May 16th I was 36 weeks and 6 days.
I hadn't packed my hospital bag yet, it was
on my to do list, I hadn't finished the rocking chair for her room, that was
scheduled for the next weekend, and I never expected to have my baby 3 weeks
early.
I thought for sure she'd be
late.
My birth plan was to go with
whatever, because my expectations were that I'd go into labor, be in labor for
24 hours or so and end up having a c-section.
I hadn't prepared work for an early departure either, because
well...that just couldn't be in my cards.
Boy was I wrong.
I woke up at 4 am on May 16th, I went to the bathroom got
back in bed and all of a sudden noticed my underwear was soaking wet. Weird I thought...it was white underwear,
clear liquid, drenched, no smell - yes I checked. I went to the bathroom again (bright yellow -
prenatal vitamins do that to you), changed my underwear, got back in bed and
again - drenched. Something was not
right. So I woke up Jeremy "Honey,
I think my water just broke" That
got his attention...no worries I thought, we have time, I'm not in labor. He had me call the doctor and she instructed
us to take a shower, pack our bag and go to the hospital, I was early and the
baby needed to be checked. So we did. we threw together a bag in about 5 minutes,
tossed the car seat into the car, and headed to the hospital.
We arrived at the Overlake birthing center and entered their
screening room, they monitored the baby and took a swab to check for amniotic
fluid. The test came back negative. Negative?
How is that possible I asked? The
nurse told me that it is very common for people near birth to lose bladder
control and I probably just peed myself.
Um..no, I totally understand the concept of that happening, but I know
the difference between pee and well, not pee.
Well, then she said, it could be a change in mucus. Um?
that much? This just didn't seem
right. Either way, I had a doctor
appointment that afternoon at 4:30 so they would do more tests then, for now go
home. So we did.
I went home, I changed, and I went to work. Ya, crazy, I went to work - but this
particular week was the announcements at T-Mobile regarding the reorganization,
and I had a 9am staff meeting to find out if I had a job or not! I had to be there...so there I went. And after my staff meeting (hooray I had a
job!), I spent the rest of the day writing up instructions on what to do if I
went into labor early. Things not to
forget and I trained my boss on the few things no one else knew how to
do...just in case.
At 4:30 I went to my doctors appointment. My mom was there because she had come to meet
the doctor, something we planned weeks ago.
I told the doctor about what had happened that morning and she gave me
the same song and dance, it was probably pee, blah blah blah. It was NOT PEE! I felt like screaming...but she would give me
a pelvic exam and see where I was.
"Huh, your 2 centimeters dilated" she informed me, and as she
took her hand out, it was covered with blood.
"OH" she says "well, maybe you are in labor, let me go
get the ultrasound machine" and sure enough, I was low on amniotic
fluid. I'll never forget the smile on
her face as she looked at me and said "want to have a baby
today?" LOL....like I had a choice
anymore.
I called Jeremy immediately and his response was simply a
"seriously?". He knew she was
coming, something I hadn't been ready to accept yet. I kept asking the doctor, really, we're
inducing? I'm having this baby? I won't be going to work tomorrow? It was very unreal. I was sent over to the hospital for
monitoring, allowed to eat around 6pm and then wait. They wanted to see if I would go into labor
naturally, if not they'd be inducing me at 11pm. The idea was that if I had her the next day
she'd be 37 weeks and would not have to go into the NICU. That is of course assuming she was over 5lbs
8oz...as we know, that was not the case.
For the first hour or two I spent my time on my work
computer, canceling meetings, setting up my out of office, emailing my boss
everything he needed and of course letting people know I'd be out. Jeremy and my mom thought I was crazy, but I
knew I had to do it then or I'd never do it, and I would worry...this way all
was taken care of. and what else would I
be doing just sitting in a hospital bed anyway?
After that the waiting game commenced.
I never thought birth would be quite like this, when we threw together
the hospital bag that morning I hadn't packed things like movies or books,
something to waste the time away, so we were stuck with TV and the movies that
played - Gnomio and Juliet & the Smurfs...ugh, it was miserable!
I tried to sleep, since I'd been up since 4am, but that just
didn't happen.
Around 11pm the nurse
came in to start me on pitocin.
Luckily
by then I was exhausted and managed to sleep through the first part of
labor.
around 3:30am they woke me up to
check me and I was 4-5 cm dilated and able to get an epidural.
Since I hadn't felt any contractions yet, and
the whole idea of an epidural scared me I said I'd think about it.
a few contractions later I looked at the
nurse and said "I'll be getting this anyway won't I?"
she nodded and I asked for the epidural now
please.
I only had about 30 minutes of
contractions, so I was thinking this whole thing wasn't so bad...lol....
The epidural made one leg pretty numb and the other just
slightly numb, I hated it but was glad I still had the use of one leg at least,
from my understanding that's not normally the case. It started wearing off
around 9 am, at that point we knew little Brianne was kittywompus (yes a
technical term) in the womb and we were trying to get her strait. so they gave me another dose of the epidural,
this made both legs numb and I was miserable.
So a few hours later when that wore off, I just let it keep wearing
off. At 12:45 I started pushing, at this
point I could feel all the contractions, but I think that's a good thing as I
knew when to push and could feel what I was doing. after 2 hours of pushing the doctor finally
came in to check on me. Yes I know...2
hours?!? that's what I was saying. The whole time I kept repeating that the
doctor hated me. Keep in mind this was
not my doctor. she had been on call all
night so went home around 7am.
Anyway, he checked me and told me I had 3 options; keep
pushing, try the vacuum, but at this point it was only 50/50 it would work
cause she was still far up there, or have a c-section. Since I'd worked so hard the last thing I
wanted was to give up and have the c-section, so I kept pushing. Another hour went by and I was exhausted, I
gave up, lets try the vacuum. Luckily
the last hour of pushing had brought her lower down and it seemed my only issue
at this point was getting her over my pelvic bone. So my room filled up with about 10 people,
apparently its precaution when they have to assist like that. they tried the vacuum twice, both times it
popped off her head, and then they tried the forceps, if that didn't work, I
was going into a c-section. But, luckily
it did and out she came! I actually
didn't know they were going to try the forceps, they just brought them out
after the vacuum didn't work and Jeremy yelled to me - DON'T LOOK! lol...apparently big metal objects were a
scary sight...I only saw a flash of silver, I didn't look.
So 3 hours and 15 minutes of pushing, 3 attempts at
assistance and my 5lbs 6oz baby was born.
My doctor informs me that if my 2nd child does not come early, we will
be scheduling a c-section. I guess
Brianne just thought to herself, its now or never....smart baby she is!
Due to her size, she had to go to the NICU for 6 hours, they
put her on my belly after birth and let her nurse and lay there for 30-45
minutes or so, then they took her away.
I remember when the NICU nurse came she was talking to me and all I
could focus on was the fact that she had two noses and 4 eyes and I was seeing
double....yes, it was a good thing they took her, 2 nights of very little sleep
and labor, I needed rest. They bottle
fed her in the NICU but when she came back to me 6 hours later we started a
feeding process that involved formula in a tube to my breast, this insured that
she would not lose to much weight while we waited for my milk to come in. She latched on right away and was a great
eater. This process took 2 people and
lasted 5 days every 3 hours, needless to say that first week was exhausting for
both Jeremy and myself. but in the end
her lowest weight was only 5lbs and that was excellent!
To this day, we have a healthy growing baby girl, who we
love sooo sooo much!
