a birth story

On Friday, October 26, 2012, Hurricane Sandy was headed our way, and the University president at work made the executive decision that afternoon to close the University for Monday and Tuesday to ensure the safety of our students. Earlier that day, a lady I encountered in the elevator in the hospital on the way to my nonstress test said "I hope the barometric pressure doesn't push your baby out this weekend." Umm, yeah... little did I know she was taking a glimpse into my future. At this point, I had been procrastinating for a good three weeks on packing my hospital bag. I was going to be 38 weeks on Sunday the 28th, and I had been scheduled for an induction on Monday, November 5th (to my dismay) because Ian was a decidedly large baby, estimated to be about 8lbs 9oz at my 35 week ultrasound.

I went home on Friday, like "Woot! long weekend!" I thanked God for giving me the break from work that I so desperately needed but refused to take. I spent much of the day on Sunday washing Ian's clothes and finally packing my hospital bag as well as my labor and delivery bag. When I climbed into bed on Sunday night (Oct 28th), I had made a list of items I intended to buy for my hospital bag. I prayed, pleading with God to have Ian come out via spontaneous labor as I wasn't a fan of induction. Also, why did they feel he needed to come out an ENTIRE week early. I mean, c'mon. A few hours later, I want to say around 3:30 a.m., I woke up to use the bathroom. This was commonplace at this point in my pregnancy, and I thought nothing of it. However, it was different this time. I climbed back into bed and was unable to solidly go back to sleep. Around 5:30am or so, I started feeling some cramping that I'd never felt before, which became regular... about 10 minutes or so apart.

Like any millennial would do, I let my husband continue to sleep and I got onto gchat and sent Ian's god mother a message. She responded! So I told her I thought I was in labor, and then I started to hurt a bit. Then I was like, oh no. I still have packing to do. I finished packing my bag. I called the  doctor on call to see if I needed to come in. He said YES emphatically. My hesitation was that I knew the main roads to the hospital would be flooded with all of the rain, so I had no idea how we'd get there. Perhaps this made me procrastinate more.

After speaking with the doctor, I woke my husband to tell him I was in labor and that he needed to get himself and Fluff ready. I hopped in the shower. By this time (about 8am) I was having trouble standing up straight or speaking through contractions. The shower made me feel a little better, but it was mostly so I could avoid being groaty in the delivery room. We make our way out of the house by 8:30 a.m., in the rain (yuck). We drop Fluff off at my grandparents who live literally around the corner, directly on the way to the hospital. We make our way towards the hospital, taking a few detours around areas that usually flood downtown and still not knowing how we would actually get to the hospital. I thought, let's take Princess Anne Rd on down. As we traveled Princess Anne, we eventually came to a road block and had to maneuver back to Brambleton Avenue, headed for the Hague river, which was flowing completely over the road at this point (I knew this, because I had seen it on the news the night before).

Not knowing what else to do, we drove directly down Brambleton and up to a police road block at the intersection of Duke, and then we stopped. A male offer paced over to our van and began to scold us for coming to the intersection when they were attempting to avert traffic. Husband and I politely informed him that I was in labor and needed to deliver downtown, mind you I could SEE the medical complex from this point...across the river! His facial expression turned to panic and he motioned for a lady police officer to come over, and they decided to call me an ambulance.

So...yeah... about that. One thing to know about me is that I'm frugal. Despite the fact that I was having contractions that were 4 minutes apart I was NOT about to ride ANYONE's ambulance and pay whatever the co-pay was going to be. Besides, where would my husband go? Were we going to leave our brand new van on a random side street in downtown Norfolk during a hurricane? I should certainly think not. Thankfully, once the ambulance arrived, they informed us as to a passable route to the hospital. This took about 7 minutes to travel.

We checked into labor & delivery just after 9am. The contractions were steadily getting stronger. I was so  underprepared. I hadn't finished my pre-registration for the hospital, so I had to answer most of the questions at the check-in desk. I was having difficulty thinking and responding. I asked husband to answer everything I could defer to him. My bag of waters was bulging, and I could feel it. I just wanted to sit down somewhere.

I am checked into a triage room to see if I'm in active labor (even though I knew I was), and I saw Dr. Dattel in the hallway (yay, she's here). I was at 9.5 cm (out of 10). Because they were expecting Ian to be a special baby and have a lot of potential needs, my delivery room FILLED with at least 6 medical professionals in addition to the doctor and nurse that were already in the room. Then the CROWD was amazed at how my bag of waters was bulging. I never did get to see it, but apparently it was quite a site. I felt like a writhing show pony.

So... when asked about pain meds, I was like nahhhh... I got this. I figured Ian would be there in about an hour. I thought I had made it through transition. The contractions began to amp up even more, but with Husband's help I was able to get through each one, so I was confident. They poked some holes in my bag of waters and I began to slowly leak. Little did I realize just how much the amniotic fluid had been padding my labor pains.

As SOON as the fluid was done leaking out, I began to DIE. I do not say this to be dramatic, nor to scare women who have not yet had children or who have not had unmedicated births, but I began to lose it. Where was the confident girl who strolled in at 9.5 cm? Oh, I had shrunk back to 8 cm because I wasn't bulging anymore. I was also informed that I couldn't have any IV pain medicines at this point... and for some reason, I thought this meant I couldn't have an epidural at this point either. I was in so much pain, all I could do was wail in agony for the duration of each contraction. I repeatedly (to the nurse's dismay) RIPPED off my blood pressure cuff and the oximeter that was placed on my left index finger. I began to come out of my hospital robe. I couldn't sit still. Crouching didnt help. Lying down made the pain worse. I wanted to run quickly out of the room and LEAVE my body right there. I just fell absolutely to pieces. My poor husband, I didn't curse or yell at him. I wasn't mean to him or anything, but it came to a point where there was nothing he could do. Oh, and by this point, my contractions were 2 minutes apart. I have NO idea what time it was, but definitely still morning.

There was nothing left to do but for me to cry and beg for an epidural as I was CLEARLY not going to make it. I may gave been back up to at least 9cm at this point. I don't recall. I remember asking if they would be able to do the epidural before I had another contraction (even though I already knew it was a 10 minute procedure, having had one before). The anesthesiologist warned me about a lot of stuff I didn't hear. She did say that, since I was having it so late in labor that my baby might come out mid-procedure. I didn't give two craps. I was DYING. She asked me if I would be able to stay still for the procedure. I said yes, although I wasn't sure how. I just knew that I had to. I wanted to be able to use my legs again someday. It was pure agony having the 4 or 5 contractions that I did while she was setting up the epidural, but I stayed still, and I made it.

Once I was on drugs and on cloud 9, I made it to 10cm and they decided I should push...to no avail. Ian would not come down. They sat me in a more upright position in bed, so that I could "labor down". Ian budged a little bit, we tried pushing again...and again, it was to no avail. A few hours went by, and Dr. Dattel came in. She essentially said that we needed to get Ian out ASAP. I had been completely dilated for about 3 or so hours, and they like to have babies delivered within 4 hours of completion. Immediately afterward, a new pushing team came in. I reallllly didn't like the lead doctor. She was a female and kind of mean and pushy. Mean and pushy doesn't work on me. I began to cry while pushing. It was difficult. Ian was still high up there and I was being "encouraged" by a meanie doctor who told me not to cry. Yeah, I gave up.

Dr. Dattel came in again. Seeing her made me want to really go for the gold. I gave it my ALL. I bore down and gave her the three most olympic pushes of my life... but Ian didn't budge. At this point it was probably close to 8 p.m. We stopped pushing, and Dr. Dattel leaned over to break the news to me that she was recommending a c-section. She knew I felt strongly about not having a c-section. By this time, I didn't care. It was time for Ian to be evicted, and I felt confident in her executive decision to remove him surgically. I was extremely tired, and I had fallen behind on my epidural self-medication and was in pain again. I was prepped for surgery. Before going into the OR, I made the executive decision to go to sleep (as best I could) during the procedure. I had been warned by a friend and by the doctor that I would feel pressure as they worked on me, and I wasn't interested in any of that. I thought I would freak out.

They were playing cheesy, mostly 90s music in the OR the entire time. I thought they were going to forget to bring Husband into the room, but he made it. After what seemed like a short time, they announced at 8:38 p.m. that Ian was born while pulling this large "thing" out of my abdomen. There was no cry. There was some shuffling. They called Husband over for pictures and then whisked Ian away. I did not get to hold or see him. Then there was the awkward waiting for them to patch me up, which took forever.

I asked Husband to see the pictures he took. There was a yellow baby. All I could see on this baby was  what seemed to be a growth (or extra skin) hanging off the back of his neck. I began to cry in the OR continuously, and through the 2 hours I spent in the recovery room. I'm not sure at what point I was told that Ian was taken to the NICU. Everything was such a blur and ran together. I had a large dressing covering my lower abdomen. At one point, Husband had to leave me, and around 11 p.m. or so some guy who was HORRIBLE at "driving" my hospital bed took me to Timbuktu (in relation to my room in the maternity suite) to have a CT scan. I am not sure there was a door frame left unbumped during the trip, and I was very annoyed.

When I finally got back to my room, Husband appeared shortly after and we both went to sleep. Around 4:30 a.m. on the next day, October 30th, I was awakened to get up and walk and to ride over to NICU in the adjacent Children's Hospital to see my son for the very first time.