Lauren is here!

I cannot believe Lauren finally arrived, TEN DAYS past her due date!  Just as I did with Tyler, I wanted to type out the birth story while it’s still fresh in my mind.

Again, for the menfolk: the stork dropped her off during his lunchtime hospital rounds. 

For the womenfolk: I remember my OB telling me at my 39-week appointment that the last day I’d be pregnant was April 28^th since she would induce me if I wasn’t in labor by then.  “Big whoop, I’ll have her well before then!” was my thought.  My due date was the 18^th and I had always thought Lauren would be here no later than Easter, but there I was at Kevin’s aunt’s house, celebrating with eggs and bubbles while on the brink of my 41^st week of pregnancy.  Nobody thought I would be pregnant for this long, everybody thought she’d come well before her due date, but baby girl had plans of her own.

I had been having contractions for around two weeks, stronger than Braxton Hicks, but with absolutely no rhythm to them.  This is called Prodromal Labor.  Prodromal Labor SUCKS!  It was incredibly aggravating since I would think, “Something’s finally starting!” and then they would completely stop, not starting up again until the next day. 

During my final week of pregnancy, Kevin and I had two non-stress tests where baby girl did beautifully.  We also had one “stress test” when Kevin had to go to the ER because he was passing a kidney stone.  It was funny whenever somebody new came into our little curtained-off area because they assumed the (extremely) pregnant woman was the patient and even funnier when they’d ask when I was due and we’d say in unison, “LAST week!”

As the week continued and Thursday got closer, we accepted the fact that baby girl was just not going to come on her own and that I would be induced.  Our plan for Thursday morning was to spend time with Tyler, have breakfast, bring Tyler over to his grandparents’ house, go to our 9:40 OB appointment to be checked, then head over to the hospital to be induced.  Apparently that wasn’t baby girl’s plan. 

Around 5:00 Thursday morning, I woke up to use the bathroom and after getting back into bed, started feeling what I thought was gas pain.  When it would come and go instead of being a constant pain, I thought it was possibly contractions, but I had been fooled so many times before that I just tried falling back asleep. 

When they wouldn’t stop after about half an hour, I thought to myself, “Ya know, Elinor, gas pains don’t occur every 5 minutes!”  Right at that moment, I felt Kevin start to stir in bed next to me and I whispered to him, “I think I’m having contractions.”  The sentence wasn’t even completely out of my mouth and he was up and out of bed, phoning his parents so that they were on call in case they had to come pick up Tyler, who wasn’t even awake yet.  He also called my sister, who rolled right out of bed when answering the phone with “It’s time, I’m on my way!”

I insisted that I take a shower before we left for the hospital because I knew I wouldn’t be able to get another one for at least a day.  When Kevin said he would just skip a shower, I told him to jump in because “You’re not going to meet your daughter for the first time unbathed!”  I kept saying that we shouldn’t get too excited, these could just be the same contractions I had been having for weeks that would disappear, but Kevin said, “Honey, you’re grabbing the shower wall with each one.  This is real!”  Tyler woke up just as my father-in-law arrived to get him so I was able to help change his clothes, give him his milk sippy and hug and kiss him before we left for the hospital.  He looked happy and excited, as if he knew what was about to happen.

At the hospital, we got into a room right away and I was set up on the monitors.  The nurse said she was going to wait to examine me because my OB wanted to check me herself.  Not too long later, within 2 hours after our arrival, my water broke while I was sitting in the hospital bed (oooh, that was GROSS!)  The fluid was clear this time versus having light meconium staining with Tyler, which surprised me since Lauren was so postdate.  At this point, the nurse went ahead and examined me to find out that I was already 8cm!  I was so happy that I was already this far along on my own and knew I would not need Pitocin like I had with Tyler.  One bad thing, however, was that Lauren had not yet lowered past -3 station (0 station means baby is at the birth canal.)  We were hoping that she would eventually lower, especially since my contractions were intensifying and getting closer together.

Labor progressed and I started having strong contractions 1.5 minutes apart.  The monitor belts on my abdomen kept slipping out of place so my OB decided to put in the internal monitors to keep an eye on Lauren’s heartrate and the adequacy of my contractions.  This is something that scared me since the monitor is actually stuck into the baby’s head, but I figured I was so close to the end of my labor that it wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

When my OB came back to check me for a second time, I was 9cm but Lauren was still at -3.  She had me lie on the bed and try pushing to see if baby would move down.  This wasn’t easy since I didn’t have the urge to push like I had with Tyler, where it felt like my body was doing 90% of the work by itself and I just had to push a little to make up the extra 10.  When I pushed, Lauren lowered slightly and then went right back up to -3.  At this point, my OB also realized that the baby was facing my left side instead of my back, which was probably keeping her from lowering.  She knew that if Lauren turned to face the right direction, she would come down and out very quickly, but she didn’t seem to want to turn.

My OB gave Kevin and me a few options: 1) continue laboring for another hour as I was, where my contractions were progressive on their own; 2) continue laboring for another hour with the help of Pitocin to further strengthen the contractions in hopes that the baby would lower; or 3) have a c-section.  The last thing I ever wanted was a c-section, but I was scared that with how tired and weak I was already, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to push efficiently, and that’s if Lauren would even lower in the first place.  Kevin and I talked about it and agreed to go ahead with the c-section.

I was very emotional and scared at this point... scared of having surgery, of baby girl coming out okay, of getting the spinal, of being numb.  The top reason why I never got epidurals was because I was more afraid of being numb than feeling the labor pains, so knowing I would not be able to feel anything from my chest down absolutely terrified me.  But I knew I was doing this for Lauren and that was the only thing that held me together.

I was wheeled off to the operating room, leaving Kevin behind in a little waiting area while they prepped me.  I met the very cute anesthesiologist, who held my hand while I had the first of around 10 contractions while everything was being set up and the spinal was being put in.  The spinal was not an easy experience and one I’m glad I will never have to go through again.  He had to shoot me with local twice because the first didn’t work completely and continuing to have contractions during the process did not make it easy to hunch over and sit still when all I wanted to do was hold somebody’s hand and move my hips around.

I quickly felt my feet get really warm and could tell I was rapidly losing feeling in my legs.  They situated me on the table, pulled the curtain up in front of me and they were already starting the incision when they brought Kevin into the room.  When I stopped feeling the contractions, a lot of my anxiety was relieved and I was able to hear the radio station they had playing in the operating room.  Our baby nurse (for the life of me, I can’t remember her name!) even wrote down what songs played because she thought they were perfect: “Angel” by Sarah McLachlan when they were starting the surgery, “One Way or Another” by Blondie when they were pulling Lauren out and “Uptown Girl” by Billy Joel when they were cleaning her up.  I only remember hearing the last song and then “Free Fallin” by Tom Petty.  This music mix might as well have been custom made for Lauren’s birth.

After a brief stay in recovery, where I got to hold and nurse Lauren, we were finally brought back to the room where my sister, Aunt Maggie and Uncle Mike were all waiting.  I was still pretty out of it and couldn’t completely feel my legs or wiggle my toes.  I hated it.

Not long after getting to my room, I had what I have entitled “My Episode.”  While I was lying in the hospital bed, I suddenly felt hot, dizzy, and the sides of my face starting to buzz.  The next thing I knew, I woke up to a crowd of medical people, the bed had been laid down completely flat and my nurse was standing over me, repeatedly and loudly asking me to talk to her.  I was confused, especially when I saw the anesthesiologist standing right behind my left shoulder, which was where he was during my surgery, so my immediate thought was, “Am I still having my c-section?  I thought that was over!”

Apparently within moments after telling my family that I felt dizzy, I passed out in the bed.  My sister, while holding Lauren, ran out into the hall calling for help and a stampede of nurses ran into the room.  One even shouted at my sister to not take the baby so she put her back in her little bed bucket and waited in the hall with my aunt and uncle.  Kevin stayed in the room with me, the baby and the medical crowd.  At an early point in the chaos, there was a miscommunication and a code blue and crash cart were both called.  Even my nurse, who was in charge of the crash cart, did not know why the code was called when I had already come to quite quickly.  Within minutes, my OB ran into the room and when she saw that I was awake and joking about, “What’s the big deal, I only fainted and have done this before (Safe and Sober Prom assembly, anyone?)”, her hand immediately went to her chest and she was catching her breath.  I even asked her if SHE was going to pass out.  The poor girl was across the street at her office when she heard the code and she played her own game of Frogger while running to the hospital.

I passed out due to a combination of factors, the main one being that I had lost a lot of blood during the surgery and became anemic in the process.  I also think it had to do with the anxiety I was feeling by not being able to move my legs, which I was ironically able to do within minutes of waking up.  Because I was still under close watch after “My Episode”, I was not allowed to eat or drink anything, even water, in case I had to go back into surgery.  They had the same order when I was in the last part of my labor in case I needed a c-section, but I would still steal small sips of water here and there while mouthing the words, “F them for keeping a laboring woman thirsty!”

For me, recovery from a c-section is the exact opposite of recovering from a natural, drug free birth.  In other words, it SUCKS!  After having Tyler, I was up and moving almost immediately with minimal discomfort.  After having Lauren, moving around is such an effort and I hate that I can’t pick up Tyler or find a comfortable position when lying down in bed.  However, after less than a week, I am already doing much better and seeing improvement everyday.  I just need to keep in mind that although I’m miserable now, this will not last forever and I will eventually be able to move around like a normal person again.

Lauren was (and continues to be) worth all of the drama surrounding her birth.  Although I was devastated by going from what I thought would be a quick, natural birth to a completely unnatural c-section, baby girl was coming out… one way or another  ;)