under the orders of a doctor I had never met.

Somewhere in these shift changes, though, a new nurse Ann was assigned to us, who would be with us throughout the rest of the labor and delivery, and she said something about talking to Dr. Del.  I was really surprised and told her that I thought he wasn't on call.  Apparently he had several women delivering that evening at the hospital, so he was going to come to the hospital!  I was so relieved and grateful that we would be getting him after all!  She told me he asked how I was handling the pitocin, and in the way she stated this, I knew that he knew/remembered that I was not keen on all the interventions.   She told me that they would be turning it up very slowly, etc.  I was just so relieved to be having our actual doctor for the evening!

More to come...