Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Six Years Ago: A Birth Story

On this day six years ago, I was 41 weeks, 2 days pregnant. Even though the doctor who’d performed the level II ultrasound all those weeks early when I was 22 weeks pregnant had moved the due date to November 29th due to the small size of the baby, I knew my dates. I knew the due date was November 18th.

But my ob/gyn wasn’t so sure and so he ordered a stress test. It was scheduled for the Monday after Thanksgiving, November 27th.

Tom, Alyssa and I all made the drive from our home to the town where I worked. It had been decided that it was easier for me to go to doctor appointments near work rather than near home.

I had the first appointment of the day and so didn’t have to wait when we got to the doctor’s office. I was seated in a comfy recliner, given a device with a button and told to press the button each time the baby moved. I also had a monitor strapped to my stomach, which was keeping track of the baby’s heart rate.

Tom and Alyssa sat in a less comfy chair across from me. The room was darkened and we all relaxed and waited for the baby to move, for time to pass.

When our half hour was up, we were taken to another room and told to wait for the doctor. He didn’t make us wait long. He came into the room and asked, “How would you like to have a baby today?”

The results of the stress test weren’t what he’d like to have seen. The baby was moving just fine. Her heart was beating just fine. But when she moved, they wanted to see her heart rate increase as a result of the movement. Our girl’s heart was just beating away at a steady pace, not increasing when she moved, not decreasing when she didn’t move.

We were sent to the hospital, told not to pass go, not to stop for food (I was starving!). We were allowed to stop by and let my boss know what was going one and give him the paperwork that would start my maternity leave but only because it was right on the way.

The maternity ward at the hospital was expecting us.

I was gowned and monitored. I let the nurse know that when I’d had Alyssa I’d had to pee. Like, a lot. She assured me this was fine, it was normal, she’d seen it all. Ha!

The inserted the Cervidil at 11:00, hoping to soften my cervix, which was currently very much closed and not interested in doing much else. After a few hours, they said, they’d see how the Cervidil was doing and then start the Pitocin. I assured them that my previous delivery had worked just fine with just Pitocin.

I asked for food.

Around noon, they brought me lunch. I’d taken three bites of broccoli when the nurse came in and took the food away, saying that the doctor didn’t like the way the baby was reacting to the Cervidil. Her heart rate was decreasing at regular intervals. The doctor was sure that Pitocin alone wasn’t going to do the job and so didn’t want me to eat in case a c-section was in my near future.

This doctor was not the one who’d delivered Alyssa, he didn’t know my history with Pitocin. I again assured that nurse that the Pitocin would do the job and we’d have this baby vaginally. She nodded as if she believed me but told me she had to follow the doctor’s orders. So…no food for me.

They started the Pitocin at 1:00.

At 1:30, I threw up the little bit of broccoli I’d eaten. Ick! As the nurse held the bowl for me, I whispered an apology. I told her I’d peed as I’d puked. Gross.

She told me it was no big deal and helped clean up the bed for me. There was blood along with the pee, she said. That was a good sign.

By 2:00, the contractions were very regular. Olivia didn’t like the contractions at all. Each one caused her heart rate to decrease so the nurse asked me to lay on my left side.

Tom took Alyssa for a walk. I was managing the pain pretty well, not wanting to scare her.

My mom and step dad arrived at the hospital around 3:00 and took Alyssa with them. They took her to eat and then to Walmart, giving Tom some time to just stand beside me and hold my hand. My left hip was starting to ache from laying on it. Though it did get a little respite every fifteen minutes when I had to get up to pee. The nurse finally admitted that I really did have to pee more often than any other laboring mother she’d ever had. Huh, something to be proud of, I guess.

I did try to move to my right side every so often but the baby’s heart rate would dip each time so back to my left we went.

My doctor came to check on me at about 5:45, after his office had closed for the day.

He was surprised to find me already dilated to 6.

I wanted to say I told you so but, well, the contractions were pretty much right on top of each other at that point and talking wasn’t all that high on my list of priorities.

At 6:00, the doctor decided to break the water to see if we could move this along. I think he was ready to go home and have dinner.

After what felt like extended probing, the nurse mentioned that when I’d thrown up earlier in the day, my water had probably broken then, when I’d thought I’d peed. Interesting, I thought vaguely, sort of relieved to know that I hadn’t peed myself.

When the doctor finally stopped trying to break a water that had already broken, he checked my progress again. Still a six. I had a major contraction at that point and the doctor decided to check me one more time before he went to have dinner. That one contraction had taken me from 6 to 9.

My mom and Lyle got back with Alyssa. Tom met them at the door, letting them know that we were on the verge of pushing. My mom said she had food for Tom when it was all over and took Alyssa to wait.

As with Alyssa’s birth, I felt pressure and told the nurse that I was trying not to push but I couldn’t help it. She called for the doctor and he arrived just in time to tell me we were ready and to go ahead and push. Yeah, I though, I could tell.

Three pushes later and our girl was out at 6:27pm.

They took Olivia immediately to a warming table and three nurses surrounded her. I couldn’t get much of a glimpse as they worked on her but I could see her struggling to breathe. Her ribs were visible with each breath she tried to take. Tom stood by my side, also blocking my view of Olivia.

After the doctor was finished cleaning me up and the nurses had Olivia stable enough to take her to the nursery where they put her under a cylinder that misted oxygen over her, I threw up one more time, because apparently that’s what I do when I’ve just given birth.

Except, unlike when I had Alyssa, I didn’t stop throwing up. The nurse finally gave me something to stop the nausea, which also made me quite high.

Once the puking stopped, I was able to get up and go see Olivia, who was still being bathed in oxygen.



I finally realized how drugged I really was when the father of another baby born at the exact same time Olivia was born asked me who our doctor was. I told him Dr. Miller. That is not the name of the doctor who delivered Olivia. It is, though, the name of the doctor who’d delivered this guy’s baby. Weird.

I realized I should probably sit down. My mom sat with me when our family doctor came in to talk about Olivia. He’d examined her and had determined that she needed to be in a bigger hospital. He wanted to know which one they should call for transfer.

I blinked at him and mumbled something like, “Oh, it doesn’t matter, wherever you think is best.”

My mom stepped in and told him to send her to the hospital that was twenty minutes from our home. She’s the best, my mom. Especially when I’m high and she isn’t.

She's also really good at taking care of Alyssa when I couldn't.




The pediatrician arrived from Bigger Hospital. They bundled three-hour old Olivia into a travel incubator, put that incubator into an ambulance and off they went with Tom in hot pursuit.

My mom and Lyle took Alyssa home with them and I realized I was so tired I couldn’t see straight.

But after about five hours of sleep, I couldn’t stand it any longer. I managed to stay in bed until just after 6 the next morning. After I showered, I made myself wait until 7am to call Julie and let her know that Olivia was here but that she had been admitted to the NICU at a larger hospital. I realize now, six years later, how hard that phone call must have been for Julie given her own history with an infant and an extended NICU stay.

By 10 I was losing my mind. I needed to get out of there. The doctor finally showed up a little after 10 and told me Olivia had very low APGAR scores. I didn’t care. He also told me it appeared she’d stopped growing around 35 weeks gestation. We know now that her low birth weight of 5lbs 2oz wasn’t due to intrauterine growth retardation but rather a symptom of 5p- syndrome.

He also told me if we hadn’t induced and delivered the day before, Olivia might not have made it another couple of days.

Again, with time we’ve come to realize we’re actually lucky she was nine days overdue. She needed those extra nine days to cook.

By 10:30, I was released. My mom came to get me and take me to my baby. She also brought my bigger baby to me and the relief at seeing Alyssa, hugging her, holding her made everything so much better.

As I left, the nurse commented that I’d had a drive-thru delivery. I was leaving the hospital 24 hours after being admitted, 16 hours after giving birth.

It didn’t matter. It was no longer about me. I had a baby I needed to see. And six years later, I often find myself leaving work with just two things one my mind. Alyssa and Olivia, the two brightest points of light in my life.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Isn't it amazing how we can remember tiny details from such powerful days in our lives. Sophie was also tiny and we were told had I not delivered when I did she would not had survived as the umbilical cord was detatching from the placenta. She weighed 5.3 and her apgar were horrible too.