A Baby Story

Whew! What a whirlwind this last week has been!

Last you read, I was at 36 weeks, things were going fine, and that was that.

On Monday, I had my 36 week appointment with my doctor. They always start the appointment by taking your blood pressure. Mine was 173/95. Eeek! So the doctor did the Group B strep test and check to see if I was dilated, which I wasn't at all. He told me that they would take my blood pressure again, and if it didn't go down, I would be sent to the hospital right then and there! If it did, he thought he would schedule the induction for Thursday when I was 37 weeks along. Well, we took it again, and it was 177/110. So we were off!

The plan was to give me citatec, which would hopefully dilate me more and prepare my cervix for delivery. Once I was dilated enough (probably to about a 3), they would give me pitocin to really get the induction going. So, 6:45 I got my first dose of citatec. Every 3 hours I got another. Long was the night. As the hours wore on, I was hungrier and my cramps were getting worse. My hunger was eased slightly with flavored ice chips, and once the cramps got bad enough, some medicine was put into my IV which gave me relief in literally less than 10 seconds. It was amazing! So 12 hours later, they check me for probably the 4th time. I was dilated to a 1. Not much progress! But the doctor decided that in an hour, they would start the pitocin.

My lime ice chips.

The red line is Chris's heart rate and the blue line is my contractions

So come 7:30, they started the pitocin and I requested to start my epidural. The nurse went to get the anesthesiologist, and lo and behold, his shift just ended and the next anesthesiologist would be here in a half hour. Rude! I wasn't too happy, but what could you do? Some of you may know, I was nervous for the epidural. For one thing, I have seen the size of the needle they stick in you. Huge! Secondly, they are sticking something in your back! Hello! In between your spine! That alone is bad enough, but I tend to have a pretty extreme reaction of arching my back when someone surprises me or pokes me hard enough. So I was nervous. Then, add to the nervousness the worst cramps I've ever had. And add to THAT the fetal position they put you in so that your stomach feels even more squished than it already is and you can't move to relieve your contractions. Add all this together, and you have me squeezing the blood out of Jed's hand. But, it went totally fine! The blessed anesthesiologist, I think his name was Dr. Lund so we'll just call him that, gave me lots of local anesthesia so that I felt nothing. And 10 minutes later, I was all numb and it felt great!

Then started the problems. Once in the night, my baby's heart rate went down. They gave me oxygen and had me lay on a different side, and all was well. But after they gave me the pitocin, his heart rate went down again. The oxygen didn't help as well as the last time, so the nurse stopped the pitocin. They started it up a little later, and again his heart rate went down. This time, it wasn't coming up. Dr. Thorpe had been at the hospital in Orem and was on his way, so the nurses did what they could to keep trying to get his heart rate up. Dr. Thorpe arrive just as my mom did, and they assessed the situation. My poor baby's heart rate was down to 60, which while quite low (it should be 140), they said it wasn't dire. I was still worried, though. They warned me that I may have to have a c-section, and minutes later, Dr. Thorpe decided a c-section was the best way to help my baby, and I was fine with that. I hadn't wanted a c-section, but my dear baby needed to get out!

The c-section was strange, but kind of amazing. They had me in there and done in 10 minutes. Dr. Lund even said as they were prepping me that they were only on their moderate speed and if they needed to, my baby would have already been out. So the c-section. It was such a strange feeling, because I could feel things, and yet I couldn't feel things. It felt like they were pulling and tugging at my skin and tummy, and yet I knew they were doing a lot more than that. So after a minute, they said, "The head is born.... the shoulders are born.... your baby's born!" And I heard these two teeny little grunt cries and that was that! I teared up but didn't cry like I thought I would, which probably was because I didn't get to see him. Because he was preemie, the NICU nurses whisked him away the moment he was out, and for good reason. Instead of breathing normally, he had to grunt to barely breathe. So he was given surfactant and put on a little C-PAP machine.

And with that, Christopher Daniel Stephenson was born at 9:45 AM on March 13, 2012. He was 20 inches and 5 pounds, 14 ounces.

So, it was over! It felt weird. It was almost like nothing changed. I couldn't feel anything, my stomach still looked huge, and I didn't see my baby. Jed was great and kept going to the NICU to check on Chris and he would tell me what was going on. After a few hours, they moved me down to the Mother/Baby floor where I would stay the rest of the time in the hospital. On the way down I got to see my dear baby. It was sad to see him on the machine, but they said he was doing really well.

In his NICU bed

Chris on the C-PAP

All afternoon we kept checking to see how he was doing, and with each update things got better and better! By 5:00 he was out of the NICU and down in the nursery on my floor and a little while later, I got to hold my baby!

I will finish the story off with how recovering from the c-section went. I was expecting terrible pain and an inability to stand up straight or at least without terrible pain. Perhaps I was lucky, but it wasn't bad at all! The first time standing up I had a flash back to the first time I stood up after I broke my femur. Oh that hurt like nothing I had ever felt, but after the c-section, my first time standing up was relatively pain free! Mostly just uncomfortable. Over the course of the week, things were going really well. Walking was great and although a trip downstairs to the cafe wore me out completely, it felt so good to walk around. So I'm extremely happy with that!

It's been a week and this last week has passed by so quickly, yet last Monday seems weeks ago! I can't believe all that's happened in only a week, how much has changed, and how amazing life is. I am extremely grateful to the doctors and nurses for taking care of me and my baby and delivering Chris to us safe and sound.

And that's my baby story.