The Story Of Us: Darius, A New Chapter
On Wednesday 12/14/16, at 2:50am, our little king arrived. He made quite an entrance too....
We arrived at the hospital on Tuesday, 12/13, at 7:30am, and met with our OB to do a final ultrasound to see what position our son was in. Low and behold, he had moved into a head-straight-down position, very far down in my pelvis. So we had to make the final decision as to whether we wanted to proceed with a c-section or go with a vaginal birth. Our OB really made the case to go with vaginal since it was now a possibility so that I would have a much shorter recovery time, so we decided to give it a go. All the birthing/delivery rooms were full at that point though, so we went off to the cafeteria for breakfast to wait it out a few hours. In that time I remember feeling so nervous. Did I make the right decision? I was already mentally prepared for a c-section and the recovery that would be involved with that type of birth. No labor, a quick cut, and the baby would be here. Could I handle the hours of pain that would be involved with inducing labor vaginally?
We headed back up to the 3rd floor of Sharp Mary Birch around 10:30, and they got us into a delivery room around an hour later. Great thing about this hospital is they have state-of-the-art private delivery and private post delivery rooms. The delivery room was fairly big, with a couch and private bathroom with shower, and they even have different delivery tools you can use or request, like balance balls. All rooms have smart TVs you can watch movies on and connect to the internet on to watch birthing educational videos. We watched a few of them, but I honestly don't remember any of it because that's when the fun began...
A little after noon when we were settled in our room, the process of inducing labor started with our OB and the on duty nurse inserting a tablet into my cervix to start getting it to soften. This would be done every 4 hours until I would dilate enough. For what ever reason, the baby's head was actually lower than my cervix, and the opening to my cervix was situated pretty far back, so this made the process pretty painful for me. I had to opt for the IV drugs to numb me a bit just to be able to stand the pelvic exam and tablet insertion every 4 hours. Around 10pm though, a couple hours after the 3rd round of induction drugs, my water suddenly broke and that's when all hell broke loose. The contractions started coming rapidly in full force, but the IV drugs weren't working any more. Besides, since my water had broken, we had to stop the IV drugs because if you're closer to birth, they can enter the baby's system. Unfortunately, the anesthesiologist had not one, but TWO, emergency surgeries/c-sections he had to attend to. So....
For the next few hours I screamed like I never have before in my life. My main problem was that the hospital bed was so hard and uncomfortable. With all the space and birthing tools, and all the instructional videos talking about how you should move around during labor, I never thought that I would be stuck stationary in bed for 12+ hours because of all the monitors they had me and the baby on. If I'd move, we'd lose the baby's heartbeat or some other alarm would go off. So considering that I already have been suffering for a couple months now with something wrong with my lower back (dislocation? bulging disc?), once those contractions kicked in on top of that I was ready to tear my hair out. There were a couple of times I nearly threw myself off the bed and the nurse had to restrain me, and Stephen discreetly put his ear plugs in and gave me his hand, only to pull away when I tried to bite him and nearly broke his fingers. I probably looked like something straight out of Exorcist - I needed a priest or a straight-jacket or something. Every time the nurse tried to readjust the baby's heart monitor onto my stomach I'd scream "nooooooo! just cut him out of me already!" Yeah, I know. I got pretty ridiculous.
Finally around 2 in the morning the anesthesiologist rushed in and started my epidural. That was a challenge too because you have to stay still, and every time a contraction kicked in my body would practically convulse. My lower back was so tight with whatever is wrong with it he had a hard time getting in there too. But man.... once he did? HEAVEN! I couldn't feel anything below the waste any more. Why could't I have had that done first thing in the morning? My day would have been so much more happy and relaxed! And all of a sudden, I went from being only 2cm dilated, to full on 9cm dilated. My OB came in and checked me, said she was off to do a quick c-section, but she'd be back with a vacuum cup and something about making an incision. OK, sure doc, whatever, as long as you keep me drugged.
She came back in a half hour with a team of 8 people and we started to push. It didn't take much, because after a few minutes of pushing, and whatever snip and vacuum action my doc put in place, our son made his debut at 2:50am. I didn't realize what was going on at the time or why there were so many medical staff in our room. I was pretty out of it. All I knew was hearing the sound of my baby's voice was the most beautiful sound. I originally had wanted to delay cord clamping and have him placed immediately on my chest for skin-to-skin, but none of that was happening. I didn't know why. All I knew was a moment later the crying calmed and I looked over to my right and Stephen was holding our baby. My feeling in that moment....wow.... just overwhelmingly happy, like everything in the world was right as it should be, and nothing else mattered. Our son bonded immediately with daddy, recognized his voice instantly, and just opened his eyes and looked around and stopped crying. The most beautiful thing in the world.
As for what was happening in real time? Well, the umbilical cord had been wrapped around the baby's neck twice, so two of the nurses rushed him over to the other side of the room to tend to that while the rest of the staff worked with my OB to stop my hemorrhaging. I already have anemia to begin with, and I don't know if it was because of the position of my cervix or the position of the baby with his cord, or just that I had to be cut to get him out.... but I was losing blood fast. I had nurses injecting me with drugs to slow my blood while others were packing and stitching and monitoring. My OB later told me that if they hadn't gotten things under control in 4 minutes, I would have required emergency surgery. This was how women would die during child birth in the old days. How lucky we are now with modern medicine! The hospital staff moved so quickly and efficiently I never worried or panicked. Such an amazing team of people, my son and my lives were very safe in their capable hands.
The next couple of days in the hospital were a blur. After we were stabilized, we were moved from our delivery room to our post-delivery recovery room. There was a pull out sofa for Stephen to sleep on, but it was a smaller room than our delivery room so things were a bit tight. At least the hospital bed in that room was a little more comfortable, but with all that was going on I didn't really get any sleep anyways. Various nurses, lactation coaches, counselors, and pediatricians were in and out at all hours. I really didn't mind, because they gave such great support and advice, and made sure we had everything we needed and took care of important business (birth certificate etc) and kept up on our vitals. It wasn't until late Wednesday when it became apparent though just how much blood I had lost. I started to have more and more difficulty to get up to go to the bathroom or even raise my head at some point. My OB came in on Thursday morning and explained what had happened, and that because I was anemic to begin with, my body wouldn't be able to catch back up with producing the blood I had lost. She recommended that I get two bags of blood transfused immediately.
Now this was a sort of moral dilemma. Though I'm really not religious now as an adult, I had been raised as a Jehovah's Witness growing up. They believe that blood is sacred to god, and that once it leaves your body, it's his again and you are not free to just use it for things like blood transfusions. I'm not so closed-minded that I go and just follow some dude's interpretation of an ancient book, but that stigma is still kind of there. I kinda feel.... I don't know, gross, about putting someone else's blood in my body. I know the testing process has improved tremendously over the years and there are very few cases of disease being transmitted from a transfusion any more but still.... Hesitant to just jump into a transfusion, I asked for other options. So my OB told me they could do an IV of iron and see if my hemoglobin levels went up any, and then get weekly iron injections to boost my blood production. But she warned me it would still take months to reproduce the blood I had lost and my energy would be heavily impacted. I still wanted to give this a try though.
Unfortunately Thursday night I was just as weak, even after spending the day with an IV of iron in my arm. I was completely unable to take care of my son through the night, and since Stephen had to work the next morning, I had to have the night nurse take him over to the nursery for a few hours so we could get some rest. I know I needed that rest but it killed me to be apart from my baby. That pretty much sealed the deal for me - first thing in the morning I'd ask for that blood transfusion. I needed to be able to take care of my son and myself, morals or anything else be damned. So Friday morning Stephen headed off to work and I spent the whole day on IVs of blood and iron. After the first bag of blood I finally started to get color back in my face, and by the time Stephen came back from work to pick us up and take us home I was finally able to stand long enough to get dressed and brush my teeth. Success!!
After our birth during all the chaos, there is actually a photographer that goes around the hospital and takes pictures of your baby. I knew this so I brought a couple different outfits for the baby. Likely because of his cord being wrapped around his neck, my son came out super tiny (despite my gestational diabetes, which is now 100% gone!). He was only 5lbs 1oz, and 18.5" long, so none of his clothes really fit him. The photographer was such a pro though - she got several perfect shots where you can't see his clothes falling off and he is alert with big eyes and even what looks like a smile. I had no expectations but when she put together a slide show in an instant, it brought tears to my eyes and Stephen also fell in love, so we just had to buy the digital rights so we could have the slide show and all the shots to use for photo gifts for our relatives.
On that note, here are a few of my favorite shots from our hospital newborn shoot. This was before I had the blood transfusions, and I had no warning my picture would be taken, so yeah.... I own up to looking like the walking dead .... haha. We've been home a week now, adjusting and doing well. I couldn't be happier and am starting to feel better than I have in maybe 2 years, though the Fibro pain is in full force. But this little guy makes it easier to withstand anything. Stephen and I couldn't be more in love, with each other and with our son.
There you have it! I've never seen another newborn who is so alert. My son doesn't cry that much, but he does look around a lot and take everything in. He is very responsive to our voices, and I know they say that newborns don't smile but.... I know it's not just gas! This kid really does smile in reaction when we talk to him. More to come soon about our new life together!
We arrived at the hospital on Tuesday, 12/13, at 7:30am, and met with our OB to do a final ultrasound to see what position our son was in. Low and behold, he had moved into a head-straight-down position, very far down in my pelvis. So we had to make the final decision as to whether we wanted to proceed with a c-section or go with a vaginal birth. Our OB really made the case to go with vaginal since it was now a possibility so that I would have a much shorter recovery time, so we decided to give it a go. All the birthing/delivery rooms were full at that point though, so we went off to the cafeteria for breakfast to wait it out a few hours. In that time I remember feeling so nervous. Did I make the right decision? I was already mentally prepared for a c-section and the recovery that would be involved with that type of birth. No labor, a quick cut, and the baby would be here. Could I handle the hours of pain that would be involved with inducing labor vaginally?
We headed back up to the 3rd floor of Sharp Mary Birch around 10:30, and they got us into a delivery room around an hour later. Great thing about this hospital is they have state-of-the-art private delivery and private post delivery rooms. The delivery room was fairly big, with a couch and private bathroom with shower, and they even have different delivery tools you can use or request, like balance balls. All rooms have smart TVs you can watch movies on and connect to the internet on to watch birthing educational videos. We watched a few of them, but I honestly don't remember any of it because that's when the fun began...
A little after noon when we were settled in our room, the process of inducing labor started with our OB and the on duty nurse inserting a tablet into my cervix to start getting it to soften. This would be done every 4 hours until I would dilate enough. For what ever reason, the baby's head was actually lower than my cervix, and the opening to my cervix was situated pretty far back, so this made the process pretty painful for me. I had to opt for the IV drugs to numb me a bit just to be able to stand the pelvic exam and tablet insertion every 4 hours. Around 10pm though, a couple hours after the 3rd round of induction drugs, my water suddenly broke and that's when all hell broke loose. The contractions started coming rapidly in full force, but the IV drugs weren't working any more. Besides, since my water had broken, we had to stop the IV drugs because if you're closer to birth, they can enter the baby's system. Unfortunately, the anesthesiologist had not one, but TWO, emergency surgeries/c-sections he had to attend to. So....
For the next few hours I screamed like I never have before in my life. My main problem was that the hospital bed was so hard and uncomfortable. With all the space and birthing tools, and all the instructional videos talking about how you should move around during labor, I never thought that I would be stuck stationary in bed for 12+ hours because of all the monitors they had me and the baby on. If I'd move, we'd lose the baby's heartbeat or some other alarm would go off. So considering that I already have been suffering for a couple months now with something wrong with my lower back (dislocation? bulging disc?), once those contractions kicked in on top of that I was ready to tear my hair out. There were a couple of times I nearly threw myself off the bed and the nurse had to restrain me, and Stephen discreetly put his ear plugs in and gave me his hand, only to pull away when I tried to bite him and nearly broke his fingers. I probably looked like something straight out of Exorcist - I needed a priest or a straight-jacket or something. Every time the nurse tried to readjust the baby's heart monitor onto my stomach I'd scream "nooooooo! just cut him out of me already!" Yeah, I know. I got pretty ridiculous.
Finally around 2 in the morning the anesthesiologist rushed in and started my epidural. That was a challenge too because you have to stay still, and every time a contraction kicked in my body would practically convulse. My lower back was so tight with whatever is wrong with it he had a hard time getting in there too. But man.... once he did? HEAVEN! I couldn't feel anything below the waste any more. Why could't I have had that done first thing in the morning? My day would have been so much more happy and relaxed! And all of a sudden, I went from being only 2cm dilated, to full on 9cm dilated. My OB came in and checked me, said she was off to do a quick c-section, but she'd be back with a vacuum cup and something about making an incision. OK, sure doc, whatever, as long as you keep me drugged.
She came back in a half hour with a team of 8 people and we started to push. It didn't take much, because after a few minutes of pushing, and whatever snip and vacuum action my doc put in place, our son made his debut at 2:50am. I didn't realize what was going on at the time or why there were so many medical staff in our room. I was pretty out of it. All I knew was hearing the sound of my baby's voice was the most beautiful sound. I originally had wanted to delay cord clamping and have him placed immediately on my chest for skin-to-skin, but none of that was happening. I didn't know why. All I knew was a moment later the crying calmed and I looked over to my right and Stephen was holding our baby. My feeling in that moment....wow.... just overwhelmingly happy, like everything in the world was right as it should be, and nothing else mattered. Our son bonded immediately with daddy, recognized his voice instantly, and just opened his eyes and looked around and stopped crying. The most beautiful thing in the world.
As for what was happening in real time? Well, the umbilical cord had been wrapped around the baby's neck twice, so two of the nurses rushed him over to the other side of the room to tend to that while the rest of the staff worked with my OB to stop my hemorrhaging. I already have anemia to begin with, and I don't know if it was because of the position of my cervix or the position of the baby with his cord, or just that I had to be cut to get him out.... but I was losing blood fast. I had nurses injecting me with drugs to slow my blood while others were packing and stitching and monitoring. My OB later told me that if they hadn't gotten things under control in 4 minutes, I would have required emergency surgery. This was how women would die during child birth in the old days. How lucky we are now with modern medicine! The hospital staff moved so quickly and efficiently I never worried or panicked. Such an amazing team of people, my son and my lives were very safe in their capable hands.
The next couple of days in the hospital were a blur. After we were stabilized, we were moved from our delivery room to our post-delivery recovery room. There was a pull out sofa for Stephen to sleep on, but it was a smaller room than our delivery room so things were a bit tight. At least the hospital bed in that room was a little more comfortable, but with all that was going on I didn't really get any sleep anyways. Various nurses, lactation coaches, counselors, and pediatricians were in and out at all hours. I really didn't mind, because they gave such great support and advice, and made sure we had everything we needed and took care of important business (birth certificate etc) and kept up on our vitals. It wasn't until late Wednesday when it became apparent though just how much blood I had lost. I started to have more and more difficulty to get up to go to the bathroom or even raise my head at some point. My OB came in on Thursday morning and explained what had happened, and that because I was anemic to begin with, my body wouldn't be able to catch back up with producing the blood I had lost. She recommended that I get two bags of blood transfused immediately.
Now this was a sort of moral dilemma. Though I'm really not religious now as an adult, I had been raised as a Jehovah's Witness growing up. They believe that blood is sacred to god, and that once it leaves your body, it's his again and you are not free to just use it for things like blood transfusions. I'm not so closed-minded that I go and just follow some dude's interpretation of an ancient book, but that stigma is still kind of there. I kinda feel.... I don't know, gross, about putting someone else's blood in my body. I know the testing process has improved tremendously over the years and there are very few cases of disease being transmitted from a transfusion any more but still.... Hesitant to just jump into a transfusion, I asked for other options. So my OB told me they could do an IV of iron and see if my hemoglobin levels went up any, and then get weekly iron injections to boost my blood production. But she warned me it would still take months to reproduce the blood I had lost and my energy would be heavily impacted. I still wanted to give this a try though.
Unfortunately Thursday night I was just as weak, even after spending the day with an IV of iron in my arm. I was completely unable to take care of my son through the night, and since Stephen had to work the next morning, I had to have the night nurse take him over to the nursery for a few hours so we could get some rest. I know I needed that rest but it killed me to be apart from my baby. That pretty much sealed the deal for me - first thing in the morning I'd ask for that blood transfusion. I needed to be able to take care of my son and myself, morals or anything else be damned. So Friday morning Stephen headed off to work and I spent the whole day on IVs of blood and iron. After the first bag of blood I finally started to get color back in my face, and by the time Stephen came back from work to pick us up and take us home I was finally able to stand long enough to get dressed and brush my teeth. Success!!
After our birth during all the chaos, there is actually a photographer that goes around the hospital and takes pictures of your baby. I knew this so I brought a couple different outfits for the baby. Likely because of his cord being wrapped around his neck, my son came out super tiny (despite my gestational diabetes, which is now 100% gone!). He was only 5lbs 1oz, and 18.5" long, so none of his clothes really fit him. The photographer was such a pro though - she got several perfect shots where you can't see his clothes falling off and he is alert with big eyes and even what looks like a smile. I had no expectations but when she put together a slide show in an instant, it brought tears to my eyes and Stephen also fell in love, so we just had to buy the digital rights so we could have the slide show and all the shots to use for photo gifts for our relatives.
On that note, here are a few of my favorite shots from our hospital newborn shoot. This was before I had the blood transfusions, and I had no warning my picture would be taken, so yeah.... I own up to looking like the walking dead .... haha. We've been home a week now, adjusting and doing well. I couldn't be happier and am starting to feel better than I have in maybe 2 years, though the Fibro pain is in full force. But this little guy makes it easier to withstand anything. Stephen and I couldn't be more in love, with each other and with our son.
There you have it! I've never seen another newborn who is so alert. My son doesn't cry that much, but he does look around a lot and take everything in. He is very responsive to our voices, and I know they say that newborns don't smile but.... I know it's not just gas! This kid really does smile in reaction when we talk to him. More to come soon about our new life together!
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