Wow, that a whirlwind the past week has been! Let's start at the beginning. Last Tuesday night Rick and I made our way to the hospital knowing that we'd leave with a baby. We were so excited! It was like the anticipation you feel as a child on Christmas eve awaiting Santa and all of his gift wrapped goodies. We were about to receive the most precious gift of our lives! There are no words to describe that type of anticipation.
The original plan was to start me on a drug to help thin out my cervix and prepare my body for the pitocin I'd be receiving in the morning. However, Charlie must have gotten the memo that it was time, because my body started going into labor on it's own! So scratch the plan, instead the doctor had me labor on my own over night. Our first night was rather uneventful. Rick slept in the room with me, while I stared at the ceiling wondering how the next 12 hours was going to go down. If you've read any of my previous posts then you know I've been deathly afraid of labor since I learned where babies come from. Now I was staring my deepest fear in the face, and needless to say I was feeling a bit anxious. It didn't help that halfway through the night (with Rick snoring peacefully) I heard a woman, clearly opting for natural child birth, screaming in pain as she labored in the room next door. Hospitals need to seriously rethink the construction of their venting systems. This woman sounded like she was being murdered. I kept looking over at Rick, thinking surely this was bound to wake him, but no he continued to doze while I unsuccessfully tried to drown out the primal moans with a paper thin hospital grade pillow over my ears.
I was relieved when 5am finally rolled around and the nurse brought in the pitocin. It didn't take long for the drugs to take effect and within a couple of hours I was 4 centimeters dilated and ready for my epidural. The contractions and epidural, two things I was deathly afraid of, were in fact the easiest parts of the day. I felt a few bad contractions, but my nurse was phenomenal, and got me my epidural in a hurry. By 7:30 I was sitting pretty daydreaming about what Charlie was going to look like feeling nothing but warm happy thoughts! By noon I was fully dilated and ready to push. Rick and I could hardly believe the time had flown by so quickly. My nurse gave me instructions on how to push properly and away we went! I remember thinking, "This is such a cool experience. I feel such a strong bond with Rick and pushing isn't even painful!" After three hours of pushing, I was still feeling positive, but also a bit tired and worried that my epidural was going to start giving out. My nurse assured me she wouldn't let that happen. Did I mention how awesome she was?! At one point my doctor wanted to turn down the epidural because he thought I couldn't feel the contractions so I wasn't pushing effectively enough. He wasn't even in the room the three hours I'd been pushing, so he was just assuming. My nurse, Cyn, didn't bat an eye. She turned to him and told him that wasn't going to happen because 1) I did in fact feel the contractions, 2) I was pushing effectively, and 3) I didn't want my epidural turned down. AMAZING. Anyway, after three hours of pushing we needed to reevaluate the situation. My doctor suggested using a vacuum to encourage Charlie down the birth canal. We tried it once, and it was ineffective. The doctor had a serious look on his face when he told us we would not be trying that again. The next plan of attack was to try forceps to guide him out. Let me just say that during our childbirth classes a couple months ago we were shown both the vacuum and the forceps and told these were rarely used in the hospital. In fact, no one in the class would probably have to see them outside of this very class and she was just showing us how they worked on the very slim chance our doctors would have to use them. Fast forward to the present and now we are 2 for 2. First the vacuum and now the forceps. I was beginning to get worried. At this point I still wasn't feeling pain, so when I saw the size of the forceps and realized where they were going, it didn't send me running for the hills. However, I would not suggest a natural child birth combined with the use of forceps. While I couldn't feel pain, I could feel pressure and let's just say I felt like my doctor was tossing a large summer salad inside of me. Sorry that was graphic! The forceps were used on three separate occasions with zero luck. Again we reevaluated. Now if you're a woman who has not given birth there are a few things you and your girlfriends discuss as possible "worse case scenarios". My neighbor and I had just such a discussion two days prior to my induction. We both concluded that a worse case scenario would be to labor for hours, destroy your "down theres" only to then need a c-section. Now you've experienced the pain of vaginal labor but also the recovery of a c-section. And here I was being told that this was exactly what I was about to do. So we've got vacuum, forceps, and now a c-section. PERFECT. The doctor left to prepare for surgery and Rick and I got a few minutes to ourselves. We were both already exhausted from quite an eventful day. By now it was 5pm. But we were both still extremely excited that this process was coming to an end and we'd finally be meeting Charlie. Rick donned his scrubs and away we went into surgery.
The anesthesiologist gave me a spinal which numbed my body from the boobs down. My fear of feeling the doctor slicing into me was alleviated when I realized I couldn't even feel that I had a lower body. The surgery began and within 10 minutes they were ready to pull Charlie out. Even with a c-section, the little guy was still hesitant to make his way into the world. We like to joke that Charlie is already like his father, maximizing feelings of comfort and relaxation up until the final moment he is forced into action. Rick was sitting next to my head but stood to see Charlie being pulled from my body. He described the scene something like this: "When I stood up I saw a nurse on top of Liz's chest pounding her stomach to get Charlie to move down. There was another nurse with her hand reaching up Liz from down there to push Charlie up out of the birth canal. And the doctor had Charlie's head attached to a vacuum trying to pull him out with one hand while holding on to a scalpel with the other hand slicing her open even more to make room for him to exit." Let's just say it's a damn good thing the anesthesiologist knew what he was doing. I felt pressure on my heart and wondered why in the world I would feel pressure there, thank you nurse pounding on my chest, but felt no pain. Finally I heard the first cries of my son! The feeling was incredibly overwhelming and unlike anything I'd ever experienced before. I immediately started bawling and Rick walked over to the table to watch Charlie get cleaned up. Within a couple of minutes Charlie was in Rick's arms and Rick was sitting by my head. I remember wanting to hold him so badly and reach out and caress his sweet cheeks, but with little feeling in my arms that wasn't going to happen quite yet. Suddenly my sheer happiness was run out of town by serious feelings of nausea. I remember telling Rick I thought I was going to throw up and then things got a bit blurry. Rick remembers looking at my blood pressure monitor and seeing it drop to 65/25. The next thing you know I was puking and Rick and Charlie were being rushed out of the room and into the nursery. The next hour and a half is a blur. I don't ever remember sensing danger or recognizing the nervousness of the doctors and nurses around me. I do remember thinking it was taking a very long time to be stitched up and wondering why there were so many people in the room. At one point the anesthesiologist told me, "If they can't get the bleeding to stop, they're going to have to remove your uterus." I was so pumped full of drugs that I thought he meant they would be removing my placenta. "Great" I thought, "aren't they supposed to remove that anyway?" It wasn't until I was in recovery that I realized the doctor almost had to perform a hysterectomy to stop my bleeding. Luckily, he was able to insert a balloon into my uterus which successfully stopped the bleeding. I found out later, that balloon had only been available at this hospital for the past year and a half. Once in recovery I started to notice things were a bit more serious than I'd realized. I remember nurses moving hurriedly around me giving me two blood transfusions. I remember getting poked and prodded and not in the thoughtful, "ok, ready, one, two, three" kind of way, but in a jam it into your arm before you bleed out kind of way. Scary stuff.
Two hours later and I'd still barely seen my son. I just wanted him in my arms. I was very concerned about breast feeding because all of the books I'd read told me that breast feeding within the first hour after birth is recommended to build the bond between mother and child. I knew it had been longer than that and was sure our breast feeding relationship was doomed. Finally, after close to two hours, Rick came into recovery with Charlie in his arms. I still couldn't hold him, but I saw him up close for the first time and he was beautiful. Rick sat down and told me I'd almost had a hysterectomy, but they saved my uterus. It had been almost 2 1/2 hours since we'd told our families we were going in for a c-section and he had yet to be able to contact them with the news. The doctors and nurses were so worried about my health, that Charlie's well being had taken a back seat for awhile. Poor Rick, a dad for 10 seconds, was left to his own devices during that time. He remembers being so worried not only about me, but about our families and them not having any information regarding my health or Charlie's. He was finally able to contact them and give them the news that we were both ok. Needless to say everyone had been worried sick. My mom swears she'll never be in a different city when a grandchild is being born again! And I would agree. Have your family close! You just never know what could happen.
After a night's stay in the ICU (again poor Rick left alone with his brand new son) I was wheeled back to the maternity ward. Things calmed down from there. Rick's mom and sister spent quality time with Charlie taking more pics of him in a few hours than many of us have taken in the past 10 years. My parents arrived and were so grateful to finally meet Charlie and know I was ok. The first few days were definitely a bit difficult, but a week out and I'm feeling good! It's hard to believe we went through all of that to meet our little man, but I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat. He's perfect in every way! We are so lucky to have him and treasure every moment. Rick is an amazing dad. I love watching him and Charlie snuggle. There is nothing better. Many pictures and posts of Charlie to come.
