The day Euan arrived

The night before Euan was born.

Monday morning I was supposed to call my doc first thing to get an appointment to be seen to check my BP and such.  I called and was supposed to come in around 0930 - so I did.  My Dad had already come over in the morning as I was on bedrest and not quite able to care for Fiona, so they were playing and having as much fun as two people can!  When I left I told my Dad I'd see him who knows when (as I'd ended up at St. Joe's Thur & Fri for a few hours) and tried to kiss a running 21 month old. 

My BP was 154/96 when I first arrived and on recheck 160/104.  That was it.  Dr. Sportiello checked my cervix, was able to strip my membranes and said it was time.  Not that my cervix was really ready but it was a bit better (in case you care -3 station, 40% effaced and 1cm if you are being generous) and BP was worse and Euan was bigger so lets have a baby.  Of course while I half expected to hear this I was also quite surprised and a bit overwhelmed.  My thoughts were a bit like this.  Really?  Today?  Like, drive over to St. Joe's, actually check in, get pitocin and have a baby?  Are you sure?  So you are telling me I can stop puking, pull the PICC line and have a baby?  Um.....ok.  I cried, called Ryan (who seemed pretty surprised too), hugged her medical assistant and left. 

As I drove I realized the best part about induction: driving to the hospital without puking.  Hands down!  The biggest thing I had dreaded I didn't have to do!  Yippie. 

Pitocin always sounded scary to me....I didn't want it.  I wanted a nice natural labor.  Today I knew pitocin and I needed to be friends.  Once I got to St. Joe's there was no messing around and pitocin was running by 1030.  The plan was to get it going to help bring the baby down and thin my cervix.  Then of course we'd work on some dilation.  Dr. Sportiello also said she'd probably break my water at some point after the contractions were consistent.  It didn't take long for the contractions to start being consistent at 2-3 min apart.  For the first few hours they were tolerable, crampy and painful but I was able to be sociable and hummed the ABC's through my contractions (weird, I know, but it helped).  Around 1500 the nurse said the resident was going to check me and we were probably going to break my water.  I was really glad I asked her what she thought my cervix would be, she said probably further down, more effaced but not anymore dilated.  If I hadn't asked I would have been severely disappointed.  -1 station (but to me the difference was huge, I could just tell by how she checked me it was much more down and in front), 60-70% effaced but still 1cm.  She broke my water which was nice clear fluid and we pressed on, literally. 

Now I've been told once your water breaks it is a bit of a different story.  With Fiona, my water broke about an hour before she was born so I would tend to agree but it was hard for me to say what that whole hour was about.  The contractions were becoming more intense (my ABC's were getting seriously interrupted and louder) and I was getting tired.  For some reason I felt surprised by this but its not like I came into it feeling 100% so I know I shouldn't have been.  I desparately wanted to move around in attempts to get more comfortable but that was not going to happen, I had to stay in bed due to my blood pressure.  Not exactly how I wanted to labor.  Then the puking and heaving started.  I had a half a bagel with peanut butter all day and it made every effort on way too many occasions to find its way out.  Side note: I give my nurse a lot of credit, she was really good about titrating the pitocin down if she thought the contractions were not far enough apart.  She knew it had to be done carefully to work well. 

By 1830 I was seriously losing steam, wanted to crawl out of the darn bed in any attempt to get comfortable and I believe I told Ryan I wanted something to be easy about the pregnancy, he he.  My nurse checked me and my world was just deflated.  I was 0 station, effaced but 2cm.  I clearly remember thinking 3 hours after you broke my water and I'm still only 2cm???  Screw this, I'm done.  Where is the white towel?  I give up.  I'm tired.  I want my baby and I want to go home.  Then another contraction hit and of course all those thoughts left my world and I was back attempt to hum/moan the ABC's.  That is when I decided nubain (an IV drug to essentially help take the edge off) was going to be my friend now.  I didn't want drugs but I needed to do something both physically and mentally.  Nubain came and I literally could not keep my eyes open which I guess was good because it allowed me to sleep for the minute between contractions.  For lack of a better way to describe it I think it makes you feel drunk.  The peak seemed a bit less too as I realized I could hum the ABC's better.  This relief was pretty short lived.  I remember my nurse leaving at 1900 ish and giving report to the night nurse (who happened to be the nurse who delivered Fiona, how awesome is that). 

It was around 1945 when they wanted to put an internal probe on the baby to monitor the heart rate better - external probe was picking up mine during contractions.  At that point I didn't care much, I was too miserable.  It was shortly before 2000 when resident came to check me and put the probe on.  I was 8 1/2 cm - whoop whoop (I knew something crazy had been happening).  Probe was on and baby was doing fine.  I am pretty sure I rolled back over had a contraction, maybe two and was decently sure I needed to push.  I think I mumbled something about lots of pressure and not leaving.  I was alert enough to hear that my doctor was in the OR delivering twins.  About 5 minutes after the probe was put on they checked me again to find I was complete and could push.  Awesome!  I was pretty sure whether or not I wanted to push he was coming.  Like a whirlwind got the bed undone and here comes my doctor.  First push I knew it was close by the feel of things.  Everyone said they could see the head - yikes!  3 contractions worth of pushes later I met my son. 

It happened very quickly and was entirely surreal and very much an out of body experience for me.  I feel like I don't really know exactly what was happening and yet I do.  I saw Ryan cry, remember looking at my baby covered in vernix, thanking people and yet repeatedly asking what was happening.  It didn't take too long before I felt a bit more like I was on planet earth but still couldn't believe what had happened.  Euan looked like a million bucks, I on the other hand wanted to bleed more than they preferred.  Took a bit but we got it under control.  Ryan and I were on cloud 9.  A healthy baby boy after all this time.  How can you not believe in God? 

It wasn't long before eveyone realized my blood pressure wasn't going to cooperate and come down.  Magnesium sulfate was started after I tried to protest but I was able to negotiate commode privelages and forgo the catheter.  We had to stay in labor and delivery overnight and our nurse was cool with Euan staying too (apparently usually they take the baby away....I was not having that).  Euan wasn't interested in eating right away so instead he had a bath.  We made a few brief phone calls and decided it was time to think about going to bed.  Then we realized food might be warranted.  A special thank you to my good friend Julie for making a late night Taco Bell run and delivery to St. Joe's around midnight.  Not a bad way to top off the day. 

While I am no longer imperfectly pregnant I sure have gotten a lot of questions about how I am feeling now, how life is eating and drinking, etc.  I'll work on getting some of those questions answered soon.  Let's just say I used a ziploc bag or two since Euan arrived.