Birth Story
This is mainly for
“Well, that was easy,” chuckled my doctor. The only thing was that they wanted to monitor him for a little while to make sure he didn't get all freaked out by the movement. So they sent me upstairs and hooked me up to the fetal monitors. I sat there for probably two hours while the boyfriend got increasingly irritated with the slowness of everything. He had to leave to go to class and I gladly saw him off.
At the end of the monitoring session my doctor came in and told me that he had scheduled me to be induced on Wednesday night at midnight. He was concerned that since the baby showed an interest in turning combined with my “unproven” pelvis, my size, and my overdue state would give me a very difficult time trying to deliver vaginally. I said that that would work out fine since my finals were Wednesday afternoon.
They unhooked me, I went to class.
Tuesday went by with no incident…classes, homework, finishing up a paper and studying for an exam. During the night I felt the baby moving around a lot, but didn't think anything of it.
Wednesday I got up, went to school, turned in my paper and went to take my exam. Just like that, I had completed a semester of college and was off to have a baby that evening. No problem. Got on the bus, came home and trekked up the hill to my house. I can remember that it was a gorgeous day, very unusual for early December, and a lot of people were standing outside of their shops enjoying the sunshine. One woman, a massage therapist, told me that she did pregnancy massage. I groaned and told her that I was going to be all done tomorrow, but maybe next time (snicker).
Once at home I just sort of sat around, ate a light dinner, watched TV and finished packing.
My mom came over after work and helped me fix my hair, as I was determined to look as stunning as possible in all of the pictures that were going to be taken of me grunting and pushing.
The boyfriend got home from work around 11:30 p.m. and insisted on showering. When he was finally done we drove to hospital and parked in the wrong parking lot. We could not get into the hospital at that entrance and had to walk all the way around the block to the main entrance. This was a bit of a strain on me.
When we finally got in, we registered with the nurses, got settled into my Labor/Delivery/Recovery Room, filled out a bunch of forms, peed, got changed into the fabulous hospital gown, and prepared for the journey ahead.
Two nurses attended to me, one hooked me up to a blood pressure machine and the other got started on my IV. She messed up the first time, and I tried not to wince at the teaspoon of blood that came out of my arm. Finally, IV success. She started the Pitocin, announced, “You are now in labor,” and encouraged me to relax. The boyfriend and my mother settled in on the couch and dozed off. I turned on the TV and started watching the Discovery Channel.
After a few minutes I felt some twinges in my uterus and got all excited and thought, “Oh my god, this is really it! I'm really going to have a baby!” I kept my eye on the clock, figuring I might as well time them in case the nurses wanted to know if I had felt anything. They were about the same level of discomfort as the Braxton-Hicks contractions that I had had before…nothing too intense.
After about an hour my nurse came in and said that she wanted to check to see if I had dilated at all. Cervical exams are not too fun. I huffed and puffed and she finally came out and said, “You're one centimeter dilated!” Cheers all around. That was easy. I didn't even really do anything. “However,” uh oh, “I don't feel the baby's head…I think I felt a foot.”
You have got to be kidding me. I started to think back to Tuesday night and all of the twisting and turning that the baby did. So that was what he was up to.
The nurse went to get an ultrasound machine and confirmed that the baby had indeed turned into a breech position. She went off to call my doctor who told her to turn off the Pitocin, let me get some rest, and that he would be there at 6 a.m. to discuss my options.
So, almost as quickly as it had started, labor was over and I was left to sit in my room and fret. The boyfriend and my mother fell back to sleep and I returned to the Discovery Channel.
I nodded off eventually for a few minutes, but I was much too keyed up to get any real rest. That combined with the fact that every half hour a nurse would come in to check on me and my blood pressure.
A few hours and a documentary about seagulls later, my grandmother showed up bearing coffee and danish. I wanted to stab her since I was starving and wasn't allowed to eat anything.
Not long after that my doctor showed up (also with coffee…grr) with a student doctor of his and a team of nurses.
I have to pause for a moment and say that my doctor is one of my most favorite people in the world. He's seriously one of the nicest people I've ever met.
He grinned at me and said, “So what exactly is this kid of yours doing?” I shrugged and said that he must be trying to jump out. He explained to me that there was pretty much no way I could vaginally deliver him as he was. If I wanted to, they would try to turn him (an external version, it's called). Otherwise, I would have to have a C-section. I again told him to go ahead and turn him, as 8 weeks of Lamaze classes floated in front of my vision.
The ultrasound machine was once again brought in to check on his position. My doctor told me they would turn him a little bit and then check on the baby's heart, since some of them don't respond to the external version with total glee.
My doctor and his student took their positions on either side of me, the nurses stood back and the room got pretty quiet. My doctor squirted this lube all over my belly so that their hands could move over it. He put his hands at the bottom where my kids feet were and his student put her hands at the top where his head was. They started pushing and pulling very slowly.
This hurt pretty bad. I started actually utilizing some of my Lamaze breathing, although I was doing a lot of clenching of the teeth and of the bed. After a minute or two they stopped and put the ultrasound machine on my belly.
“His heart isn't beating.” My doctor's face turned white and the floor opened up and swallowed me. “We're going to have to do a C-section right now, Kelly. I'm sorry.”
“It's okay,” I stammered.”
All of a sudden there was a flurry of activity. Nurses unhooked me from machines and the doctors rushed out of the room to get ready. As they pushed my bed out of the room my grandmother called, “See you later, alligator.” What a cheeseball.
Once we got out into the hall the nurses started to run toward the operating room. This really freaked me out and I started crying. I had never had any kind of emergency before and this was not exactly how I wanted to be introduced to them.
We got into the operating room and I kept telling the staff that I wanted the boyfriend with me. They assured me that he would be there and asked me to scooch onto the operating table which was about two feet wide. I had visions of myself toppling off in the middle of surgery, but did what they said.
Things get kind of blurry from this point on. But I remember getting the catheter inserted (yeeeowch!) and being sat up so that I could get the spinal injection. (Note: the spinal injection is different from the epidural. There's no constant flow of medication as with the epidural, just one big dose of strong drugs.) Getting a needle in the back wasn't exactly my idea of a good time, so when they injected me with the local anesthetic I involuntarily yelped and jumped a little bit. A nurse standing next to me encouraged me to clutch his hand and to keep breathing through it. He kept whispering into my ear to stay calm and that everything would be fine. His kindness was so needed at that point and I started crying all over again.
As they laid me back down, I could feel the numbness start to take over my lower body. It was a very strange sensation. I also started to feel extremely high and guessed that they must have topped off the spinal injection with some kind of sedative to keep me chilled out. It worked, but I was still a good bit worried.
At that point they took off my glasses which was kind of annoying because I couldn't tell all of the be-scrubbed people in the room apart and kept asking people next to me if they were my boyfriend. That got a chuckle or two.
I had to sign a consent form, which was pretty funny since I couldn't read it and the pen was out of ink. They assured me that the impression of my signature would do and I said something along the lines of, “Okay, whatever, I won't sue.”
My doctor appeared at my side and stroked my forehead. “Everything's going to be fine, Kelly. Don't worry.” That got the waterworks flowing again and I asked one more time where my boyfriend was.
I looked over to my right and there he was. My arms had been strapped down to keep me from getting freaked out and messing up my IVs, but he grabbed my hand and put his other hand on my forehead. I had never been so happy to see him in my entire life. I asked him if he was mad at me and he just gave me a confused look. The anesthesiologist was sitting at the top of my head, keeping an eye on my vital signs and continuing to tell me in his soothing voice that everything was going great. My boyfriend kept his eyes on mine and told me that I shouldn't cry. I told him that I was scared. What if we had gone through all of this and the baby died. He told me not to even worry about that. “We're only a few minutes away from having a cute little baby!” he said. I nodded and said that I felt very strange. I closed my eyes for a few seconds, which I guess scared the boyfriend and he told me to just keep looking at him.
My doctor announced that at 8 a.m. on the dot the initial incision was made. I looked at the boyfriend and cried some more, but he decided to tell me jokes. I started laughing through my tears and realized that there was no one else in the world who I wanted by my side more than him.
At 8:07 a.m. they announced that our son, Kingston Delaney Cox, was born. I couldn't see anything, but figured that they had taken him over to the warming bed to dry him off. I looked at the boyfriend and asked him why the baby wasn't crying. He told me to wait a second.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, I heard, “wwaaaaahhhh!” Our son was okay! I looked at the boyfriend, raised my eyebrows and said, “He's here!” and started laughing and crying.
The mood in the room lightened considerably and the boyfriend and I started laughing. I heard the doctors counting the sponges and stuff that they had used during the surgery to make sure that they hadn't left anything inside me. “Ten…eleven…twelve…thirteen…” I managed to joke, “I hope they aren't counting his toes.”
The drugs were still doing their job and I don't remember much at this point either. The boyfriend left to go tell my family that everything was okay. My doctor came over to congratulate me and tell me what a great job I had done. I thanked him about a million times and told him that I really hadn't done much.
Suddenly a nurse appeared at my side with a little baby all wrapped up in blankets. I stared at him for a seconds and then said, “Is that mine?” She giggled and said yes and that he was doing just great. I didn't know what to do. I touched his little face for the first time with my finger and gasped at how gorgeous he was. “He looks like my dad!” I said. I don't know if it was the drugs or the post-birth euphoria but I felt extremely high and giggly at that point. I don't remember ever being happier in my entire life.
The next thing I knew my son was in my arms and I was being wheeled back into my room where my family was waiting for us. As soon as I crossed the doorway I yelled, “He's so cute!” Everyone got all gooey and happy and started rushing around making phone calls. The baby was taken over to the warming bed and various things were done to him…clamping his cord, injection of Vitamin K, APGAR tests, whatnot. I just sort of laid in my bed and giggled. My mom, my grandmother, my boyfriend, his mother and my best friend all came over and kissed me.
A nurse handed me my son and said, “Do you want to try breastfeeding now?” He latched on with no problem and started nursing away. I giggled at the feeling and at how hungry he was.
When I thought that he was done, I handed him over to various family members to let them hold him. Another nurse came in with a big thing of morphine for me, which I was very pleased about.
The rest of the day was filled with visitors and flowers and gifts. I drifted in and out of conversations as me and my new buddy morphine got through the post-surgery pain together.
Finally, everyone left and it was just me and the baby. We sat in the dark hospital room and stared at each other. I smothered him with kisses and stayed up most of the night just looking at him and letting him wrap his little fingers around mine. It was the best.
