Pregnancy Journal

It seemed appropriate to conclude my pregnancy journal with my labor and delivery experience. (Whether I will add more entries past this point is still undecided.)

Around 7:00 Sunday night (3/19), I and all my belongings were carted off from my hospital room 4515 to delivery suite 02. As I passed by the nurses' desk, Suzanne and all the nurses I met during my stay greeted me. Dr. E was there as well, and asked if I was ready. "I guess," I lied, clutching my pillow.

One of the nurses got me situated in the room and gave me a hospital gown. I went to the bathroom while Alex unloaded the cart with my stuff. Then, one of the nurses helped me into bed, and gave Alex some sheets and blankets for the window bench/bed. (I don't think either bed was very comfortable.) She started an IV, strapped on a blood pressure cuff, and hooked me up to the all-too-familiar monitor. Dr. E came in to explain the procedure. She said she would give me a small pill, called misoprostol, which would ripen my cervix. (When she was an intern, she said, they used to joke about taking misoprostol home and inducing their own labor.) When she got up at 2:00 to pee, she said, she would check on me and give me another dose as needed.

"What if I have to pee at 2:00 AM?" I asked.

"You can get up and go," she said, "You just have to wait 2 hours after I give you the pill for it to get absorbed, then just unplug the monitors and go."

So the doctor checked me first, and said "you've changed," as I was finger-tip dilated. She then inserted the misoprostol and told me it would probably make me pretty crampy. "I prescribed a sleeping pill for you if you want it," she said.

"I'll take whatever you give me," I responded.

Alex and I watched a little TV until my two hours were up (it was around 10:00 PM by then), then Alex unhooked the monitor, as instructed, and helped me to the bathroom. I was out like a light from the sleeping pill when I got back to the bed.

Around 1:00 AM, I awoke, needing to go to the bathroom again. I called to Alex to help me, and the minute he helped me up from te bed, WHOOSH! My water broke... all over Alex's shoes. So I had to drag the cables and wires from the monitor through the "flood" to the bathroom (Alex hung the IV bag on the bathroom door since the stand wouldn't roll). While I was there, Alex went out to the nurses' station and said "I think Laura's water broke."

"Are you sure?" asked the nurse.

"Well," he said, "there's an awful lot of water in there."

So the nurse followed him back to the room and everything was cleaned up and ready for me by the time I staggered out of the bathroom.

I fell asleep until sometime after dawn, when the contractions started getting really painful. I moaned and writhed for a little while, still half asleep from the demerol I was set up with earlier. The nurse asked if I wanted an epidural. "yes, please," I said.

So the very nice anesthesiologist came in, explained the process, and had me sit on the edge of the bed and arch my back. There was a sting when he numbed the area before administering the epidural. He told me to let him know if I started feeling any numbness in my legs.

"My right hip," I said, and he adjusted the epidural. After that, I had no pain at all from the contractions.

I would doze off and on through the morning in early afternoon while my mom and Alex talked. From time to time, I would get ice chips, but was still thirsty. Then, around 2:30 or 3:00 that afternoon, the contractions got big enough that the urge to push was too intense. During those times, I would have to look at one of the sprinklers in the ceiling and just pant, trying hard NOT to push. Alex would ask if I was ok or if I needed something, but since I was too preoccupied to answer, I would just give him "the hand" and wave him off. (He got the point!)

The nurse came in to check on me, and told me she was going to put me on oxygen. She said my contractions were running one big one followed immediately by a small one, and that they thought the baby was holding her breath during them. The oxygen, she said, would help ensure the baby was breathing enough. Then she asked if it were ok if the doctor attached an internal fetal monitor to the baby's head.

"Is that really necessary?" I asked, "Her heartbeat is still registering on the external monitor."  (I did NOT want anyone screwing that little sensor into my baby's head!)

"OK," she said, "she doesn't have to," then she checked me and said I was almost ready for the delivery. She told me not to push, to just continue to pant with the contractions until the doctor could come in. 

A few minutes later. she said I and the lady next door were at about the same. "Let's see who is the better pusher," she said, and told me to push with the next contraction.

"I think you'll be first," she said, "then her [the woman next door], then the lady down the hall." (OK, so there were three of us for just the one doctor to attend too! All the men in the practice had gone out of town, leaving just Dr. E and Dr. L to handle everything!)

Dr. L came in after a few minutes, checked me out, and said the baby's head was popping in and out. (She even did a little miming with her hands over her own head to demonstrate.)  She mentioned that "the old guys" left her and Dr. E to handle it all, but they would be complaining if it were the other way around. "That's ok, though," she said.

She left to deliver the woman next door, (I would be second, not first, after all) while the nurses brought in all the necessary instruments, etc. They said they thought the umbilical cord was wrapped around something on the baby (a shoulder, maybe), and asked if it was ok if the doctor used the vacuum to help pull the baby out faster so she could unwrap the cord. I was ok with that.

Finally, the doctor came in, dropped the bottom half of the bed, and was ready to go. I finally got to push with each contraction. I was surprised at how painless it was (God bless the person who came up with the epidural!) After only 20 minutes or so of pushing, the baby was born and snatched the gauze out of the doctor's hand.

"Hey!" Dr. L said, "You can't have that!" as she pried the gauze from the baby's little fingers.

Then Alex cut the cord, and the baby was weighed (5 pounds, 6 ounces) and cleaned, then handed to Alex. My mom and Alex took turns holding her while the doctor tried to work the placenta out.

I finally got to hold the baby while the doctor was stitching me up. She mentioned "putting the puzzle pieces back together," and something about how I started tearing when I was around 6 cm dilated. I guess she saw my expression and said "that's ok, Laura, we'll fix it." ????

While she was stitching, the doctor and nurse started talking about another woman who was #3 on the deliveries, but that the woman wasn't wanting to push, so she'd have to wait. Then another nurse came in and told the doctor the lady in room 8 was ready too. ("Eight, too?!?" she exclaimed.)

After I was all stitched up and we had our hour of "bonding time" with the baby, the baby was carted off to the nursery for her bath and transition period. Then came the most painful part of the whole process - a nurse started a fast IV drip of magnesium sulfate, because they thought the preeclampsia might send me into seizures after delivery. It burned and throbbed so badly, I wanted to chew my own arm off! I cried as it burned its way through my arm, and was so out of it the entire 24 hours I was on the Mag.

I didn't get to see the baby until late the next day, as they didn't want her to leave the nursery until they got her temperature up. (This didn't happen until around 11:00 the night she was born, so we decided to get some rest and get her from the nursery in the morning.) She was so tiny! She also needed to learn how to eat, as she was having a little trouble getting the hang of it. (MY kid??!?) She did finally start eating, though, and we were released from the hospital around 5:00 PM that Wednesday.