Sunday, April 8, 2012

If everything goes well

"If everything goes well..."

I found myself saying/typing that quite a bit on Friday. So here's the story of how The Freckle, our internal baby, became Eleanor Quinn, our external baby. First, the pictures, because that's the important part, right?



8 lbs 7 oz, 20" long
The short version is I went into labor early Friday morning and she was born early Saturday morning, roughly 23 hours later. And now, the long version of what happened.

So, Thursday I took some suggestions from the Internet and drank some castor oil. Mixed in Diet Coke. I also had 3 cups of red raspberry leaf tea.  I told J that I'd done some "kickstart your own labor from the comfort of your own home" stuff and if everything goes well we might have a baby on Friday. Did either of those things actually tip the scale so I could go into labor? I will never know, but there's my loose, anecdotal evidence.

Because go into labor I did. I had been worried for most of the third trimester that I would be completely clueless about going in to labor, I wouldn't recognize contractions or know when my water broke. Turns out there was no reason to worry. I had classic "monthly cramps" style contractions at first, which of course didn't stop me from second guessing myself. Neither did it stop me from taking a shower, just in case, you know? I wanted to start fresh. Then I went to bed for a couple of hours, and when I got up for my typical mid-night bathroom break, I noticed that the light was still on in the living room. Surely my husband, who knew that he would be either going to work at the relatively-wee hours of the morning as per usual or with me to the hospital, wouldn't still be awake at 2:30 in the morning? Oh, surely he was. He curled up on the couch and was asleep 15 minutes later just as I was Googling "how do I know if my water has broken*?" In this case, Dr. Google was very helpful and informative. I started timing contractions, watched an episode of Grimm, french braided my hair, changed clothes and put on some make-up. By then, I'd reached the magical number of contractions between 3-5 minutes apart for an hour. So I woke J up to tell him I was going to call the doctor and he should get ready to go. We left the house at about 5:45 and were admitted to Labor & Delivery shortly after 6 am on Friday, April 6th where, if everything goes well, we would have a baby before the day was done.

Because my water had in fact broken all on its own, the proverbial clock was ticking, so after determining that the contractions were the right amount of time apart, they switched me to a different kind of monitor to see how strong the contractions were. I had felt that they were only mild up to that point. Nothing I couldn't get through with just a little bit of focus and some breathing. Well, the new fancy monitor confirmed that they were consistent, but not strong enough to get the job done. So, the "as naturally as possible" portion of our birth plan now included Pitocin to keep the ball rolling. At 7 am, I started at a dose of 2 of whatever measurement Pitocin comes in these days.

After 3 hours, I was up to a dose of 8 units and I was tired. I wasn't handling the stronger contractions as well, but I was hopeful that I was at least moving things along. When the nurse checked, she told me I'd made minimal progress. Progress enough to keep going, but they were going to need to up the dosage, and it was looking to be a long day--probably 8 more hours if everything goes well. The decision to get an epidural was a hard one for me, but it was the right decision to make. As the day progressed, that became more and more evident. So, with drugs keeping me from feeling the increasingly stronger and more violent contractions, the day continued. Because I wasn't in pain, I didn't mind having some visitors. It was a nice distraction from the fact that I was doing some of the hardest sitting on my butt that I've ever done in my life.

By 5pm, I'd made it to the halfway mark. Everything looked good and Dr. H** said that if everything goes well I should be able to move on to the pushing phase by 10pm and we'd have a baby before midnight.

Not to spoil the surprise, but everything did not go well. Nothing really went wrong, but some things just didn't work out the way we hoped. Even though the contractions stayed strong, and Freckle's heart rate stayed in the acceptable zone, and my blood pressure was still awesome and my temperature was steady, progress slowed down. Freckle just wasn't moving down. I stayed on track for the first two hours, slowed down to half speed the next two hours, and inched along for an hour after that. By midnight, I'd made no progress at all in 2 hours. I was still 2 cm away from being able to push. I'd been having contractions for almost 22 hours. I was tired and discouraged.

That's when we (J & I) had the hard conversation with Dr. H. She told us we could keep trying. She was confident that both the baby & I were handling things well enough to keep going and even though we were approaching 24 hrs since my water had broken, there was no sign of infection so she would be perfectly willing to let us keep trying. She was encouraging and supportive, but she was also honest. She said that in her opinion all the waiting wasn't going to get us any closer to a baby. She recommended a c-section.

J told me later that when she said it my face sort of crumpled. I will admit that it was my absolute least favorite option for having a baby. It still fell within our "as naturally as possible" plan, because sometimes intervention is what makes birth possible, but it was low on the totem pole. Not only that, but c-section after a long labor was somehow worse. All that work, and still a surgery. Yet, when Dr. H checked me at midnight, I knew. I had held on to hope all the way until the end. I got sick to my stomach right before that last check, and I said "That's a good sign, right?" remembering something from our Lamaze class, and Dr. H was very positive about it (maybe the only time anyone can feel positively about puke). She confirmed that it was often a sign that the pushing part was very near. Then she started to check and I just knew. I knew before she looked down and said a bad word, then excused herself for swearing, which, honestly, wasn't even a bother to me. It sort of made me feel like she really was on my team, you know? She wanted things to go well just as much as I did.

It didn't take long for J & I to decide to go ahead and have the surgery. At that moment, it felt right. Not what we wanted, not what we'd "planned" or hoped, but right. Then everything was a blur of J getting handed a bag of paper scrubs & being wheeled into the O.R. (where "I still haven't found what I'm looking for" by U2 was playing--a good sign I thought. An appropriate song by one of my favorite bands). There was more anesthesia and I fell asleep while they finished doing whatever it is they needed to do before the surgery began. J came in, looking dapper in his blue scrubs. I think I told him he was pretty when he sat down next to me. I was a little out of it.

Then, just a few minutes later, Dr. H is saying, "Oh my God, she's HUGE!" I was suddenly worried that all estimates had been off and instead of an 8-8 1/2 lb baby we were well into what I call "Welch territory" where babies don't come any smaller than 9 lbs. Jeremy went to go watch our little girl get cleaned up while I lay on the table feeling them move stuff around and finish things up. He did come back to tell me that she was 8lb 7oz, which wasn't nearly big enough to qualify as "huge" in my head, but you know, it's pound larger than the average newborn. I'm still not sure what the official reason for the "failure to progress" was, even after talking to the doctor. She never really dropped far enough to move things along. She was possibly turned the wrong way. Her head was very large and may have been too big for my pelvis. Honestly, once the decision to do it was made, the "why" mattered a lot less to me.

At some point, Dr. H mentioned to the other doctor, or a nurse, or someone (other than me) that her brother (I think, maybe husband?) worked in the "Wine & Spirits business." So of course, then I had to butt in to tell them that my brother was a Sommelier and we got to talking about what kind of wine we liked best, and I may or may not have said that I would gladly shank a nun for a glass of shiraz.

The rest of the story is pretty anti-climactic. Jeremy went with the baby, who we were both pretty sure was going to be Eleanor, to the nursery but wanted to get a good look at her once she was clean and not screaming at the top of her lungs. I got stitched up and taken to recovery where I started to shake as some stupid side effect of the anesthesia. They gave me Demerol to stop the shaking, which made me loopy and then sleepy. When I woke up, we moved up to our postpartum room and I got to meet my little girl. Ok, so that only sounds anti-climactic when you write it. It was pretty much the best part of my day.

I'll tell you all about her, but first, I'm going to go nap.

*the grammatical phrasing of that stumped me for a while. I'm going to blame lack of sleep, ok?
**Not my usual doctor because even though it was a Friday, and thus a normal business day, it was in fact Good Friday, which also happens to be the first day of Passover, so my doctor was out of the office to spend time with her family. No big deal, the doctor-on-call was really great too. Actually, I've now met 3 of the 4 doctors in the practice (an all lady doctor practice too, by the by) and liked them all.

27 comments:

Swistle said...

That is very, very similar to my first birth---except I got the itching side effect instead of the shaking one! Congratulations on your successful delivery!

Julie said...

The similarities between Freckle Eleanor's entrance and that of my first baby are stunning. I like to say I feel like I gave birth twice. I'm just so glad she, like my Sammy, are healthy and happy today. Congratulations, and I can't wait to meet her!

Elsha said...

I'm sorry the birth didn't go like you wanted-- I wondered when I saw the picture with your husband in scrubs. I had a c-section with Kalena and that was definitely not what I wanted. But my next two were vbacs and both were great! So next time could be totally different (if you plan on having a next time.) Anyway, I'm here to talk about it if you want.

Your baby is beautiful! Congratulations :)

Jessica said...

I'm sorry things didn't go they way you wanted, but I'm so glad everyone got through it safely! Congratulations on your beautiful daughter:)

Jenn said...

Well, everything goes well when you get to bring home a healthy baby. So, glad you have that!

Congrats!

Danielle Joost said...

My first delivery went similarly, although my water didn't break naturally. To this day, I'm not convinced we should have used the Pitocin at all... it may have been the root cause of all my trouble, I think. Regardless, Jacob was born via c-section, as have the other two and will be the one due in June. I suppose as long as you and Eleanor are healthy and well, who cares, right?! I'm super thrilled for you and Jeremy. Enjoy these days of just staring at her. Before you know it, she won't stay still long enough for you to do that anymore! God bless you all.

LEBean said...

Thank you! I've really loved just being able to hold her on the outside. It's so novel!

LEBean said...

Yep, that was the essence of our birth plan= healthy baby on the outside and that's exactly what we got, so we're happy as clams... assuming clams are as happy as that saying would imply. If not, we're as happy as some other very happy thing. Pigs in mud. Cats in clean laundry. You get the picture.

LEBean said...

Thank you. On this side of things, it's a lot easier to say that it's really ok that things didn't go the way we'd hoped. Recovery is going smoothly and well.

LEBean said...

I'm sure I'll be picking your brain plenty in the coming days/weeks/years! Thanks for being one of my fabulous Internet ladies.

LEBean said...

Thank you! It's comforting to hear how not-uncommon this is.

LEBean said...

Thank you! I am SO GLAD I avoided the itching. I'm fairly strongly anti-itch on the best of days. I imagine it pushing me over the edge on that day!

beylit said...

Hooray for baby Eleanor!! I am so happy for you and I can't wait to meet her!

Erin King said...

I'm so sorry you didn't get the delivery you'd hoped for -- I know exactly how frustrating and heartbreaking that can be. Even the whole "it was the safest and healthiest thing for both of us" doesn't really outweigh the feelings of "BUT IT'S NOT WHAT I WANTED".

BUT. I am so, so happy and excited for you and J and your beautiful baby girl! If you need/want anyone to talk to about the C-section recovery, newborndom, or whatever, you have my number :)

Erica said...

For the record, everything did "go well" with my labor/deliveries...but almost nothing went according to plan after that. It's such a tiny piece of the puzzle.

Laura Diniwilk said...

Any birth story that uses the phrase "shank a nun" is okay by me. I am, however, a little embarrassed that I have an 8 month old and still haven't written my birth story yet, but you were able to bust this out while recovering from surgery. I am impressed!

I hope you are resting up and enjoying life with Eleanor. Beautiful name, beautiful baby, beautiful birth story!

Shannon Hopps said...

I'm so proud for you and J! Can't wait to meet her!

Starr Capps said...

She's sooo pretty! Congratulations! It occurred to me while reading your story - Troy was also born on the Saturday morning between Good Friday and Easter Sunday (in 1994) by a doctor that wasn't my own!

LEBean said...

We are home and if you want to visit, just give us a call before heading over (so I can put pants on)!

LEBean said...

Thank you! I love that I have so many supportive friends who have been through stuff like this and have advice. Hooray for the internet!

LEBean said...

It is, and recovery has gone so well that it's making the "not what I wanted" less and less an issue

LEBean said...

Heh, it helps that the hospital has a designated "quiet time" where no nurses will bother you unless you ask, and no visitors.

LEBean said...

We've taken to calling it "Awesome Saturday" since we missed two "holidays"

LE Bean said...

We are home and you are welcome ANY TIME. Just call to let me know to put some pants on, ok? =)

K Grndqst said...

I love you. :) And Eleanor, too.

Heather C said...

Hooray! What a great story. Now when I see you, I don't have to ask you to repeat it and can instead spend more time hugging. You, Jer, Eleanor, really whoever is around. ;) SO happy for the Welchling to have made it into the world!

Cassidycay said...

Beautiful story!

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