Christopher's Birth Story

Christopher’s Birth Story

We checked into the hospital for our induction at around 2:00 pm on Wednesday, February 18th after getting a call from the doctor to scoot up there early so that we were sure to get a spot—we didn’t want a repeat of the Monday before where we got bounced outta there due to lack of room! This time was totally different from the get-go. We had my IV in place and blood-work taken within the first 10 minutes or so, and here came Dr. Andrews to put in my Cervadil to get things rollin! She wasn’t messing around!  The rest of Wednesday was pretty uneventful as we just sat around and waited for the Cervadil to work its magic overnight; David and I played cards and visited with my parents and his mom and Aunt Shirley as they came and went. The most interesting thing that happened that night was that I was given an Ambien to help me sleep, and it actually made me hallucinate! Not 5 minutes after it went down the ceiling started fluctuating…David was standing by my bedside and I looked at him and asked him if he was lifting me—I swear it felt like he was just slowly raising the bed but I couldn’t reach the ceiling. He said “nooooooo?” with this look of concern and mild amusement on his face. Then I said something along the lines of “I wish you were in my head right now….I feel like I’m in Vegas!”…to which he quickly said “I’m going to get the nurse!” haha! She had forgotten to give us her “hallucination schpiel” when I got the drug, and told him just to tell me to “be quiet, close my eyes, and go to sleep” (she was really funny!). She apologized for how that sounded later, but I just found it amusing.

Thursday morning, Dr. Andrews came in bright and early to check on me. Unfortunately the Cervadil didn’t do much of anything—I had only dilated to a “loose 1” ugh, we had a long way to go. So we just went ahead and started Pitocin to get the party started and it definitely got things going! We started the Pit around 5am, and by around 9am they actually pulled me off the Pit and put me on oxygen and increased fluids because Christopher’s heart rate was having decelerations following each contraction—but after they did that, he bounced right back…so Dr. Andrews showed up and talked to us about what was going on with the contractions and his heart rate and what all that meant, and at that point was already throwing the possibility of a c-section on the table. We agreed to restart the Pit and just increase it in smaller increments and keep me on the oxygen to see how he reacted. He responded beautifully for most of the day that way, so I was getting hopeful that we would actually be able to continue with our delivery as planned. I was having contractions and ended up dilating to about 4 cm’s before asking for my epidural. I must admit I was pretty proud of myself for how I handled my contractions—I really was able to breathe through them like a champ. I had asked for an IV medication a couple of hours before the epidural which I really ended up regretting because it just knocked me out completely. I was hardly coherent for anything other than the contractions that I was feeling and I honestly don’t remember much about the whole day. (I’m having David fill in the blanks for me as I write this.)
By 4:00, Dr. Andrews was back—the decels had started again, and then had moved into non-responsiveness in his heart rate following each contraction. As much as she didn’t like to see the decels, she didn’t like seeing nothing even more. So at that point, she said what I was thinking—Christopher was just not tolerating the labor and a c-section was necessary. It was upsetting but we were all in agreement that the end result was definitely what was most important and we did not want to prolong the labor and chance a true emergency by trying to push through and continue with the induction. As soon as we made the call, she headed out to book the OR for us, and things happened really quickly from there. I was still really out of it and all I wanted to do was sleep—we were in the OR by 4:20 or so, and Christopher was born at 4:30—he was 6 lbs 3oz and 18.5 inches long. I had a hard time keeping my eyes open for those 10 minutes, and honestly would have slept through the whole thing if David had not been there to keep me awake and talk to me.

Once Christopher was born, we heard his wonderful little cry, but he was having repertory issues and would cry a little bit and stop, then they would flick his little feet and he’d cry a little and then stop. He was breathing rapidly and they were concerned—so he was taken directly to the nursery for assessment and resuscitation. David went with him, and I was taken to recovery for about an hour. It wound up being about 4 hours after he was born that I finally got to go down and see him in the nursery. He had to have an IV put in and was under the warming tray and it was really hard to see him like that. We did get to hold him that night, but he was not allowed to eat anything and had to stay in the nursery for observation overnight. That was probably the hardest part—that we were kept apart for so long after he was born, but I know it was ultimately for the best. He was well taken care of, and I was still so drugged that I wouldn’t have been able to do anything for him that night. I still don’t remember anything from the rest of that night.

The rest of our stay at the hospital was really great—we didn’t get to go home until Sunday, but the doctors and nurses were absolutely fantastic. They were attentive to our needs, answered all of our questions and gave great advice and we could not have asked for better care. I am really grateful to all of them for the service they provided. Christopher roomed-in with us from Friday morning until we left so we got some supervised practice at our parenting skills, which was nice. So far Christopher has been very patient with us as we are getting to know each other and our new roles. And that’s the story of how Christopher came into the world…